Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
* Andrew Haswell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2008-04-16 23:46]: > How do i go about reinstalling? do i need to revert to the thecus rom or can > i reinstall debian another way? You can flash the installer directly from withing Debian without installing the original Thecus firmware. Just follow http://www.cyrius.com/debian/iop/n2100/deinstall.html but use the debian-installer .bin file instead of the one from Thecus. > I have a 10GB raid1 root partition and the rest are data partitions > so i would like to know if i can reinstall whilst keeping my data > safe. You can do that when you skip the guided partitioner. -- Martin Michlmayr http://www.cyrius.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
Tobias Frost wrote: >> Sorry to barge into this conversation, but I was wondering if you maybe >> could share a few tips about how to configure aptitude on an NSLU2 so >> it's not unbearably slow. > > The initial delay cannot be shortened by configuration. This are > apperantly jobs that have to be done by aptitude. > However, there is lots that can be done "in the background" > For example, I have the impression that apt-get update is faster than > aptitude update. You can type "apt-get update && aptitude" and then > simply do some minutes something else. Actually, I've got a cron job set up that does an "apt-get update" every few hours, as applying the diffs that accumulated over the course of a few days takes another century... :) > If you want to update, you would do aptitude -i to directly go to the > installation page. Safes also some time. > > In aptitude. go to the configuration menu. Disable everthing that smells > like slow. > I disabled all entries under "Dependency Handling", as it is sufficient > to check them before downloading. > Also I disabled the entrie "show automatically why a package is broken. Hmmm... doesn't exactly look like that will make the UI more responsive as far as scrolling the list is concerned... :/ > Another hint: Activate "Advance to the next item after changing a > package state". This allows you to change the package state more > convinient, for example if you want to mark a lots of pacakges > automatically installed, you only have to press "M" the several times, > and aptitude will have the results sooner True, but it's easy to overshoot the last package. I wish there were some kind of remote aptitude mode where you could get all neccessary data from some remote machine while doing all the hard work on something beefier than the NSLU2... -- Kurt Bernhard Pruenner --- Haendelstrasse 17 --- 4020 Linz --- Austria ...It might be written "Mindfuck", but it's spelt "L-A-I-N"... np: Underworld - Jumbo (Everything, Everything (Live)) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
> Sorry to barge into this conversation, but I was wondering if you maybe > could share a few tips about how to configure aptitude on an NSLU2 so > it's not unbearably slow. Well... I am not at the Box, so I cannot lookup my settings right now. However, here are some tricks I can remember. The initial delay cannot be shortened by configuration. This are apperantly jobs that have to be done by aptitude. However, there is lots that can be done "in the background" For example, I have the impression that apt-get update is faster than aptitude update. You can type "apt-get update && aptitude" and then simply do some minutes something else. If you want to update, you would do aptitude -i to directly go to the installation page. Safes also some time. In aptitude. go to the configuration menu. Disable everthing that smells like slow. I disabled all entries under "Dependency Handling", as it is sufficient to check them before downloading. Also I disabled the entrie "show automatically why a package is broken. Another hint: Activate "Advance to the next item after changing a package state". This allows you to change the package state more convinient, for example if you want to mark a lots of pacakges automatically installed, you only have to press "M" the several times, and aptitude will have the results sooner
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
Barry Tennison wrote: > Tobias Frost wrote: > > As a suggestion, look into "aptitude". aptitude has the advantage, that > > it will show you what it does, and especially for a beginner it might be > > helpful to see the consquences / dependencies of some packages. Aptitude > > is a little slow on arm, at least with its default configuration. > > Agreed wholeheartedly. Do use aptitude, Andrew: it takes a bit of > learning, but then it's a wonderfully flexible tool that works well even > if your system is minimal or gets quite broken. And it's a mainstay > workhorse in everyday situations like wanting to install a new package > or two, or see what will happen if you update things. Sorry to barge into this conversation, but I was wondering if you maybe could share a few tips about how to configure aptitude on an NSLU2 so it's not unbearably slow. As it is, it takes several minutes for me to start (i.e. until I can actually work with it) and moving the cursor around the list takes about a second per line... :( I'd really love to use aptitude, but until it gets faster somehow I'll have to keep using aptsh... -- Kurt Bernhard Pruenner --- Haendelstrasse 17 --- 4020 Linz --- Austria ...It might be written "Mindfuck", but it's spelt "L-A-I-N"... np: Luomo - The Right Wing (Vocalcity) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
