Hey guys,

i just built out a linux box on one of the older PC's i had around. Installed Debian from cd 1 i386.

Debian is up and runnning just fine, but im having issues reaching out to the internet. I've done some research and found that my resolv.conf file needs to be configured properly. i tried looking for it in /etc/resolv.conf, but resolv wasnt even there. Did some more research and saw that i could create one if i go to system>administration>network and then the DNS tab. Over here i added the DNS Servers manually. The three IP's i got were from a windows box i have and i did an ipconfig /all to find the DNS Servers.

After i did this i was able to see 'resolv.conf' in my /etc file. i have then tried to run apt-get update, but i still get errors.

I have tried to configure the resolv.conf file myself using pico:

# resolv.conf
# 01-06-10
# search .
# domain xxxx (since i'm not on a domain)
nameserver 24.xxx.yyy.15 (the three DNS servers listed from my ipconfig /all)
nameserver 24.xxx.yyy.16
nameserver 192.xxx.z.2
# nameserver 192.xxx.yyy.y.z (IP address)

In the /etc/apt/sources.list, i have:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
(amongst two others. But when i researched, it seemed the top one was the important one to run apt-get update.)

FYI: the error usually is this, when i try to run 'apt-get install resolveconf':

" Package resolvconf is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package resolvconf has no installation candidate. "

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!!

try using the opendns servers:

comment out all the rest.

The apt-get error has nothing to do with DNS, though. Unless you're running stable for a specific reason, I would suggest changing stable to testing and then apt-get updating and upgrading. That might give you resolvconf, or maybe it's been phased out. If you set your resolv.conf to opendns or whatever works for you, you shouldn't really need resolvconf.

just looked up what resolvconf is, and yea... i really dont need it since this is a home set up with my dns not changing. It's cable modem to wireless router with ethernet cable from wireless go my linux box.

I've changed my resolv.conf file to read:

# /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 208.67.220.220
nameserver 208.67.222.222

i've changed my sources.list to read:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org testing/updates main contrib non-free

apt-get updating doesn't do anything for me. And apt-get upgrade gives me:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded
(essentially, nothing...)

Any ideas here?

I'm very new to linux and just trying to figure this out..

thanks!

No reason to switch to testing. Ignore anyone who says otherwise.Please do not suggest Testing or Unstable for someone that is new to Debian. Stick with stable until you get the hang of things.

Please change your sources.list back to stable, it should look something like:


Also you want to use aptitude and not apt-get.
aptitude update
aptitude upgrade
aptitude full-upgrade
aptitude user's manual - http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/...titude/doc/en/

Can you get online with any browser?

After you get things up and running you will probably want to add the backports.org and debian-multimedia.org repos to your sources.list , but they are necessary atm.

Let's start with the basics
Can you ping?
what is the output from
what's the output from

bahh, that's baloney. I've used testing on a server for 4-5 years now at least, have never had one problem.

You might in fact have more problems with stable, OP, as some of the packages can be really out of date. If that's a desktop machine, I strongly suggest you use testing.


If he's starting out using apt-get and he's a newbie, telling him to switch to a whole new program to learn while he's trying to figure out something else will just make him more confused. OP, stick with whatever you're comfortable with. apt-get works fine. Nothing wrong with aptitude, either, it's just a matter of choice. But if you're familiar with apt-get, no reason to change now until you're more settled in.

nope, those are not necessary now in the least.

like repo said, you need to ping, show the output of apt-get update (it should return a bunch of lines showing the servers and amount of data it fetched), and show ifconfig while you're at it to make sure your net interface is even up.