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Introduction to Debian
[vmlinuz] writes "SitePoint has an article that I wrote that introduces Debian and has guidelines on installing it. This could be usefull for managers, new users and other people that may be interested in using Debian." And honestly, who among us isn't interested in using the obviously superior Linux Distribution against which there can be no other contenders? (Oh dear god don't flame me! It's a joke people!)
Gentoo is gonna get modded down.
*dives for the bunker*
You know you can't say something like that around here!
Read the parent to understand why.
And honestly, who among us isn't interested in using the obviously superior Linux Distribution against which there can be no other contenders? (Oh dear god don't flame me! It's a joke people!)
:-) Debian just needs to get over the fear of anything new, such as anything graphical. Judging by unstable it looks like they are moving in the right direction.
Well if debian could get their installer and hardware detection right I don't know how far off that statement would be
I'd like to be able to pin the newest KDE/gnome/whatever to stable and do an apt-get upgrade without breaking a million things.
You can pin the newest KDE/gnome/whatever to unstable. Newest always goes in unstable first. Unstable is pretty cutting edge, but with an occasional hiccup.
The point of stable is that it works. Things go there after they are 'tried and true' in unstable, and then in testing.
For those turned off or scared away by the debian install process (which still seems stuck in the 90's. Jesus, did I just say that?), grab a Knoppix CD.
No, seriously. I don't run debian primarily because I don't want to go through the install process. I don't know what chipset my nic has, and I really don't care to know, know what I mean? Ditto with everything else.
I've been using flavors of RedHat, culminating with Redhat9 that's currently my Linux of "choice", mainly because Redhat offered superior hardware detection/setup. But, I've always had to tweak a bit here and there to get it working nicely.
However, with the advent of Knoppix, I think that's about to change. I popped in Knoppix 3.2 today for the first time to see what it was all about. The hardware detection on this LIVE CD is absolutely.. superb. It recognized and setup my Orinoco Wireless card. It found and mounted my Sony Cybershot Camera. Jesus, it even found and setup my Wacom! The only thing it didn't do was give me dual-head support OOB, but I don't think I know any distro that does that. But that's okay, fortunately I know how to set that up myself. It comes with KDE, it looks great, it just WORKS. And because it "just works" I'm really tempted to wipe RedHat off and do the HD install of this.
Some notes that I've come across, though: As Knoppix uses a special blend of testing/unstable (or something like that), it's really hard to do dist-upgrade and what not without downgrading your desktop. I heartily recommend reading through the docs at the Knoppix website and finding out what issues may remain. As a desktop Debian based distro, though, I think Knoppix just plain rules.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
My own experience with Debian:
:-)
I have a number of longtime hardcore Linux fans, most notably my (now) roommate. After being ridiculed for a long time about my use of Windows (especially my need to reinstall it every three months, due to it's tendency to crap out, regardless of which one I used--9x, 2000, XP), I decided I'd try this so-called "Linux".
So I asked for a copy. Not even being aware that I had a choice of distributions, I took the first cd set given to me--"Woody", at that time Debian's testing distro, later to become Debian 3.0.
At first, I kinda freaked. No pretty graphical install, but it really wasn't so bad. I've been through worse in DOS. The instructions were pretty straightforward, though I did have to ask my friend what NIC driver to use (it was tulip). But after about an hour, I had a working system, with WindowMaker as my default window manager, and witha simple "startx"....
It worked.
And didn't stop, ever. It's never even paused on me. Since then, I've taught myself every intimate detail of linux in general, and even tried a few other distros on my other machines, but always end up going back to Debian (though now I'm running unstable--I like to live dangerously). Even used it to turn my crappy 486/DX66 Toshiba Satellite w/16MB of RAM into a useful internet terminal for my living room.
It's not the easiest way to start, but when you're done, you'll have a good grasp of everything you'll need for an everyday system, and adding features or building a custom "utility system"(email server, firewall, etc.) is just an apt-get away. Overall, I'd highly recommend it to anyone.
Unless you're really -that- lazy.
[este]
But, for those of you who want the bleeding edge without risking instability, Debian does just fine there if you know what you're doing. Go ahead and jump to unstable. Seriously!
The only thing you're missing is "apt-listbugs," which does this automatically with every update...
Before starting installation, apt-listbugs fetches all the bug reports for versions between your current version and the target version. We can see that two bugs have been closed (fixed by later versions, or the bug reports were bogus), and we see that the tetex-bin bug is still open.
In this case, we'd type 'h tetex-bin' to hold the broken package and proceed with a perfectly usable system.
Of course, this still leaves you in the position to be the one in ten thousand who finds a critical bug on installing any given package. If that happens, be a Good Debizen and use reportbug so the next guy is notified. Further, if you flag a critical bug, it's rare that it isn't fixed within a couple hours, even at 2am on Sunday. Once you've reported your bug, go ahead and roll back a version and carry on until the developer closes the bug -- if you used reportbug, you'll get an all-clear email automatically when he or she closes the bug.
With unstable and the apt-listbugs' automatic reports, the chances of ever winding up with a broken system are exceptionally low. Showstopper bugs are rare even in unstable -- maybe one package update in five thousand. But, with thousands of other users snarfing packages and reporting any bugs, the chances of your being the one to discover breakage without apt-listbugs warning you first are virtually nil.
All that said, if you can bear to be a week to a month behind the bleeding edge, you can use apt-listbugs with testing as well. The chances of getting a broken system with testing and apt-listbugs are about the same as the chance of Windows Service Update not needing a reboot. Virtually nil.
debian isn't just a distro. it's a lifestyle.
Wimps and couch potatoes with their grey tasteless distros don't understand the pleasure a good distro gives. We offer two exquisite distro flavors for the linux user with style:
- STABLE: coke drinking folks will never get it, but programs are like good red wine. They get better with age. That's why we only include very old programs in this distro. If you think that these programs are outdated and full with bugs that have since then been corrected in newer program versions, you miss the point: this isn't a fast-food distro. It's a distro you use at candlelight.
- UNSTABLE: this is our distro for the fast and the furious. If you're complaining about this distro and saying that Mandrake and Gentoo both have up-to-date versions that, unlike debian, aren't actually "unstable", you miss the point and you're most probably a wimp. This distro isn't for couch potatoes but for people who love the thrill of the risk. For people who play carmageddon for real in their SUVs, go bungee jumping and skydiving and just occasionally forget to take a parachute. But that's what makes the kick of debian unstable.
Debian isn't just a distro. it's a lifestyle. It's what separates the men from the boys. Go download your copy from www.debian.org now