Re: THANKS Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread Greg Folkert
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 08:45, John Fleming wrote:
> > That should be right. Up to my laptop which I installed fresh from the
> > new installer
> 
> -THANK YOU- to all that have replied to this thread!  For my originally
> stated purposes, I am going to try to go with Debian stable.  I already have
> the Knoppix version of Sid on my laptop, so I can continue to learn with
> that too.  Several of you have mentioned the "new installer".  Can you
> expand on that?  IOW, where is it?  Is it included with, say, the stable
> 30r2 CD set?  It sounds like I should use it, but something about the posts
> left me wondering if it's included with all CD sets or if it needs to be
> specifically obtained from one of the branches.  - John

http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/testing/sarge_d-i/i386/current/

That is the new "D-I" or Debian Installer. Still in dev with the
upcoming Sarge release. Right now they are @ post Test Candidate 1
(released May 30) and working up the fixings for TC2.

Things are progressing VERY VERY well. Still issues, are being resolved
in a very timely manner and wow I'd like to see M$ develop at this pace.


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part


Re: THANKS Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread Bengt Thuree
John Fleming wrote:
That should be right. Up to my laptop which I installed fresh from the
new installer

-THANK YOU- to all that have replied to this thread!  For my originally
stated purposes, I am going to try to go with Debian stable.  I already have
the Knoppix version of Sid on my laptop, so I can continue to learn with
that too.  Several of you have mentioned the "new installer".  Can you
expand on that?  IOW, where is it?  Is it included with, say, the stable
30r2 CD set?  It sounds like I should use it, but something about the posts
left me wondering if it's included with all CD sets or if it needs to be
specifically obtained from one of the branches.  - John

http://www.nl.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: THANKS Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread Mike Chandler
On Wednesday 09 June 2004 06:05 am, Adam Aube wrote:
> John Fleming wrote:
> > Several of you have mentioned the "new installer".  Can you
> > expand on that?  IOW, where is it?
>
> www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
>
> > Is it included with, say, the stable 30r2 CD set?
>
> No. It is the new installer that will be used with Sarge (the upcoming
> stable release) and future releases. Currently it must be downloaded
> separately.
>
> Adam

AND it's included in the testing jigdo download images. This is (my) preferred 
way of installing. The images are updated weekly, so you'll be able to get 
the latest and greatest:
http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/index.en-gb.html#which


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: THANKS Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread Adam Aube
John Fleming wrote:

> Several of you have mentioned the "new installer".  Can you 
> expand on that?  IOW, where is it?

www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

> Is it included with, say, the stable 30r2 CD set?

No. It is the new installer that will be used with Sarge (the upcoming
stable release) and future releases. Currently it must be downloaded
separately.

Adam


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



THANKS Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread John Fleming
> That should be right. Up to my laptop which I installed fresh from the
> new installer

-THANK YOU- to all that have replied to this thread!  For my originally
stated purposes, I am going to try to go with Debian stable.  I already have
the Knoppix version of Sid on my laptop, so I can continue to learn with
that too.  Several of you have mentioned the "new installer".  Can you
expand on that?  IOW, where is it?  Is it included with, say, the stable
30r2 CD set?  It sounds like I should use it, but something about the posts
left me wondering if it's included with all CD sets or if it needs to be
specifically obtained from one of the branches.  - John



-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-09 Thread Micha Feigin
On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 10:10:18PM -0500, John Fleming wrote:
> Consider me a newbie, but with enough experience to be dangerous.  I started
> learning Linux with RH8.0 about a year ago.  I later installed Fedora Core 1
> and have upgraded to FC2, but I'm not happy with the upgrade process (they
> recommend a fresh install of each upgrade, and of course, Fedora has a
> relatively frequent planned upgrade cycle).  For my intended uses, I don't
> care about support for the latest whiz-bang USB devices, cameras,
> Centrino/ProWireless etc - I just want easy to install and maintain basic
> server functions with decent security.  With my FC2 server (Dell 600SC), I
> have these things going:  pop and imap mail, Squirrelmail, Mailman,
> SpamAssassin, Webmin, and Apache with several virtual hosts.
> 

Most if not all of these should be easy with debian.

