Debian for RedHat users
 

Does anyone know of any kind of 'Debian for RedHat users' type of documentation? I learned Linux on RH and have always kind of avoided Debian because I didn't understand some of the different ways it does things, but now I am in a situation where I have to admin some Debian servers. If anyone knows of books or online documentation that summarizes all of the 'Debianisms' for RH users that would be awesome.

Well why not start with the official documentation? Or what do you need to know exaclty?

The programs are the same. Only thing that's different might be file locations and the package management. The official documentation on debian.org is good for a start.

I guess I was trying to avoid an entire manual, I was just looking for some type of documentation that has had the beginning linux stuff filtered out, and just tells a linux literate person about things unique to Debian such as file locations, package management, run levels, services, etc.

The apt howto:
http://www.us.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#apt-howto
You can't miss this one it has info on the package management.

Debian FAQ:
http://www.us.debian.org/doc/FAQ/
FAQ about debian special things.

Still if you would have clicked the documentation link on debian.org you would have found all this. It's not one manual for everything you can choose. There are different documents for different things.

The biggest difference I can see between the two is the package management. As darkleaf mentioned, study the APT-Howto. I downloaded it and printed it out. If you study that and learn how to use apt, it will help a lot.

Good Luck!

:study:

Thanks everyone, I'll be sure to check out the APT-Howto.

Hello everyone, I'm responding to my own thread because I found what I was looking for and just thought I'd share in case anyone else finds this useful.
The primary things I was looking for in regards to how Debian differs from RedHat were how the file locations differ, especially in regards to networking. Here's what I found:

In RedHat, the /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 files contain info like hostname, IP address, netmask, and default gateway. In Debian, the equivalent files are /etc/hostname and /etc/network/interfaces.

This is a mighty old thread to be reviving, but I'll use it to push a book I'm getting ready to write a review of. Every Debian Admin should dig down & buy The Debian System by Martin Krafft.

Don't get it if your primary allegiance is to another distro, tho ... If you read it, your primary allegiance will change.

Just a note as well.. if you have read any of The Linux Certification guides such as the ones for Linux+ they cover both Debian and RPM based distros.. can be a nice quickj reference back and forth between the systems and iot does cover admin. tsaks..

In most Linux certifications that I have looked into, there is more stuff about Redhat than Debian. The only topic that Debian is covered in detail is package management.