installing debian - stable / testing
 

Hallo All,

I want to install debian on my new Dell- Inspiron 6000 laptop.

I want most of the developing stuff including sdl and other libraries. I just want to experiment, so I dont care much about stability. I liked the suggestion given by one of the members here that the important packages should be from stable branch and other stuff can be from testing or even from unstable.

i have already searched this forum for this quesion and also found a lot of helpful answers.
But my case is a bit individual because yet, i dont have internet connection. Still, I want to use apt to install packages.

I know I can use apt with cd-drive, but I dont know excactly how to configure it to use cd , with mixed system.

I also want to know how many cds from which branch (stable - testing) should I burn. I can burn the cd at a friend's place.

thanks,
Hardik

There are 14 CD's the CD's contan all the branches but do NOT contain the latest versions of the software from those branches.. Testing changes quite a bit and Unstable even more..

I would suggest you install using a net-install iso then proceed from there letting the system download the latest versions of the packages it needs from the Net..
not having to swap CD's or Download all those ISO's of outdated software is a plus..

The netinstall for Testing will install the 2.6.15 kernel from the start but will not allow you the mixed (stable / testing) system you are requesting.

The Stable Netsinall iso will allow you to install 2.6.8 kernel, from the start and then you will have to configure APT to mix stable and testing..

I would forget about Stable altogether, and go directly to testing. Your best bet would probably be to contact some of the Vendors identified on the official Debian site, and try to by a complete 'Testing' set of CDs or DVDs.

Egads how did I miss the "I don't have an Internet Connection " line.. :(

Hi all,

thanks for you tips.

I would like to buy/burn cds from testing (as many as I can) btw, is there a dvd available ? and have a complete tesing system. but the catch is, I have heard that the kernel with testing, does not recognize my harddisk which is on sata bus.

my source of info is linux-on-laptop site where people had to install first stable and then upgrade the kernel to 2.6.15 (custom built).

Is there anybody here who could directly install testing on Dell Inspiron 6000 ?

[side-info] I have been working with slackware at my work place,with the custom built kernel-2.6.15, so I am not much afraid of compiling the kernel, but people on this forum insist on doing it the debian way. I dont completely understand this point of view, but ok that is another question and will arise after installing. [/side-info]

can anybody give me pointer for configuring apt to work with local cd/dvd ?

thanks,
Hardik

Testing comes with kernel 2.6.15

Hi,

the machine which I use at my work with kernel-2.6.15 is different.

Will 2.6.15 recognize my hdd (Inspiron 6000)?

/hardik

and those who succeeded upgrading to 2.6.15 kernel, had to recompile it (with some flag, which I dont remember)to support the hdd...

/hardik

I don't know about the hardware support in 2.6.15 but you can tell APT (apt-get/aptitude/synaptic) to use local CDs with the "apt-cdrom" command. It will scan the local CDs (probably works with DVDs too, I haven't tried), update APT's package database and add the CDs to /etc/apt/sources.list, which you can later edit with a text editor if you want to change your APT sources. "apt-cdrom" has a man page but I don't think you'll need to read it because it's so simple to use.

hi thanks,

suddenly I had a thought (may be crazy), I have a knoppix 4.0.2 live cd. Can I just download with apt-get (not install) the required packages from the internet on some other pc and then try installing from cd or hd with dpkg because apt-get will also download the dependencies (right ?)

ofcourse it will depend upon installed packages in knoppix. but is this theoretically possible ?

thanks,

Hardik

Yes, that should be doable. You need to edit the sources.list file in Knoppix first to point to the Debian "branch" that matches your installed system (for example, testing).

apt-get has "-d" option that stands for "download-only". So

apt-get -d install some_package

will only download some_package (and its dependencies) but not actually install them.

In a normal Debian system all downloaded packages go to /var/cache/apt/archives/. With Knoppix you may have to search a bit but you'll find the right directory.

thanks Parrot,

this is really nice to know. and just after installing debian I am going to try this.

great to know this would work.

hardik