> I've toyed with Debian and Knoppix a bit, but haven't tried to fully
> implement the above services yet and have a few questions.
> 
> 1.  It sounds like Sid is actually pretty stable, I'm guessing especially
> for the basic mail and webserving things I use.  Would you recommend I go
> with Sid, or with testing or stable?
> 

Personally, sid for the desktop and stable for most dedicated servers
(if its a combination server/workstation I would also go with sid).

> 2.  It seems that installing from the Knoppix CD might be a bit easier for a

Knoppix is easier for the initial startup but may cause some problems
later on due to some settings differences. The new installer is quite
easy to use, and apart from possible hardship with X I would recommend
installing using the new installer (you could take the XF86Config-4
file from knoppix to save you some time).

> newbie?  I've never tried something like woody 3.0r2 on new technology -

Installing woody 3.0r2 can be a bit more daunting, especially when
trying to get X to work.

> only on an older limited computer, and I had problems with NIC being
> recognized and others.  I have installed Sid using the Knoppix CD on my Dell
> laptop after first partitioning with Partition Magic and have a dual boot
> going with Sid and that other OS.  I have done some preliminary
> experimenting using apt-get to install Squirrelmail and Webmin, tinkering
> with the sources list and so forth, so I'm a little familiar with how that
> works.
> 
> 3.  If I start with the Knoppix CD, I really do end up with the same Debian
> Sid distro as if I started with the unstable CDs themselves?
> 

Not exactly like I said before, there are some settings differences and
its a testing/unstable mix with some outside packages.

> 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if I use Sid and keep it
> updated, I should never have to do a complete reinstall of the OS as
> recommended for Fedora upgrades.  And if I use the stable version, I can do
> an apt-get dist upgrade and upgrade to the new version(s) as available
> without a complete reinstall, right?
> 

That should be right. Up to my laptop which I installed fresh from the
new installer I had a system which was upgraded from debian version 1.3
(bo) up to sid (what version is that now?) over the course of about 6
years, three hard disks (or was it four?) and two computers without
re-installations. Try claiming that with any other system ;-)

> 5.  I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical HDDs.  Is there
> an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it in the Knoppix
> HD install) to setup RAID?  If not, any recs on the easiest way to get RAID
> 1 going after the initial installation?
> 
> Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> sysadmin by trade?  Thanks a bunch for your time!
> -John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
>  
>  +++
>  This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System
>  at the Tel-Aviv University CC.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-08 Thread Bengt Thuree
Lucas Albers wrote:

Read my amazingly detailed and concise writeup on how to convert to a raid
system. http://rootraiddoc.alioth.debian.org.

Lucas:
I just wanted to thank you for a very detailed and extremly helpful raid 
howto document. It helped me install raid in no time on my system.

Thanks
/Bengt
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-08 Thread Lucas Albers

Simon Kitching said:
> Personally I would recommend the "testing" distribution. Sid/unstable
> really can be unstable at times. I upgraded last week and lost all

> Stable is really old at the moment - though hopefully a new release will
> be out within a few months. It's really more appropriate to servers than
> desktop systems.

Just do stable/testing with apt-pinning. I use that for my public services
and testing for items I need such as spamassassin, eg.

> Not quite, according to the reports I've seen. Yes, you can point a
> Knoppix installation at standard debian repositories to get updates. But
> apparently Knoppix sets up some of the system scripts etc. differently
> from debian so there can be surprises (unexpected breakage) later on.
> NB: all this is just hearsay.
My attempts to go from knoppix to debian and have a normal debian install
all puked. I use the bonzai linux installer to install a stock stable
debian system with automatic hardware detection.
I used testing on systems that need the hardware support.
I've NEVER used X on ANY debian system, I only use them for servers.
So I have no idea what it does for x/sound/usb detection, nor do I care.

>> 5.  I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical HDDs.  Is
>> there
>> an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it in the
>> Knoppix

Read my amazingly detailed and concise writeup on how to convert to a raid
system. http://rootraiddoc.alioth.debian.org.

I've been very happy with the upgradability of debian systems, it has
spared me a lot of work on maintaining various computataional clusters.
You'd have to be stupid to use FC1 or FC2 on a server.
Google for the reasons.
-- 
--Luke CS Sysadmin, Montana State University-Bozeman


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-08 Thread Kent West
Simon Kitching wrote:
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 15:10, John Fleming wrote:
 

Would you recommend I go with Sid, or with testing or stable?
   

