Re: Considering switching to debian
on Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 10:39:35PM -0500, Jonathan D. Proulx ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 05:04:15PM -0800, Jim Richardson wrote: > > : 1) How "good" is laptop support ? apm, pcmcia, etc > > This is kernel stuff, what are you looking for the Distro to do > to/with it. It's there to use, I've set up a few laptops with Debian > and had no complaints. If I recall apm isn't in the stock Debian > kernel (or wasn't), but I tend to roll my own anyway... apm is in the stock kernel, but disabled on boot, a LILO or boot parameter is required to enable it. > : 2) I want to use 2.4.x kernel to get access to good usb and iptables > : is this stable enough for general use ? > > general use yes, mission critical, I'd say not tested enough yet. More data: if you want to use reiserfs (useful on a laptop), 2.2 is currently better than 2.4 -- more stable, fewer problems. There *is* some USB support under 2.2, just not as much as might be desireable. So you've got a compromise to make here. I'm running a 2.2.18 kernel with reiserfs, don't use USB devices. > : 3) Can I use the stable dist, and add the unstable/testing packages > : I want, like latest gnome, without too many problems or is it > : either/or? I'd in general recommend testing if you want to have more relatively current packages. Trick I just learned from Rick Moen regarding security updates: put the 'security' apt reference lines into your /etc/apt/sources.list file. There've been issues with security updates on the testing distribution (essentially there are now three bases to cover, testing may get overlooked), this will ensure that you at least get the higher-numbered package updates from the stable track. In general I tend to encourage *not* mixing packages across stable/testing/unstable. You can do it, and will probably get by with it, but there are increased complexities as a result. > : 5) Can I "downgrade" packages easily if they cause probs? > > if you can still get your hands on the .deb that was working for you > you can force a downgrade. Note the "if". This can be an issue. In general, unstable/testing .debs aren't kept around once they've been supersceded. -- Karsten M. Self http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org pgp4syNzpMH9M.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Considering switching to debian
On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 05:04:15PM -0800, Jim Richardson wrote:
> I am currently using SuSE (6.4 and 7.0 on various machines) but am getting fed
> up with the name mangling suse performs on packages. For some reason, the
> package names follow the 8.3 msdos naming convention, as if that wasn't bad
> enough, the name of the package _inside_ the rpm (where it doesn't matter to
> the filesystem at all) is _also_ 8,3. Frankly, this sucks. There are some
> other
> issues with suse that I won't bore you with, but the crux of the issue is
> that
> I am considering switching to debian and have a few questions before I take
> the
> plunge.
Hrrm... 8.3'ness sucks, but doesn't seem like enough to push someone to
Debian. (Though the 'final straw' for me with Slack was the 'version
inflation' which was silly enough to make me try Debian... and then I
fell in love and within a week I had removed slack from all my machines. :))
> 1) How "good" is laptop support ? apm, pcmcia, etc
Works fine for me on my noname laptop. Haven't tried it with 2.4 yet,
since that changes all the pcmcia stuff and it scares me. :)
> 2) I want to use 2.4.x kernel to get access to good usb and iptables
> is this stable enough for general use ?
Seems to be. I've been using it for months without a problem.
> 3) Can I use the stable dist, and add the unstable/testing packages
> I want, like latest gnome, without too many problems or is it
> either/or?
At the moment? It's probably either/or... lots of things have changed
between 'stable' and testing and unstable. (glibc and perl, especially,
which tend to pretty much make everything else update...)
> 4) How difficult is it to build deb packages from tarballs? ie
> ./configure;make; -> make a deb. Since I am likely to want to
> play with code that has no current .deb
Supposedly not hard, though there's really so little I locally compile
any more I don't bother. Most of the stuff I compile is just 'tweaks'
to the debian-supplied version (like I dislike some of the functions
available in the posix module of php when run in 'safe-mode'... letting
users walk the password file scares me... so I disable those and make my
own deb since the php upstream doesn't seem to think that's unsafe even
though open("/etc/passwd") would be... I also sometimes steal source
packages from unstable and backport them to potato for The Machines I
Shouldn't Play With But Can't Help... that's trivial.)
Debian's archives are pretty complete and usually pretty well updated,
so I don't really bother compiling much except for what's mentioned
above.
> 5) Can I "downgrade" packages easily if they cause probs?
Not as easily as upgrading (which is trivial on Debian... :)), but
certainly no harder than 'dpkg --force-downgrade -i whatever-0.9.deb'
(and I don't recall actually having to use the '--force-downgrade'
switch...)
