Gave up Xandros, tried Knoppix 3.9 and loved it but dvd roms (2 devices) would not work, so gave it up. I have downloaded the first 3 Debian 3.1 cds, and have successfully installed a working desktop. But I have encountered 3 snags the first not to serious is that I can not get the GAG boot loader to boot it, because I couldn,t seem to get grub on the boot portion of my Debian partition (I like GAG as it is much easily restored if XP needs to be reinstalled), anyway simply set grup to the mbr of hda and will live with it.

More annoying is I have to edit xf86Config because my 17"Sharp lcd monitor isn,t setup properly i can only get 800 x 600 resolution, and 1280 x 1024 is the setting I want.

But most annoying of all is that I can not read and write to my 3 vfat partitions, because of permissions issues. I must have this because I use thunderbird to share my email inbox between Debian, Suse, and windows. Also just for general file sharing.
Any help fixing this is appreciated.

This is my current /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs ro,user,auto 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 vfat rw,user,auto 0 0 1
/dev/hda6 /mnt/hda6 vfat rw,user,auto 0 0 1
/dev/hdb6 /mnt/hdb6 vfat rw,user,auto 0 0 1
/dev/hdb7 /mnt/hdb7 ntfs ro,user,auto 0 0

/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

And the default I backed up

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

I do not if it is in this file that I can fix the permissions issues I am having, I tried changing them in the usual way from the properties menu but to no avail.

If you already have Xandros 3.01, frankly that is a pretty good distro in its own right. Xandros does muck around with a few things, most notably the file browser. If you change things, you might break the behavior of some of the Xandros stuff. On the other hand, if you want a Debian based distro and you just want a good starting point, if Xandros already works, you can simply add and remove entries in the file /etc/apt/sources.list, and possibly also in /etc/apt/preferences, and you will be all set to go.

I would recommend simply adding one or two Debian repositories and then install what you want. I think you can get a full blown Debian distro that way.

Here are some workable repositories:

in /etc/apt/sources.list:

# Primary
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free

Then in /etc/apt/preferences:


Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 800

You can change the Pin priority or the repository, for example, you can make the priority 999 and the repository a=testing instead of a=unstable.

By modifying whatever Xandros gives you, very quickly, asssuming you have a high speed network, you can change your system into whatever you want.

Before you start, see if you can install synaptic from the Xandros repositories or if you have it already installed. If you do, your job is that much easier because Synaptic can automatically change some of these values (without you having to manually edit the files) by using synaptic's preferences. You can also use KDE's kpackage instead of standard Debian tools. Kpackage will also go out to the Debian repositories and get files.

Anyway, I think you can use Xandros as a springboard to get where you want to go. Try it. Worst case, if you trash it all, just reinstall it (back up first if you are worried about any data). However, I've played on the dangerous side of life for four years now, updating Xandros, LindowsOS, Linspire, the successor to LindowsOS, MEPIS, Libranet, and many other Debian based systems, and I hack at these configurations all the time. Occasionally I break them. Depending on how much time I want to spend, I either back out my changes or install over them. I've never come across such a big problem that I couldn't resolve it within less than an hour.

---Absolutely; I agree w/that. I too think it works that way.

Quote:

Here are some workable repositories: in /etc/apt/sources.list: # Primary deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free Then in /etc/apt/preferences: Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable Pin-Priority: 800 You can change the Pin priority or the repository, for example, you can make the priority 999 and the repository a=testing instead of a=unstable. By modifying whatever Xandros gives you, very quickly, asssuming you have a high speed network, you can change your system into whatever you want.

Good command; that is.

---Haha....Yeah, you rule...!!!!

I have just tried Debian 3.1 and think it works great. Previously I didnt get any graphical interface but now Gnome runs right away with no problem. If you havent got any network try to burn the DVDs. It is not fun to swap CDs all the time. APT or the graphical interface Synaptic works great too.

I to have 3.1 sarg installed and so far like it, however as stated above cannot write to my vfat partitions, only view them. Any way I could not set up my monitor, could go no higher than 800x600 resolution, and nothing i could do could fix it, and reconfiguring x86config made matters even worse. So got to thinking and came to the conclusion that if knoppix is debian based and can automatically detect my hardware and configure my x system, why not simply boot into knoppix and copy the files into debian, and you know it worked. X is now working. Now if I could just get those partitions working.

I also just had lower resolution first but I edited the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file and just added the higher resolution where it said 800*600

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "MyMonitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Then I could change to higher resolution with Desktop Settings and Screen Resolution program.

I also have a NVidia graphics card that I installed with help from this link
http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debi...tallation.html

I have not tried to mount any partion but I have a note you can try
mount -t msdos /dev/hda1 /mnt

Nothing I tried would improve my monitors screen size, but remembering it was always done perfectly with knoppix i devised a work around by booting into knoppix and insuring settings etc were as i wanted them, then simply copying and pasting the xf86 files from knoppix and replacing debian's with them, and rebooted out of knoppix and into debian and finding the problem was solved.

As for the vfat partitions (usb flash drive also) I have no problems mounting them it is writing to them that has me snaged. It appears I am having some permissions problems, I can not change the permissions the usual way by editing the properties menu, and i know of no other way. Thanks for the link I will try the 3d driver for my nvidea card after i solve these issues.

The permissions for the flash drive should be controlled by /etc/fstab.

---Correct; Randrake; you should check that....post here your /etc/fstab, and see what it shows.....

I found a post I started regarding my knoppix instal I was using on the same partition as i now have Sarge, I have found that it was the /etc/fstab settings for my dvd drives that caused knoppix not to read them, because I replaced the sarge fstab with the knoppix one and was able to read the fat partitions but not the dvd drives, changed the dvd drives back to what they were in sarge and all is ok with them now, however my flash drive still eludes me. I think it is in the naming of the drive, Suse calles it sde5, not hda1. When playing with knoppix with my home folder saved to usb it was called sed1, and I beleive it was called usb1 by another distro i was trying out on this partition. I was able to move grub onto the sarg partition and now the gag bootloader works. Any way here is the fstab. am I correct that I can remove the #added by KNOPPIX lines. I also fixed my xf6config by copying the files from knoppix when booted to the cd. I added these lines from the knoppix fstab thinking it would fix my usb flash drive problem but it has not.
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

This is the file now in use. Thanks again.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=000 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 vfat auto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda6 /mnt/hda6 vfat auto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb5 none swap defaults 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb6 /mnt/hdb6 vfat auto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb7 /mnt/hdb7 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

Found this howto which should solve the problem.

Try adding the extra option "umask=0000" for the vfat partitions in /etc/fstab. This will give full read-write-exec premission to everybody, so that you can write to the files are you requested.

Yes that works; thanks, also found that (after using knoppix) that my flash drive is named hde1 not hda1 (as it seems named by most systms) and I can access it in the dev tree in konqueror, however it will not pop up a window as it does in knoppix and my Suse partition, however it can not be unmounted if another flash drive is desired to be used. I am part way there. Noticed in other threads of the same topic that the kernel 2.4 as I am using may well be the problem.