hi,

I been trying Mandriva 2006, DSL, Puppy Linux, and PCLinux. I decided out of all those I like DSL the best and since it's a Debian install I think it's time I installed Debian. The problem is, when I saw it was 14 cds I almost had a heart attack so I'm going to try the net install (since it's only 180MB). Before I do that though, I would like to know what kind of problems will arise and also, what kind of experience users had doing the net install.

One of my main questions is this: What programs (or packages) do I have to download first that are absolutley nessesary to get the X system up and running? Will Debian automatically install and run it for me?

Also, besides DSL, what other distros are Debian?

Sorry for so many questions!! I never did anything like this before so I'm a little hesitant to try it.


Thanks!


Mike

Number 1, get the Testing netinstal, here, rather than Sarge.

After the initial install is done, you'll reboot, maybe answer a few more questions, then you'll be asked what 'tasks', if any, you want to complete the installation. Choose 'desktop' only. You can get other stuff as necessary later.

what happens is you boot from the netinstall cd and it installs the base packages for you, then once they are installed you are presented with a list of pre set software catagories, desktop and then various server catagories and then laptop, if you are installing on a desktop just choose the desktop option, but if a laptop then choose desktop and laptop.

Then all the files will be downloaded and you will have a system thats as upto date as can be. The 14 cd/2 dvd are for people without the internet and things, but it means the applications are out of date.

The desktop options will give you your xsystem as well as gnome (kde can be installed once the net install has finnished and you boot up). You are given various desktop apps, firefox, mozilla, abi word, gnumeric, gaim gimp etc etc. Its actually a nice set of applicatiomns by default it covers almost all the bases you could want in terms of application uses.

As a previous poster said use etch, i wotn go into why but just because the software in sarhe is painfully old for a desktop machine and it used xfree which kep complaining on my machine. Etch is is pretty stable anyway, it occasionally has hickups but they are rare when they do happen.


Michael

As a previous poster said use etch, i wotn go into why but just because the software in sarhe is painfully old for a desktop machine and it used xfree which kep complaining on my machine.

I did a netinstall of Sarge because I didn't want to run into dependancy problems before I had a fully working system. It was very straightforward and hardware detection was good, but I do get the occasional X-server crash on start up. As regards the age of the packages, it depends what your doing on your desk-top. I find most of them OK and Rosegarden is more up to date than with Gentoo. It's no biggy to change to Etch if you install Sarge. Change the /etc/apt/sources.list to track testing and apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade to get Etch.

There are a number of really significant changes betwwen Sarge and Etch which tend to give people problems in the conversion ... Primarily related to the conversion from Xfree to Xorg. Do yourself a favor. Just install testing.

Hear, Hear. Testing works great from a netinstall - no dependency problems whatsoever.

I was running Sarge on this machine and decided to try Etch. Slapped another hard drive in and did a net install. Smooth and painless. Told it desktop and ended up with a fully configured Gnome install. Simple apt-get and I was back in KDE. It really was one of the easiest and quickest installs of anything I have ever tried. Now I am glad I didn't bother with the mountain of CD's. This box is an AMD 1600, 512 ram, SCSI drives, DVD Dual layer burner, CD burner, it found it all. Good luck with yours.

I'm also running Etch on two computers using the netinstall iso. No dependency issues to speak of.

why do they have all these: [alpha] [arm] [hppa] [i386] [ia64] [m68k] [mips] [mipsel] [powerpc] [sparc]. What is the difference?

I have a 733mhz 19gb + 12gb 512mb computer. It's a custom built pc so I'm assuming I should use the i386. Before I download this, I want to make sure it's the correct iso.

Thanks for all your input! This makes me feel much better about making this decision to do the net install. Hopefully by tommorrow I'll be posting from a new Debian pc.

Debian supports about 10 different platforms, so you do need to pick the right one for your hardware. i386 is certainly safe. I don't see i686 on your list. That would be the one for more modern hardware, probably Celeron chips.

Yes, I agree with rickh, I'd go with i386. I'm running Etch on two Plll computers. I've got a Plll 667 and a Plll 500. I used i386 without any problems:-)

Well, I installed Debian on my computer but now the screen resolution is set at 640x480. I know I have to change the /etc/X11/XF86config file but Debian will not let me save those changes.

If you installed etch, you have to change /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Or maybe you could just run: # dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

All I can say is that I used the Debian Net Install, it gave me very little problems, the installation was nice and smooth - however...you had BETTER have a fast connection. Trying to suck 511MB through a phone line would be like trying to suck a golf-ball through a garden hose. (But hey, at least it's compressed. Without compression, it'd be about a gig.)

yeh it took me two hours to download the files it needed for an eth install on a 512 connection.

another note testing shouldnt give you dependency problems because packages can only move into testing from sid once they have all there dependences met cant they?