[Preston] A new hope for Debian wannabees?

[Matthew T. Atkinson]

Hi there,

Thanks for your message.  I may well try that when I have time as I really
would like to use Debian.  I just found this graphical installer
http://hackers.progeny.com/pgi/ and was wondering about using that as it is
more official than the Knoppix one.

Also, I was wondering is there any way to install sid from scratch (i.e.
without going through woody/knoppix first)?  I really need GNOME2 (as when
Gnopernicus comes out I'll have to use it) and the latest version of
Evolution, and various libraries would be nice too.

Thanks again for your tips, I will certainly carry out those steps anyway as
I should have a backup of such important info anyway!

bye just now,


matthew

P.S. Just read your other e-mail about the emu10k1 - thanks for the info on
that too.  I think I am getting close to having enough courage to try
Debian.  Its great here (lufbra uni) as we have 10Mbit network connections
to the net, so I really have no excuse :)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guy" <guy@remember-tomorrow.co.uk>
To: <preston@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Preston] A new hope for Debian wannabees?


> IMHO Debian is not difficult to use at all, (hell, I can do it!) in fact
the
> apt system for package management makes life totally simple. What tends to
> put people off is:
> 1) The text based installer.
> 2) The lower emphasis on auto-detection of hardware.
> BUT:
> If you have already got an 'easy install' version of Linux up and running
you
> get practically all the information you need from sniffing around the
config
> files.
>
> What I would do is this:
> - get a clean floppy disk.
>
> - save a copy of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (providing X windows version 4 is
> working OK)
> cp /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 > /floppy/XF86Config-4
> (or wherever the floppy is mounted). When you come to configure X you have
> all the monitor and graphics card info. (maybe print this file out)
>
> - create a list of the modules used by the kernel as a text file:
> /sbin/lsmod > /floppy/modules.txt
> With this you can get non-detected hardware to work again by supplying the
> correct modules again.
>
> - create a list of the pci bus connections:
> /sbin/lspci -v > /floppy/pci_list.txt
> this is useful for checking for IRQ conflicts.
>
> BTW, the standard install of Debian 3.0 uses a 2.2.20 kernel, so it has
less
> support for USB devices. It can easily (using APT) be upgraded to a 2.4.x
> kernel.
> Do not be intimidated by the text based installation, just answer 'Y' to
> anything you are not sure about. Most settings can be overridden at a
later
> date, anyway.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Guy