Well i Have now decided to try Debian again so im downloading it as we speak. However i find that installing debian is very difucult. I mean with the packages. Is there any simple ish guide to install debian for a newbe?

I have been using Linux for about a year, SuSE Mandrake and Redhat. But i want to try something better and Debian comes to mind.

Any info on how to install or any refrence to simple howtos would be great

and i have printed off the 247 page Guide from debian, which i read and was not much help before someone says to read that

Oh and one other thing, there are like 7 CDS on the FTP site! do i need to download them all? Or do i need just a few of them
Thanks



Aaron

You will probably just need the first 3 CDs to do a good install. You certainly do not need to install all the packages off all 7 CDs.

Aaron,

and i have printed off the 247 page Guide from debian, which i read and was not much help

I know what you mean. It's funny -- a lot of folks complain about the Debian installer; that Debian should have a graphical one like RH or Mandrake. The truth is, IMO, that the installer (poorly named "boot-floppies") and the base-config (?) app are great. I really like the menu-based console interface. The problem is that they sometimes ask you questions without giving you enough background information to answer them. One glaring example that comes to mind is the "Are you using an LCD monitor?" question.

Oh and one other thing, there are like 7 CDS on the FTP site! do i need to download them all? Or do i need just a few of them

I'd go even one step further than peace and tell you to only download the first CD. Go through the install process, say yes to run tasksel (and only choose the bare minimum you need), say no and don't run dselect. Then after the install is done, install only what you need little-by-little (like apt-get install icewm to get a window manager + X installed). The less stuff you install at the beginning, the less chance you have of misconfiguring something during the base-config stage.

Oh, also, if you're just going to use ppp for plain-vanilla dialup, you don't need to install the ppp stuff listed in tasksel. Well, afterward, if you don't end up with the pppconfig package, you'll want to apt-get install that.

You asked
Is there any simple ish guide to install debian for a newbe?

The only advice I can offer that you take good notes during the install. You may botch the job and have to install a 2nd or 3rd time, but using different options.

Also note that if something is misconfigured during the install, you can usually reconfigure a package afterwards using dpkg-reconfigure package_name.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

I recentlly installed a debian sys for a friend of mine.

I used the bonzai distribution and made a base install quite nicelly.

The things I liked :
image is small - 128 MB or so
small installed - resulted about 230 MB with KDE
no dselect


Things I didn't like:
no mc package on the cd
no aptitude pack
no other wm on the cd (I think)
don't know if I could have installed X without selecting KDE - I mean from the begining (if not possible then the apt-get install xserver-xfree86 saves)

Dunno if u have a perm internet link, but you shouldn't worry about stopping the dwnlds it restarts from the point it was interrupted.

I reccomend blackbox / fluxbox with nawm

I installed Debian with mini cd http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
It's much easier to install all what you need with apt-get so skip tasksel and dselect they are so hard to newbies

Hi all, Thanks for the replys, I have taken note.

johnMG

I tried a few times to install debian, and it worked fine untill i got to the part for the network. It would not install Via DHCP, I know that my network works as it is my internet connection.

Any Ideas? IT works on the Morphix live CD! Which incedently i installed to HD.

But i would prefur to install debian myself and use apt-get to get only the apps i need!!!

Thanks

U need a DHCP client ? use pump!
the dhcpclient didn't do much for me on woody, so I used pump (made a lil' script in /etc/init.d/pump and updte-rc.d pump ...... and there u go). After upgrading to Sarge the dhcpclient started to work(forgot to remove the pack) so pump was not necessary anymore.

Sorry if I missunderstood.

I tried a few times to install debian, and it worked fine untill i got to the part for the network. It would not install Via DHCP, I know that my network works as it is my internet connection.

I don't think I know what you mean here Aaron. If you've got the install CD's, why do you need DHCP during the install?

Further, are you talking about having trouble with boot-floppies or with base-config?

I'm sorry, but I can't help with this as I don't have any sort of LAN set up at the moment -- I'm not even using my ethernet card; just the serial modem for dialup. I'm only just learning about network setup. I can, however, comment that I have the dhcp-client package installed. You might try to dpkg-reconfigure this package. (?)

Hi, for the time being i have given up on Debian. I did get it installed (to a point) but it was too slow, and i could not work out how to upgrade my kernel. There were a few other problems..... not too bad tho.

I will try again soon tho, I Love Apt-Get, it is the best thing since sliced bread IMHO.

Thats for all your help tho