Personally I would recommend the "testing" distribution. Sid/unstable
really can be unstable at times.

Which is fine advice, but be aware that when a problem does crop up in 
Testing, it's likely to stay there much longer than it will in the 
ever-changing Sid version, as it typically takes two weeks or more to 
filter from Sid to Testing.

--
Kent
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



RE: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-08 Thread Croy, Nathan
> 5.  I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical 
> HDDs.  Is there
> an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it 
> in the Knoppix
> HD install) to setup RAID?  If not, any recs on the easiest 
> way to get RAID
> 1 going after the initial installation?

As this seems to be the only question left untouched, I'll give it a whirl.
There is no option for raid at install time that I am aware of, though I
haven't tried the new installer.  I'll have to set my partition types to
RAID from the installer partitioner and see if it'll play nice :).


First, of course, I'd recommend the RAID-HOWTO.  And when it suggests you
compile your own kernel with RAID-1 compiled in, I would do as it says.  The
kernel will automatically detect the raid partitions at boot time without
having to worry with setting up the initrrd to preload the raid modules
before booting the rest of the system.  Of course if you are not mirroring
your root (/) partition, you won't have to worry about that, and you can
just follow the basics in the HOWTO.

There are two tools for managing raids: raidtools2 and mdadm.  IIRC, the
HOWTO mostly discusses raidtools, but does mention mdadm.  Personally, I
settled on mdadm for its ease of scripting.

In a nutshell, if you ARE using initrd and mirroring your root partition,
you'll have to preform the following:
1. Create identical partitions on each disk and set the type to Linus Raid
Autodetect (Type:fd)
2. Create the filesystems on the 2nd disk and copy all the data over.
3. Create an /etc/fstab appropriate for RAID (i.e. /dev/md1) on the 2nd
disk.
4. Create a proper lilo.conf on the 2nd disk. (I used
raid-extra-boot=/dev/sda,/dev/sdb)
5. Create an initrd image (mkinitrd).
   I used mdadm -Db /dev/md? >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf to create a conf file
to be used in the initrd.
   I put /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf in /etc/mkinitrd/files.
   And I made sure "/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1" was appended to line in
${INITRDDIR}/script
   Finally I ran mkinitrd -k  -r /dev/md1 -o /mnt/boot/initrd.img-md
6. lilo -r /mnt  (where I had my 2nd disks root partition mounted)

At this point I rebooted.  This put me running on the 2nd disk which was a
degraded RAID-1.  I added the 1st disk by: mdadm -a /dev/md1 /dev/sda1

Finally, I rebuilt the initrd and reran lilo:
mkinitrd -k -r /dev/md1 -o /boot/initrd.img-md
lilo

>From there I watched the partitions resynch by looking at /proc/mdstat

NOTE: I did upgrade lilo to 22.5.8. The version in stable didn't seem to
play nice with the raid-extra-boot option. However, it did seem to work with
`lilo -b /dev/sda; lilo -b /dev/sdb` IFF I waited for the drives to
completely resynch before issueing the mkinitrd/lilo combination at the end.

Also NOTE, that some tools expect to find a raidtools style config file and
associated tools.  Mondo rescue seems to be one of these, though I haven't
looked too deeply into it.

This is just an overview/summary of what I did there was a LOT of reading
and trial and error that went on before I got it working (of course I do
tend to be stubbborn and try the least likely to work option first for the
sake of proving that it won't work that way).  I actually wrote scripts to
automate all this.  Pehaps later today I'll try to dig them up and post.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-08 Thread David Baron
Yes, I expect to be roundly flamed for this but 
Try a hd-install off the Knoppix CD. This will start you off with a 
mostly-working if oddball Debian installation. Fonts will not look ugly as 
sin. You will have a solid and pleasant start.

After that, configure whatever else needs be done. This list is most helpful 
here as are google searches, etc.

Later on, when more confortable with dealing with this stuff, upgrade to SID.

