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Old 03-01-2003, 01:04 PM   #1
Fingel
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have RH, Want Debian


I've recently decided that I want to give Debian a try, I currently am running Red Hat 8.0. The only problem I can think of having is that when I was Installing RH on a seperate harddrive, I didnt really know what I was doing and made it use up all 80gigs. Will this be a problem? Will the debian Installer allow me to create seperate Debian partitons? If not what do I have to do? If it comes to earasing Rh and then installing Debian using only 40 gigs, then reinstalling RH again, I guess I could just backup all my data...
I guess this is kind of last minute to ask, but is debian a good choice? I've heard of Apt-Get and that sounds appealing. I also looked through the package list, and it has everything RH does, if maybe more. Does Debian support RPMs? I'm not THAT good at linux, I've only been running it for about 4-5 months, and from what I've heard, the distro is more advanced than RH but not as hard as Slackware etc. What about Gentoo?
Anyways I'm excited to try out the distro, any help is appreciated.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 01:10 PM   #2
MasterC
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Well...

RH has an apt-get tool too if you are interested.

As for the drive. Download parted (from www.freshmeat.net ) (or install from your CD's) and use it to resize your partition. Give yourself at least 4GB of extra space to install Debian too.

As for the distro war, whatever floats your boat, they are all gonna have roughly the same programs available at the same stages of development.

Cool
 
Old 03-01-2003, 01:31 PM   #3
cuckoopint
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even better, use parted to rezise your RH partition, and not only allow space for a debian partition, but also install a seperate /home partition. This way, your files wont be removed everytime you want to install/reinstall a distro. A backup is always a good idea - parted, nor any other programs, are not perfect.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 02:17 PM   #4
Fingel
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do I have to download parted or does the debian installer have a tool to do te same thing? I noticed on the RH installer there was an option to "not delete any partitions but use remaining free space"
 
Old 03-01-2003, 03:12 PM   #5
cuckoopint
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i recommend using parted before installing. This way, you are sure to have setup the partitions the way you want them. Then during the install, you may choose what partition you want it to install to. Also, if you choose to make a seperate /home partition do not mount it during install because it will erase everything on that partition. Instead, after the installation, just edit /etc/fstab to mount the correct partition as /home.

Also, it is often useful to defrag a partition before resizing it - especially w/ windows partitions. Linux does not suffer as much from defragging, but if I remember correctly freshmeat has programs to defrag linux partitions too - ypu may want to look into it.

Last edited by cuckoopint; 03-01-2003 at 03:14 PM.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 03:17 PM   #6
crashmeister
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If you use a /home partition for different distros you will run in trouble if the apps of the distros are different versions except you create user A for one and user B for the other distro.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 03:17 PM   #7
Miky
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You missed the thing in the debian installer, you can install debian AND red hat without any problem.
But since you already have redhat, the debian installer will consider you hard drive is already installed.
So in the first steps of the installer open your eyes and look for something called "Partition a hard disk"
Yes debian handles rpm, you'd have to install a specific tool for that.
Debian is a very good choice but i wouldn't recommend gentoo for you at the moment, installation is a bit more difficult.

++
 
Old 03-01-2003, 03:29 PM   #8
cuckoopint
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Quote:
So in the first steps of the installer open your eyes and look for something called "Partition a hard disk"
this will resize your harddisk partitions. The problem is, as far I know*, it may/will destroy the data on the original partition (ie. RH). Now, if you use parted first, then it will hopefully safely resize your partition. Then, during the installation you have actual "free space" to create new partitions.