Tobias Frost wrote: Hi Andrew, everyone started at one point with linux, so keep up, as the learning curve is quite steep. As a suggestion, look into "aptitude". aptitude has the advantage, that it will show you what it does, and especially for a beginner it might be helpful to see the consquences / dependencies of some packages. Aptitude is a little slow on arm, at least with its default configuration. Agreed wholeheartedly. Do use aptitude, Andrew: it takes a bit of learning, but then it's a wonderfully flexible tool that works well even if your system is minimal or gets quite broken. And it's a mainstay workhorse in everyday situations like wanting to install a new package or two, or see what will happen if you update things. On Thu, 2008-04-17 at 14:12 +0100, Barry Tennison wrote: Xming is quiet superb (once you install xorg on the debian side) and gives you access to almost all the gui stuff in debian from your windows desktop. I wonder how the performance is. The Thecus is a big one for a ARM, but ... I oversimplified, so as not to frighten the less experienced, while I hope enabling useful experiment and progress. Perhaps I was a BIT over enthusiastic, but in fact the performance issues are quite controllable as long as you're not over-ambitious (see below). I had this vision of Andrew at his Windows box, with only a single (ssh/PuTTY) command line as his interface to the Thecus, while a much more flexible environment was only a few clicks away... Xming is an X server that runs on Windows (XP certainly, I haven't tried other versions). It facilitates letting X apps on a linux (or other..) system use it as their X server. So on the Thecus box, you don't need the whole of xorg to run (and it won't, if you come in via Xming) nor installed (but that's not a huge disk penalty to pay for simplifying from what I'm about to describe). In fact, on the Thecus box, you need only install the packages xterm and xauth (they drag in x11-common and some libraries). Then, using Xming, you can fire up as many xterms on your windows desktop as you like; or install on the Thecus a multi-tab terminal like xfce4-terminal or even gnome-terminal and enjoy a much better command line experience. From there it's not far to installing and using useful but lightweight gui apps like claws-mail or rapidsvn. You'd be unwise to try to run say firefox or thunderbird (and they are less good at respecting X networking) but it's perfectly feasible to install gdm or xdm and get a complete lightweight desktop like fvwm or even xfce4. I know this because I do it on a slug (NSLU2). It has 32M ram and a pretty slow processor, so I'm sure the Thecus can beat it into a cocked hat. I bet it would run epiphany-browser quite adequately, for example, in the Xming context as above. I hope. with his questing attitude, Andrew will explore some of this. Barry PS For honesty (and self-esteem!), I should clarify. Personally, I very seldom run Windows. I do most of the above with the Windows end replaced by a good debian desktop or laptop. But my two daughters have been wedded to Windows while equipped with debianised slugs, so my (very positive) experience with Xming comes from helping them into a position where they can do useful things on their slugs from their Windows machines. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
Hi Andrew, everyone started at one point with linux, so keep up, as the learning curve is quite steep. As a suggestion, look into "aptitude". aptitude has the advantage, that it will show you what it does, and especially for a beginner it might be helpful to see the consquences / dependencies of some packages. Aptitude is a little slow on arm, at least with its default configuration. But back to your dilemma. Going backward -- from lenny to etch -- is usually not that easy, so I suggest that you should stay with lenny or resinstall. Lenny is not that bad after all -- it is the next stable and Debian is "frozen", so thats not so far away. (September, ASFAIR) And don't think testing will crash every five minutes. Coming from the windows world "testing" might sound like that, but I am running sid (unstable) for years and had seldom any show-stopping issues. And testing is "unstable with at least 10 days worth of safty-net" as once a friend told me. Short summary: I would stay at testing for the time being, stay at lenny if you want to go for a stable release. Regarding samba, I have the feeling that this is only a small "problem". If you want, mail the smb.conf to the list and many eyes can take a look at it. changes are good that you will get a solution or at least hints. > How do i go about reinstalling? do i need to revert to the thecus rom > or can > i reinstall debian another way? I have a 10GB raid1 root partition and > the > rest are data partitions so i would like to know if i can reinstall > whilst > keeping my data safe. Beside that I don't think that you need to reinstall, you do not need to revert to the Thecus image. I wrote a howto some time ago (but forgot to release it; now it is... ) at my blog, http://blog.coldtobi.de, how to load the debian installer into RAM and boot it from there. As a bonus, it won't get unbootable if flashing wents wrong. If you have your data on the separate partition, it is safe as long as you are careful with the debian installer. You only should format the 10G root one. (But it won't hurt to backup /etc, could safe you from some work) On Thu, 2008-04-17 at 14:12 +0100, Barry Tennison wrote: > Xming is quiet superb > (once you install xorg on the debian side) and gives you access to > almost all the gui stuff in debian from your windows desktop. I wonder how the performance is. The Thecus is a big one for a ARM, but ... -- Best regards coldtobi http://blog.coldtobi.de Life is more than binary.