On Tuesday 08 June 2004 06:48, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
wrote:
> It takes about a month of solid work to get all your hardware and eye
> candy working in Sid.  Use Knoppix LiveCD detect all your hardware, and
> print out what drivers are detected and the output of lspci and stuff.
>
> It takes about 15-20 clean "do-overs" before you'll get it all working
> "cleanly."
>
> Fonts will be ugly as sin at first, and you'll have to go right back to
> twm and xterm, get those fonts working, then get old gtk/xft1 apps fonts
> working well.  The newest GTK2 apps will have pretty anti aliasing fonts
> right from the get go.
>
> It's hard but worth it.



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-07 Thread Peter Bonucci
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Monday 07 June 2004 8:26 pm, William Ballard wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 10:10:18PM -0500, John Fleming wrote:
> > Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> > sysadmin by trade?  Thanks a bunch for your time!
>
> It takes about a month of solid work to get all your hardware and eye
> candy working in Sid.  Use Knoppix LiveCD detect all your hardware, and
> print out what drivers are detected and the output of lspci and stuff.
>
> It takes about 15-20 clean "do-overs" before you'll get it all working
> "cleanly."
[snip]
> It's hard but worth it.

It is not *that* hard.  If you want to use Knoppix, install Knoppix, then 
upgrade to unstable.  The instructions are on knoppix.net.  It might take you 
twice to get it right.

In the recent version of Knoppix, they repackaged some common packages.  You 
will probably want to remove their custom packages and download the standard 
packages.

Right now is probably a good time to do it.  I don't think anything in Knoppix 
is currently broken in unstable.

Peter A. Bonucci
- -- 
Key ID: 8CF1FE08 Key available at www.keyserver.net or pgp.mit.edu
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAxT53dD+qaozx/ggRAgvVAJ49vUnauBf9kBeZqcOYNljnM+IlkgCfSMng
C97VuZKSMsh4oLQof2cPK5c=
=BbC6
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-07 Thread Adam Aube
John Fleming wrote:

> 1.  It sounds like Sid is actually pretty stable, I'm guessing especially
> for the basic mail and webserving things I use.  Would you recommend I go
> with Sid, or with testing or stable?

Overall, Sid is rather stable. However, every thread on this topic I have
seen in the last six months had the same answer: unless its a personal
server, run Stable.

Unstable is in a constant state of flux, and with that flux comes a much
higher chance of something being broken. These problems do get sorted out
eventually, but you really don't want to have a production server suddenly
down for a few days due to a broken package.

> 2. It seems that installing from the Knoppix CD might be a bit easier for
> a newbie?

Perhaps. At the same time, though it lacks the nice GUI of other installers,
the Woody installer isn't very difficult to use. You could also use the new
Debian Installer, which I can say from experience is much improved over the
installer used in Woody.

> I've never tried something like woody 3.0r2 on new technology - 
> only on an older limited computer, and I had problems with NIC being
> recognized and others.

I've run into the same problem. The general solution is to build a custom
kernel with newer 2.4 kernel sources.

> 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if I use Sid and keep
> it updated, I should never have to do a complete reinstall of the OS as
> recommended for Fedora upgrades.  And if I use the stable version, I can
> do an apt-get dist upgrade and upgrade to the new version(s) as available
> without a complete reinstall, right?

Correct.

> Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> sysadmin by trade?  Thanks a bunch for your time!

Don't give up - instead, view each challenge as a valuable learning
experience. One of the benfits of an OS that doesn't try to do everything
for you (besides not getting in the way) is that it forces you to
understand it better.

That knowledge is very handy in the event something goes wrong.

As for those questions I didn't answer (because I felt I lacked sufficient
knowledge to be helpful), try Google and the list archives - odds are they
have been previously discussed and answered somewhere.

