[NBLUG/talk] Jumping in with debian..

[Mitch Patenaude]

> The net installer for sarge is still very much a work in progress.  
> Just
> get a bare woody system up and apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade.

I used dselect, but I think that is just a front-end for apt-get, right?

> unordered ideas:
> Was it just the kernel upgrade that went awry?  Any hints as to why?
> I would upgrade the rest of the system first, and the kernel last.
> Did you do a 'apt-get dist-upgrade'?  It's different from 'apt-get 
> upgrade'.

I didn't use apt-get.. maybe that would explain the problems... but It 
was a 36 hour oddessy, which I'm not eager to repeat unless I know what 
failed and why.  Several packages failed.. usually because it was 
claiming that the config files had been modified since the install (I 
don't understand how.. I hadn't done anything except fire up deselect.. 
how did a bunch of pam config files get modified?

The kernel failed for reasons that weren't clear.. but appears to have 
something to do with dependency problems.

> To get used to Debian, you might try running straight woody and grab
> some of the backports from apt-get.org.  One doesn't get how stable
> "stable" is until you've had a straight woody system sitting in the
> corner doing its job for months on end with little maintenance.  Not to
> mention the consistency and sanity with which the system is put
> together.

Which would be great if I were running an unattended server, but I'm 
trying to put together a laptop for development/general use.  Straight 
woody had an X so old that it doesn't support any chipset newer than 
1998, no sound, a 2.2 kernel, quirky pcmcia support, etc.  It just 
wasn't useful.  I don't need 3 years of uptime, but I do need Gnome/KDE 
and USB/pcmcia support.

>> I'm tempted to go with Mandrake or RedHat.
>
> You're not a quitter are ya? :-) :-)

Yep.... I have trouble selling my mom (a programmer) on linux when I 
tell her that it takes 3 days to install and nothing works afterward. 
:-)

> Except on an idealogical level, I don't think it makes as much
> difference as it used to.  You have apt for redhat now, and
> freshrpms.net.

So far.. the Redhat is much easier.. 3 hours invested and I have a 
usable system.

> It's just so cool to hear about some interesting new package, do an
> "aptitude install newpackage" and have it install in seconds.  Chances
> are some Debian developer has already packaged it up.

I keep hoping for that kind of ease-of-use, but so far what I get is 
dependency hell.. for instance.. (I may have some of the details wrong 
here.. I wasn't taking notes.)  bison had 4 different packages, the 
oldest was 1.4, and was labeled "bison".  There were separate packages 
for bison-1.5,-1.6 and -1.7.  I wanted the latest bison so I selected 
1.7, but other dependent packages "recommended" bison, and kept 
helpfully unselecting bison-1.7 and selecting bison, and telling me of 
the conflict.  After 5 times going back and reselecting what I wanted, 
and trying to install, it would just revert.  This happened with dozens 
of packages, which is one of the reasons I've been fighting with the 
install for 3 days.

Sorry for the grumpy tone, but I want to play with these cool toys, but 
what I get it days and days of frustrating, poorly-documented failures.

   -- Mitch