--
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Re: Considering switching to debian
On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 05:04:15PM -0800, Jim Richardson wrote: : 1) How "good" is laptop support ? apm, pcmcia, etc This is kernel stuff, what are you looking for the Distro to do to/with it. It's there to use, I've set up a few laptops with Debian and had no complaints. If I recall apm isn't in the stock Debian kernel (or wasn't), but I tend to roll my own anyway... : 2) I want to use 2.4.x kernel to get access to good usb and iptables : is this stable enough for general use ? general use yes, mission critical, I'd say not tested enough yet. I don't know of any breakage (other than a little learning curve on the config) and I use it at home and on my laptop (both debian testing/unstable though I've heard it's not too hard to set up with stable). : 3) Can I use the stable dist, and add the unstable/testing packages : I want, like latest gnome, without too many problems or is it : either/or? Depends on the package and the current state of unstable/testing. If the package relies on a new version of glibc you'll have problems, but alot of stuff can be cross installed. : 4) How difficult is it to build deb packages from tarballs? ie : ./configure;make; -> make a deb. Since I am likely to want to : play with code that has no current .deb there are tools that make it stupid simple. Also the "alien" utility will take and rpm or tarball and convert it to a .deb (or other way round), this is best done only with non critical packages as it doesn't rearrange the file system paths (debian uses /etc/init.d rpms /etc/rc.d/init.d and other such vaugeries) : 5) Can I "downgrade" packages easily if they cause probs? if you can still get your hands on the .deb that was working for you you can force a downgrade. If you stick to stable you'll never have to do this, with unstable maybe once a quarter something will break bad (but hey that's why they call it unstable), testing should be almost on par with stable, but it's a relatively new designation, so I can't say yet (no crisis for me in the month or two I've had a machine tracking it) HTH, -Jon
Re: Considering switching to debian
On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 05:04:15PM -0800, Jim Richardson wrote: > I am considering switching to debian and have a few questions before > I take the plunge. > 1) How "good" is laptop support ? apm, pcmcia, etc Very good. I actually don't have much experience with APM in other distributions, but Debian supports my Sony VAIO as well as Win98 does. Suspend/resume to/from RAM and disk work fine. The pcmcia packages make it easy to switch between networks when moving around (I am regularly on a DHCP wireless LAN, a static IP LAN, and a DHCP LAN, and all works fine). Of course, most of this stuff is distribution independant. A lot of it just depends on the kernel. > 2) I want to use 2.4.x kernel to get access to good usb and iptables > is this stable enough for general use ? Yup. I have switched all my machines to 2.4.x. These machines range from servers to workstations to laptops. The only instability I've yet experienced was on a modified version of 2.4.2 (I added the USAGI project's IPv6 patch, and sometimes experienced hangs when opening an SSH connection to an IPv6 host). > 3) Can I use the stable dist, and add the unstable/testing packages > I want, like latest gnome, without too many problems or is it > either/or? Yes. It's often wise to build them from source, though. They are most likely linked against different (not entirely compatible) versions of stuff like libc. apt-get makes it easy to fetch the source for a package and rebuild it for your system. Unfortunately, support for compile-time dependencies is not yet available in stable versions of apt. That is changing, but it's not ready. So you'll often need to hunt down the necessary packages in order to build a package. Looking at the list of regular binary dependencies will help. > 4) How difficult is it to build deb packages from tarballs? ie > ./configure;make; -> make a deb. Since I am likely to want to > play with code that has no current .deb It's well documented in various places at http://www.debian.org/devel/ > 5) Can I "downgrade" packages easily if they cause probs? > Yes, but apt-get doesn't automate that. You have to fetch the package by hand and install it with dpkg -i. That will smoothly downgrade it for you. Moving to an unfamiliar distribution is always a bit hairy. Some people run out of patence before they're familiar with it. Give it a little while, post questions on this list, read docs, etc, and you'll have a good time. 8^) noah -- ___ | Web: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/ | PGP Public Key: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/mail.html pgp42gtXe4OIb.pgp Description: PGP signature
Considering switching to debian
I am currently using SuSE (6.4 and 7.0 on various machines) but am getting fed up with the name mangling suse performs on packages. For some reason, the package names follow the 8.3 msdos naming convention, as if that wasn't bad enough, the name of the package _inside_ the rpm (where it doesn't matter to the filesystem at all) is _also_ 8,3. Frankly, this sucks. There are some other issues with suse that I won't bore you with, but the crux of the issue is that I am considering switching to debian and have a few questions before I take the plunge. 1) How "good" is laptop support ? apm, pcmcia, etc 2) I want to use 2.4.x kernel to get access to good usb and iptables is this stable enough for general use ? 3) Can I use the stable dist, and add the unstable/testing packages I want, like latest gnome, without too many problems or is it either/or? 4) How difficult is it to build deb packages from tarballs? ie ./configure;make; -> make a deb. Since I am likely to want to play with code that has no current .deb 5) Can I "downgrade" packages easily if they cause probs? That should cover it for now, thanks for your time -- Jim Richardson Anarchist, pagan and proud of it WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.