Adam


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-07 Thread Kent West
John Fleming wrote:
 With my FC2 server (Dell 600SC), I have these things going: pop and
 imap mail, Squirrelmail, Mailman, SpamAssassin, Webmin, and Apache
 with several virtual hosts.
 I've toyed with Debian and Knoppix a bit, but haven't tried to fully
 implement the above services yet and have a few questions.
 1. It sounds like Sid is actually pretty stable, I'm guessing
 especially for the basic mail and webserving things I use. Would you
 recommend I go with Sid, or with testing or stable?
It's usually recommended to have servers on Stable. The "unstable" in 
Sid doesn't refer to the system that runs Sid, or even the individual 
packages so much, but rather to the every-changing nature of the 
available packages. Today you might have Foo version 1.2 and tomorrow it 
might be version 1.25 and the next day it might be version 1.7. If you 
setup a box with Sid and get everything working the way you like, you 
can run fine for years without any problems, except if one of the 
packages has a bug/vulnerability. Then of course you'd want to upgrade 
that package, but if you upgrade Sid, you might wind up upgrading half 
your system, and what will that do to your perfectly tuned box? Stable 
has a special repository of security patches which is designed to keep 
Stable stable with the ability to patch; Testing and Sid do not.

So if you need 24x7 uptime on your server, Stable. If it's just 
something you're tinkering with and want newer packages and can live 
with an occasional week-long brokenness is some package or other pretty 
often, then Sid.

With Stable, you can also use Backports to get newer versions of 
software, but I've never tried that and can't recommend it one way or 
the other.


 2. It seems that installing from the Knoppix CD might be a bit
 easier for a newbie? I've never tried something like woody 3.0r2 on
 new technology - only on an older limited computer, and I had
 problems with NIC being recognized and others. I have installed Sid
 using the Knoppix CD on my Dell laptop after first partitioning with
 Partition Magic and have a dual boot going with Sid and that other
 OS. I have done some preliminary experimenting using apt-get to
 install Squirrelmail and Webmin, tinkering with the sources list and
 so forth, so I'm a little familiar with how that works.
Installing from Knoppix is easier generally (provided you're on x86 
hardware; installing on Sparc or PowerPC, etc, of course eliminates this 
option). However, there are two disadvantages to this:

1) Last I tried, Knoppix wanted to install everything into one 2GB or 
larger partition. I like to have separate partitions for /, /usr/, 
/usr/local/, /var/, /home/, and /tmp. To accomplish this on a Knoppix 
install means lots of partitioning "magic" after the install. Nasty.

2) You wind up with a machine that is a mix of Stable, Testing, and 
Unstable, along with other 3rd-party repositories. Upgrading might get 
pretty nasty in that situation.


 3. If I start with the Knoppix CD, I really do end up with the same
 Debian Sid distro as if I started with the unstable CDs themselves?
No. See Disadvantage #2 above.
 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if I use Sid and
 keep it updated, I should never have to do a complete reinstall of
 the OS as recommended for Fedora upgrades. And if I use the stable
 version, I can do an apt-get dist upgrade and upgrade to the new
 version(s) as available without a complete reinstall, right?
I believe a smooth upgrade is only guaranteed from one version of Stable 
to the next. However, lots of folks here upgrade Unstable everyday. Of 
course, lots of folks run into broken-ness everyday also. If you can't 
handle glitches, stick with Stable. (Most of the glitches clear up on 
their own (well, by the Developer's efforts, actually), but sometimes 
you have to actually fix the problem, although this list and/or Google 
and/or other resources will generally provide the Howto on the fix by 
the time you decide you'll have to fix it yourself. But not always.)


 5. I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical HDDs. Is
 there an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it in
 the Knoppix HD install) to setup RAID? If not, any recs on the
 easiest way to get RAID 1 going after the initial installation?
Never done RAID; can't speak on it.
 Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not
 a sysadmin by trade? Thanks a bunch for your time! -John
If you need 24x7 reliability; Stable. (Usually for servers.)
If you can stand periods of broken-ness, and want newer software, Sid. 
(Usually for workstations -- still more reliable than Windows workstations.)

--
Kent
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-07 Thread Simon Kitching
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 15:10, John Fleming wrote:
> Consider me a newbie, but with enough experience to be dangerous.  I started
> learning Linux with RH8.0 about a year ago.  I later installed Fedora Core 1
> and have upgraded to FC2, but I'm not happy with the upgrade process (they
> recommend a fresh install of each upgrade, and of course, Fedora has a
> relatively frequent planned upgrade cycle).  For my intended uses, I don't
> care about support for the latest whiz-bang USB devices, cameras,
> Centrino/ProWireless etc - I just want easy to install and maintain basic
> server functions with decent security.  With my FC2 server (Dell 600SC), I
> have these things going:  pop and imap mail, Squirrelmail, Mailman,
> SpamAssassin, Webmin, and Apache with several virtual hosts.