Re: Reinstalling debian on n2100
I'm not the best person on n2100 specific issues, but I can make some more general comments. It's a pretty classic "error" to use apt-get -f and then find you need to do a large scale mend. See it more as a learning opportunity! It does make me cautious about advising you on the basis of what I personally would do next, because you do have to be a bit careful when doing more adventurous things on debian (or in most other contexts!) as you've found. First and major point: if you can back up your data, do so now or soon. I should have thought your options in order of preference were: (1) stick with lenny, and fix the samba shares. You get to keep the "piece of software" you wanted (could you live without it if you went back to etch?) and lenny is good, with occasional glitches if you do keep upgrading. Can you not make out from smb.conf and its fellows why you can't now see the missing shares? Samba is a notorious pig, but simple configuration is usually straightforward and moderately transparent. Personally, I've used (debian) swat as a GUI samba configuring tool with some success: if you do use swat, make a backup of your smb.conf first, as swat prunes and rewrites it drastically (and much more simply). (2) re-install etch, while keeping your data partitions. Judging by your previous posts, you used the debian installer, and I presume that involved using the installer's partitioner. These days, the partitioner is just superb (IMHO - I have no involvement other than as a very satisfied user). You may recall using it: you should be able to tell it to mount the existing data partitions where you are used to seeing them, and to preserve the data on them. Just make sure you follow the partitioner carefully, and watch out especially when it says it's about to (when you press the Yes button) repartition, or create new (blank) filesystems - make sure these are on the bits of the disk you do want blanked. The main disadvantage of this option, as far as I can see, is that you'll have to set up the samba stuff again (do keep a copy of smb.conf before you start!) and if you're having trouble in the current lenny, mightn't you have trouble again? That's the main reason I suggest trying (1) first. (3) (not very serious) do what mad people like me might do: use debootstrap from your lenny to create a new etch install on a spare part of your disk(s) (ideally an lvm2 logical volume), and get it working while keeping the lenny install as a fallback if/when things go wrong. I can't speak with any knowledge to the question about reverting to the thecus rom, but I doubt (from my NSLU2 experience) that's necessary. Hope this is some help! Barry PS I wonder how you access your debian from Windows? ssh (eg PuTTY) is standard and good, but with a little learning, Xming is quiet superb (once you install xorg on the debian side) and gives you access to almost all the gui stuff in debian from your windows desktop. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reinstalling debian on n2100
As i've posted before I'm a windows guy trying to find his way in the debian world, my linux experience is limited! I wanted to apt-get a piece of software which was in the lenny repo not etch so i added the source. when i tried to apt-get it, it said that the prerequisites could not be met. I read that i should do apt-get -f to fix this and i ended up with half of lenny installed and lots of broken things. so i ran the distro-upgrade command to try and get some consistency and now i seem to be running lenny, not quite what i wanted! its running ok but even though i kept my smb.conf for some reason 1 of my samba shares works fine and the other 2 dont at all and so now i cant get at a load of my data. If i could fix this i would probably be happy but im thinking i need to just bite the bullet and reinstall debian. How do i go about reinstalling? do i need to revert to the thecus rom or can i reinstall debian another way? I have a 10GB raid1 root partition and the rest are data partitions so i would like to know if i can reinstall whilst keeping my data safe. any help would be really great cos i dont know what to do from here thanks Andy