*correct me, if I'm wrong.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 04:02 PM   #9
Miky
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Yes, it's written "Partition a hard disk" not resize a hard disk...
So if you have unused space on your hard drive or some partition that you want to destroy, the debian installer will do it nicely.
If the hard drive is already fully used and you don't want to loose anything, you're right, you'd have to resize the partition first.

nb : you can't create more than 4 primary partitions

++
 
Old 03-01-2003, 07:52 PM   #10
Fingel
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The redahat partitions are distibuted throughout the entire hard drive, all 80gigs of it. I guess that means that I need to resize them. Is it hard? I'm not very good with partitions, I dont think I could even name mine. Lets see root, home swap...anyway. If I loose anything I RH I wont cry, I've already been through 3 reinstalles. (Damn you Nvidia)
I'm downloaded thing Install Images right now, through jigdo. And I'm kina nervous if I'm getting the right ones. the directory im downloading from is: http://non-us.cdimage.debian.org/jig...r1/jigdo/i386/
thats where it told me to go. Non-us, I live in the US, is that the same thing? I also noticed there appears to be 7 install disks. woody-i386-1 to woody-i386-7. Do I need all of them or are some of the last ones just source? Am I even downloading the correct Image files!? I hope someone can give me some reassurance because I dont feel like downloading 7 ISOs and then realizing that they are not the right ones for my system. EEK.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 08:09 PM   #11
cuckoopint
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http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=4

as you can see, most likely you'll need 1 (maybe 5- if you want 2.4 kernel installed), and most likely either 2(scsi,ide) or 4(no scsi)

Everything else, you can 'apt-get install program' as needed.

BTW, if you have a "normal PC", you're architecture will most likely be i386.

Jigdo is a completely different method, which does not download everything, but only what you want - I haven't used it, but I can see how this can easily get someone confused. Maybe someone who has used jigdo can give more constructive advice.

The best thing you can do is go to www.debian.org and read up on the installation process - they have a really handy installation manual as well as other info (jigdo, non-us, etc.) You may also want to check out http://www.debianhelp.org/.
 
Old 03-01-2003, 08:35 PM   #12
iceman47
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Quote:
Originally posted by cuckoopint
[url]as you can see, most likely you'll need 1 (maybe 5- if you want 2.4 kernel installed)
start the install with boot option bf24 (1st cd) and you'll have a 2.4 installed
 
Old 03-01-2003, 09:05 PM   #13
Fingel
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Jigdo dosnt get what you want, I gets the same file as an http or ftp download(I think, I havent specified anything but the URL of the image file). It just gets it in pieces. Jig-saw jig-download get it hahaha. I think I'm going to just get cds 1-5 to be on the safe side. I like loads of apps. If an app dosnt work for something I want to do, theres sure to be an alternative.

As for the kernel, I can just have the default one installed and then install the current one later right? I like to have more than one kernel available for booting, just incase I screw one up. Make sense? It's happened before.
Apt-get is seperate from the critical update program, from what I understand. In RH, new kernels are considered critical updates. Are they not in Debian? Dosnt matter. I can always get it from kernel.org.

As I watch jigdo download all the seperate packages I'm getting excited. Looks like so many programs that I've heard of are included that were not in RH. I think this will be fun.
 
Old 03-02-2003, 09:28 AM   #14
Fingel
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ok I got binaries 1-5 now, getting 6 just in case and maybe 7. Anyone know what 6 and 7 are? thye arent explained on the site, I think.
 
Old 03-02-2003, 10:02 AM   #15
Dave Skywatcher
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I think you will like Debian. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: RPM doesn't work any better on Debian than it does on Redhat (which is not very well in some cases), but Deb includes a tool named alien that will convert an RPM to a Debian package.

As for the content of the discs, I don't know what exactly is on each one, but the general organization is that the most commonly-needed packages are on disc one, the least commonly-needed (most obscure) packages are on disc seven, with everything else ranging accordingly in between. So you probably don't need discs six and seven, at least to start with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Debian will transparently connect to the internet to download any package you select that it does not find on the CDs. Dselect gives you a list of every package available in the main distribution, regardless of which discs you actually have, and then decides the best place to get each package you choose. Be sure to say "yes" when the installer asks you to define another apt source, then choose a suitable FTP site. IMO, this is one of Deb's best features.
 
  


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