I'm fairly new to Debian myself (but with experience with commercial
unix flavours and other linux distros) so probably know where you're
coming from.

> 
> I've toyed with Debian and Knoppix a bit, but haven't tried to fully
> implement the above services yet and have a few questions.
> 
> 1.  It sounds like Sid is actually pretty stable, I'm guessing especially
> for the basic mail and webserving things I use.  Would you recommend I go
> with Sid, or with testing or stable?

Personally I would recommend the "testing" distribution. Sid/unstable
really can be unstable at times. I upgraded last week and lost all
network connectivity for a while. Others have reported losing all
graphics, etc. Unless you're fairly happy poking around in config files
from a console the unstable distribution can be nasty.

I ran testing for several months, though, and had only the occasional
minor inconvenience in return for access to software *reasonably close*
to the latest releases.

Stable is really old at the moment - though hopefully a new release will
be out within a few months. It's really more appropriate to servers than
desktop systems.

> 
> 2.  It seems that installing from the Knoppix CD might be a bit easier for a
> newbie?  I've never tried something like woody 3.0r2 on new technology -
> only on an older limited computer, and I had problems with NIC being
> recognized and others.  I have installed Sid using the Knoppix CD on my Dell
> laptop after first partitioning with Partition Magic and have a dual boot
> going with Sid and that other OS.  I have done some preliminary
> experimenting using apt-get to install Squirrelmail and Webmin, tinkering
> with the sources list and so forth, so I'm a little familiar with how that
> works.

Lots of work has gone into a new debian installer over the last year or
so. It is at "beta 3" or similar at the moment. I used it to install my
current system and found it pretty good; it's not as friendly as
RedHat's Anaconda installer but from what you describe of your
background I think you would be comfortable with it. BTW, I'm not
criticising the new debian-installer by comparing to anaconda; there are
lots of things it can do that anaconda cannot.

A lot of work has been done on auto-detection of hardware & peripherals,
so you might be pleasantly surprised.

> 3.  If I start with the Knoppix CD, I really do end up with the same Debian
> Sid distro as if I started with the unstable CDs themselves?

Not quite, according to the reports I've seen. Yes, you can point a
Knoppix installation at standard debian repositories to get updates. But
apparently Knoppix sets up some of the system scripts etc. differently
from debian so there can be surprises (unexpected breakage) later on.
NB: all this is just hearsay.

> 
> 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if I use Sid and keep it
> updated, I should never have to do a complete reinstall of the OS as
> recommended for Fedora upgrades.  And if I use the stable version, I can do
> an apt-get dist upgrade and upgrade to the new version(s) as available
> without a complete reinstall, right?

I believe this is the case no matter whether you run stable, testing or
unstable. Running dist-upgrade just pulls down the appropriate files.
I've not been using Debian long enough to go through a major release
upgrade yet, but I've heard only good things about the process.

> 
> 5.  I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical HDDs.  Is there
> an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it in the Knoppix
> HD install) to setup RAID?  If not, any recs on the easiest way to get RAID
> 1 going after the initial installation?

No idea.

> 
> Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> sysadmin by trade?  Thanks a bunch for your time!

I have used RedHat8 and 9, Mandrake9 and 9.1, and debian. 

My early experiences of debian never got past the amazingly complex
installation process. However using the new debian installer was quite
reasonable and I am now sold on debian.

Cheers,

Simon




-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: Possible convert to Debian

2004-06-07 Thread William Ballard
On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 10:10:18PM -0500, John Fleming wrote:
> Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> sysadmin by trade?  Thanks a bunch for your time!

It takes about a month of solid work to get all your hardware and eye 
candy working in Sid.  Use Knoppix LiveCD detect all your hardware, and 
print out what drivers are detected and the output of lspci and stuff.

It takes about 15-20 clean "do-overs" before you'll get it all working 
"cleanly."

Fonts will be ugly as sin at first, and you'll have to go right back to 
twm and xterm, get those fonts working, then get old gtk/xft1 apps fonts 
working well.  The newest GTK2 apps will have pretty anti aliasing fonts 
right from the get go.

It's hard but worth it.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]