[Preston] debian newbie

[Jon Hill]

I have Debian up and running now and the apt system looks great.
I am probablly going to use the stable version as it is on my critical servers 
but would like to play around with a build of apache and php  4.3.3 / mysql 4 
from source on a dev server. Any tips on combining Debian maintained packages 
with build from source and still mainting integrity and security.

Jon

On Tuesday 09 December 2003 10:41, Andrew King wrote:
> Hi there!
>
> Things that spring to mind:
>
> - The default prompt's different, so you might want to change the value
> of $PS1 in your login scripts.  (Just one of those things that puts you
> off if you don't happen to know about it.)
> - Package Management - is different, as you'll probably know, but worth
> learning.  See my notes on APT at the end.
> - KDE2 /always/ seems to install broken in at least Debian 3.0r0.  Does
> anyone else find this?  When it's starting, it just crashes on
> "Initiailising Perhipherals", or something like that.  To fix it, remove
> any occurence of " +kcminit" from /etc/kde2/kde2.sh.  I've had this on
> lots of different computers, and really dunno how/why it happened or got
> into 3.0r0 stable.  Weird.
> - Debian doesn't as yet come with any graphical install.  Text is nice
> and simple though :)  The Debian 3.0r0 install (not the latest version,
> but the one I've got) seems to ask a few really random questions too
> about mime types and stuff.  BTW, when you boot off the CD, type "bf24"
> to install a 2.4 kernel, rather than the default 2.2 kernel.  (This
> might have been fixed after 3.0r0).
> - Red Hat ships with Sendmail, Debian ships with Exim.  Carl Inglis (I
> think Carl's still around on the list somewhere) first suggested I have
> a look at Exim, and after using both, Exim definitely seems easier!
> Everything's done in /etc/exim/exim.conf, and there's also an
> "eximconfig" utility to help avoid having to edit the exim.conf file.
> - If you find that some of your devices weren't detected, such as
> netcards or sound cards, and think it might be down to kernel modules,
> try first running 'modconf' as root.  It's a TUI that gives you a list
> of all available kernel modules and lets you insert/remove them there
> and then.  That often solves any such problems.
> - You might be used to kudzu under Red Hat to sort out hardware
> detection for you.  Debian doesn't install it by default, but it's
> available in the archives with apt-get install kudzu.
> - I /think/ the Debian forums, chatrooms, etc, are all known as being
> fairly friendly towards ppl rather than just waiting to find any excuse
> they can to bite your head off.
>
> _APT Notes (hopefully devoid of HTML):_
>
>
>     Basic Use
>
> Install a piece of software named /program/, including all of it's
> dependencies:
>
> apt-get install program
>
> Remove /program/, and possibly things that depend on it:
>
> apt-get remove program
>
> Search to see if /software/ is available in the Debian archives:
>
> apt-cache search software
>
> Update your copy (catalogue) of the Debian archives:
>
> apt-get update
>
> Update packages installed on your system to the versions available in
> the Debian archives:
>
> apt-get upgrade
>
> Add the list of available packages on a Debian CD-ROM to your catalogue:
>
> apt-cdrom add
>
> Install a .deb package:
>
> dpkg -i file.deb
>
> List all packages installed on system:
>
> dpkg -l
>
> Give a count of how many packages are installed on the system:
>
> dpkg -l | wc
>
> Determine if any MySQL packages are installed on the system:
>
> dpkg -l | grep -i mysql
>
> Delete all downloaded .deb files stored on the system (in
> /var/cache/apt/archives IIRC):
>
> apt-get clean
>
> Re-run any questions asked by a package during install:
>
> dpkg-reconfigure package
>
> Re-run the setup for XFree86:
>
> dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
>
> Find out the dependencies for a package:
>
> apt-cache depends package
>
> Find out information about a package:
>
> apt-cache show package
>
> Find out more information about a package:
>
> apt-cache showpkg package
>
> Find out what package a particular file belongs to:
>
> dpkg -S filename
>
> or:
>
> apt-file search filename
>
>
>     Setting up APT
>
> Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list. Here's a sample file which, after
> running apt-get update, should cause the system to know how to retrieve
> packages stored in stable and testing on the primary UK mirror. deb
> ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main
>
> deb-src ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main
>
> deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian testing main
> deb-src ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian testing main
>
> #deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable main
> #deb-src ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable main
>
> deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main
>
>
>     Source Packages
>
> Download the source for a package:
>
> apt-get source package
>
> Download and build a source package:
>
> apt-get -b source package
>
> Install all (binary) packages required to build a particular source
> package:
>
> apt-get build-dep package
>
> Build a source package:
>
> dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
>
> (Run apt-get install fakeroot if fakeroot isn't found. Run this command
> inside the subdirectory created by apt-get source package.)
>
>
>     More Info
>
> See the Debian APT HOWTO <http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto>,
> and various man pages.
>
> See /usr/share/doc/<packagename> There should always be /something/ there.
>
> Jon Hill wrote:
> >Hi All
> >
> >I am strongly considering making the switch from RedHat to Debian for my
> >company servers. Could someone give me any tips and advice on some of the
> >major differences to be aware of. My usual server setup on RedHat has made
> >use of the RedHat network for updates but with a custom web environment
> > build from source of Apache, php, mod_perl, openssl, mod_ssl. I have also
> > often used Bastille for server 'hardening' but I believe that is a RedHat
> > / Mandrake product, is there something similar on Debian worth looking
> > at. I am just interested in a general discussion really.
> >
> >Jon
> >
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>
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