[NBLUG/talk] Jumping in with debian..

[Jeremy Turner]

On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 12:04, Mitch Patenaude wrote:
> As a longtime Mandrake and Redhat user, I've decided to make the jump 
> into Debian with my new laptop install.  I've got jigdo and am 
> downloading the iso's right now.  Does anybody know of any guides for 
> those new to debian?

Congratulations on the switch.  Debian's definatly different, but you'll
like the change.

The first thing I'd suggest, is don't bother downloading the ISOs.  I
actually couldn't ever figure out how to use jigdo.  Anyway, I would
recommend downloading the 180 MB iso from
http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/debian-cd/ and doing a network install,
provided you have a network card and a broadband internet connection.

The best thing about Debian is that you only download and install
packages you need.  For instance, if I wanted to install Mozilla
Firebird, I would run a command like 'apt-get install mozilla-firebird'
and apt would figure out what other packages I would need as
dependencies, and install them as well.  There's also a really slick GUI
package installer called Synaptic that I like.

The only difficult part of Debian (as opposed to other distros) is that
there isn't that much auto-detection of hardware.  To get X-Windows to
work, I normally do 'XFree86 -configure' and it'll try to generate a
somewhat-working xfree86 config file, but I usually have to edit it a
little by hand.  To configure other network cards, the file is
/etc/network/interfaces and can be used for ethernet or wireless cards. 
Do a 'man 5 interfaces' once you're up for more info.

Back to your actual question, the debian-user mailing list on
lists.debian.org can be of some help.  I used to monitor it, but when
that folder in my mailbox hit 30,000 unread messages I knew it was time
to go do something else.  Another good place to look is on the web at
http://debian.org/doc.  There is a good list of documents, including
install documents and other guides on package management.

> Also, I'm going to be making this dual-boot with WinXP pro (can't cut 
> the ties to redmond completely yet.)  Is it better to install 'doze 
> first and then Linux? or vice-versa?

It's better to install WinXP first, because WinXP will re-write the
Master Boot Record (preventing you from even starting up linux without a
boot disk).  On my last laptop, I also did a weird boot-chain setup
where I used the NTLDR (Windows' 'lilo') to list Windows and Linux, then
had lilo installed on the Linux partition (*whew*).  Now, I'd just use
lilo.  You can get a nice colorful screen too! (check the
/usr/share/doc/lilo folder for details).

Hope that helps you get started with Debian!

Jeremy
-- 
Jeremy Turner <jeremy at linuxwebguy.com>
The LinuxWebGuy
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