Hi,

I've just installed Debian 3.0 from a recsue disk and a http network install (took nearly 24 hours!) and my question is what should I do next?

Uname -r returns 2.2.20-idepci and I did a fairly comprehensive tasksel of packages I thought I'd need.

However I think I need to update the "kernel"(?) so that my wireless and sound work, and I want the latest versions of all the software I use most (xchat, firefox, openoffice).

What would your next step be?

If you're using Woody (stable), update the '/etc/apt/sources.list' file to point to the testing repository (Sarge) instead of the stable repository (Woody) (I wouldn't go with Sid (unstable)). Do an "apt-get update" followed by an "apt-get dist-upgrade". This wil update your Debian box to Sarge.

Next, if you use X, I'd advice you to install Synaptic (it's a GUI front-end for apt), it's very usefull when you want to download new packages.

Next, download the latest kernel source of kernel 2.6 (I think the latest is 2.6.8_1, but I'm not sure about that) with Synaptic. If you have never compiled a kernel before, do a Google search for compiling kernels in Debian. It's not real difficult, but the configuration will take some time. Be patient with it and take it easy. Once you've done it one time, it's really a piece of cake.

So, download the kernel source, configure it, compile it, install it., update LILO, and you're ready to go

These are the steps I'd take. I know this is not a real HowTo, but do some searching on Google and you'll be OK. There's really a lot of info about Debian on the Internet.

Good luck and welcome to the world of Debian.

Read the sticky: Debian Configuration Post-Install at the beginning of the threads.

thanks for that macondo, looks like a real good piece of work. I will be referring to that often over the next few weeks i imagine.

I have foolishly been using debian for about a year now, I say foolishly because I think Debian is more like a philosophy of life than an Operating system, one that I don't happen to share.

I like to learn, but in quick short bursts without too much effort whereas Debian often seems to require sustained concentration and a large amount of studying of documentation. Three kids and a busy full time job mitigate against that sort of commitment. but I persevere.

Anyway the first thing I've done is a distro-updrade to unstable, which took quite a while as I couldn't work out why the machine kept freezing about 20 minutes into the process. Eventually I removed all the new hardware (sound and wireless) and that seemed to to do the trick.

Next is the kernel upgrade. As far as compiling kernels is concerned, I've done it a few times and never ever got it right, I see the other sticky in this forum is a kernel compilation one, but I intend to try and work through this - http://www.desktop-linux.net/debkernel.htm

which looks pretty good.

"I like to learn, but in quick short bursts without too much effort whereas Debian often seems to require sustained concentration and a large amount of studying of documentation. Three kids and a busy full time job mitigate against that sort of commitment. but I persevere."

Hehe, you ain't missing much. With the exception of Robert Storey and Clinton De Young, most geeks' writing ain't worth a pitcher of warm spit.

I took me 2 years to barely manage to function in Debian, and it is the best of the bunch, IMO.

I just spent a day and a half trying to configure mutt, following directions from the man, articles and even copied the configuration files of some pseudo-geeks and they don't work, what is worse, i had to decipher what they meant because of their grammar and typos, it was exasperating, if i have to read 'your' instead of 'you're', one more time...

"Next is the kernel upgrade. As far as compiling kernels is concerned, I've done it a few times and never ever got it right,"

Read the subsequent postings in the Debian Configuration sticky, there are some good pointers, the last 2 postings on page 5, deal with the installation of kernel-images, you can have a new kernel in 10 minutes.

Next time save yourself so much pain and install the latest sarge-net-installer, choose at the prompt: expert2.6 and you can have sarge or sid plus the latest kernel.

Yes, that's pretty much what I've read for kernel upgrades and tried to do in the past, if I don't get the kernel wrong though I generally do get lilo configuration messed up. Have to get apt-get working properly again first. (see elsewhere on this forum!)

It's not too hard, read the APT-HOWTO from beginnning to end, and pay attention to the section or errors and troubleshooting.
(section 7)

first thing i do when starting the computer in the morning:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

hmm, does it break often?

cleared the apt problem by uninstalling evolution

I managed to install the kernel image and even got X working after reading the other sticky in this forum, but do not appear to have a network card when I boot into the new kernel. What would be the first step to rectifying this?

the card appears to be working, listed in lspci and modules are loaded but to get it working i have to run
which enables me to ping my hardware firewall, exhausting my knowledge of manual NIC configuration. I'd like this to be automatic as it is if I boot with the earlier kernel, but just getting it properly configured manually would do at the moment. So what next?

I connect to a router/firewall that gives out IPs through DHCP. I can get the network up and running at boot by having the following /etc/network/interfaces:

eth1 is my WiFi; the line is not needed for you but I included it to show that eth1 is not started at boot because it is not included in the "auto" line.

If you have another setup, the trick is probably to adjust that file.

/TLV

yep, that's pretty much what mine looks like

I'll can't see naything in /var/log/mesages that gives a clue as to why it's not working, I do however get an error message running dhclient in the command line which is "Unrecognized kernel version"

A quick google search yields two posts that may interest you:

http://lists.backports.org/pipermail...er/000048.html

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/.../msg06400.html

Don't know if this will help you, but it may be that you dhclient is too old...

/TLV

Thanks TLv, that worked a treat!

I'd been googling for 3 days and nver found a reference to that

/me puzzled

Good. I've learned that a good way to research a problem is to use Google and type in all or most of the error message and perhaps add a Debian or so... If there is a problem on my system, chances are that someone else already has experienced that problem and asked about it on the net, and that Google has indexed the discussion. It's a lot easier than to go through hundres of documentation pages

/TLV

You can also search the Debian mailing lists with Google here.