- CentOS 5, + Debian Etch

This evening I decided to wipe out CentOS 5 and try Debian
Etch amd64
(final) on my new computer. Installation went without issue,
although
the installer is not graphical. The installer worked, albeit
parts were
a bit confusing. 

Before installing it I removed the Intel 10/100 PCI card
that I got
from Free Geek, then went into the BIOS and enabled the
onboard Realtek
8169 gigabit. With other distros the Realtek was either
ignored or it
would cause a kernel panic, so I had left it disabled. The
first bit of
good news is that Debian Etch is the first distro that not
only found
it but autconfigured it without so much as a hiccup. Yay!

The bad news is that it failed to find the onboard sound.
This is the
first distro that failed to find the sound chip. However, I
have a
guess -- the sound is also Realtek, and the sound and the
gigabit are
the only Realtek items. 

More bad news is that it failed to detect the nVidia GeForce
6100 and
the Viewsonics G90f monitor. Fedora 7 and CentOS both found
them and
autoconfigured them. However, Feisty Beta also failed to
find them.
Maybe it's a Debian v. RPM thing.

I also had to add "noapic acpi=off" to keep the
mouse click from dying
and to make the clock correctly. But I've had to do that
with every
distro so far.

It installed IceWeasel instead of straight Firefox, and the
default
browser is Epiphany. Java works, but no flash out of the
box.
OpenOffice.org is only 2.02, but everything works. I put a
movie in the
drive and Totem popped up and played it fine (but sans
sound).

Now off to fix stuff and play with it. 
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
PLUGlists.pdxlinux.org
http:
//lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

On Tue, 2007-04-17 at 00:09 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> This evening I decided to wipe out CentOS 5 and try
Debian Etch amd64
> (final) on my new computer. Installation went without
issue, although
> the installer is not graphical. The installer worked,
albeit parts were
> a bit confusing. 
> 
> Before installing it I removed the Intel 10/100 PCI
card that I got
> from Free Geek, then went into the BIOS and enabled the
onboard Realtek
> 8169 gigabit. With other distros the Realtek was either
ignored or it
> would cause a kernel panic, so I had left it disabled.
The first bit of
> good news is that Debian Etch is the first distro that
not only found
> it but autconfigured it without so much as a hiccup.
Yay!
> 
> The bad news is that it failed to find the onboard
sound. This is the
> first distro that failed to find the sound chip.
However, I have a
> guess -- the sound is also Realtek, and the sound and
the gigabit are
> the only Realtek items. 

The Debian User list is pretty helpful with issues like
that.  The
subscription page for all official Debian lists (there are
lots of
them!) is here:

http://w
ww.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe

You probably want the plain ol' 'debian-user,' unless you
want to test
out your Catalan, Icelandic, or Ukranian language skills.


> 
> More bad news is that it failed to detect the nVidia
GeForce 6100 and
> the Viewsonics G90f monitor. Fedora 7 and CentOS both
found them and
> autoconfigured them. However, Feisty Beta also failed
to find them.
> Maybe it's a Debian v. RPM thing.

Ditto above.

> 
> I also had to add "noapic acpi=off" to keep
the mouse click from dying
> and to make the clock correctly. But I've had to do
that with every
> distro so far.
> 
> It installed IceWeasel instead of straight Firefox, and
the default
> browser is Epiphany. Java works, but no flash out of
the box.
> OpenOffice.org is only 2.02, but everything works. I
put a movie in the
> drive and Totem popped up and played it fine (but sans
sound).

The officially unofficial repository for all evil
proprietary stuff is
here:

http://www.debian-m
ultimedia.org/

If you're sticking with Etch, you'll want to add the
following to
your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://www.debian-mu
ltimedia.org etch main

That will get you access to flash, the packages you need to
play back
commercial DVDs, w32codecs, and other stuff.

But maybe you knew that already.

IMO, Debian testing is the sweet spot for desktop usage. 
The new
testing repository is "Lenny."  I have been using
Etch for a least the
past year, while it was testing, and experienced almost no
problems.
It's more stable than many distro's releases, tends to have
fewer bugs
and fewer uninstallable packages than Ubuntu's releases.  At
the same
time, it generally stays pretty current, often bordering on
bleeding-edge.  Big packages, like new versions of DEs, will
take a few
months to migrate to testing from Sid (unstable), but most
packages move
from Sid to testing in a matter of days.  The gutsy go ahead
and run
Sid.  Sid, however, is almost guaranteed to have some
breakage once in a
while, so you have to be prepared to deal with that.  From
my POV, Sid
usually acts as a nice buffer for catching and solving the
bigger
problems before they hit testing.  That's not to say testing
is always
bug free, but they tend to be niggly rather than
show-stopping bugs.

But I wouldn't upgrade to testing just yet.  There will
probably be a
period of instabilty as packages that have been held back
(while Debian
was focussed on releasing Etch) flood into unstable and then
into
testing.  I figure on waiting a month or two and monitoring
the mailing
lists to find the appropriate time to make the jump.


-- 
Michael M.  ++  Portland, OR  ++  USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely
under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed,
by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson


_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
PLUGlists.pdxlinux.org
http:
//lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:43:54 -0700
"Michael M." <mcubedslashmail.org> dijo:

> The Debian User list is pretty helpful with issues like
that.  The
> subscription page for all official Debian lists (there
are lots of
> them!) is here:
> 
> http://w
ww.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe
> 
> You probably want the plain ol' 'debian-user,' unless
you want to test
> out your Catalan, Icelandic, or Ukranian language
skills. 

Good idea. Done. I gather there are no forums?

> The officially unofficial repository for all evil
proprietary stuff is
> here:
> 
> http://www.debian-m
ultimedia.org/
> 
> If you're sticking with Etch, you'll want to add the
following to
> your /etc/apt/sources.list:
> 
> deb http://www.debian-mu
ltimedia.org etch main
> 
> That will get you access to flash, the packages you
need to play back
> commercial DVDs, w32codecs, and other stuff.
> 
> But maybe you knew that already.

Having used Ubuntu for some time I am familiar with adding
repositories. I note that Etch does not have System >
Administration >
Software Sources, a handy little GUI tool for managing
repositories
that Edgy has. However, I knew I could do it in Synaptic as
well.
Unfortunately, I need the key and my attempt to retrieve it
with wget
failed with a 404:

wget http://www.debian-mu
ltimedia.org | sudo apt-key add -

But it's not critical. Synaptic lists 17,504 packages, so I
probably
have most stuff already. 

> IMO, Debian testing is the sweet spot for desktop
usage. 

After having fiddled over the past couple of weeks with
various
distros, including several RPM based distros, I think I have
to agree
in general about Debian. Nothing in the RPM world comes
close to the
ease of package management on Debian. I take back all the
kvetches I
voiced in the past about Synaptic. However, I think I'll
stick with
Etch for now. The purpose of the new computer is 1) to give
me an
alternate way to get on the net when I hose my laptop again
(a regular
occurrence) and, 2) to function as a network storage place
for backups.

I'm not ready to commit fully to straight Debian Etch for
the new
computer. I plan to try out Feisty as soon as it is final,
then I'll
settle on something. Maybe I'll just use both as a dual
boot.

Speaking of backups, my laptop has not been seriously backed
up for
some time. All I have is temp backups to my thumb drive. So
this
morning I got NFS working so the new computer can see the
laptop.
(Thanks to William at the Clinic for teaching me how to get
that
going). However, I still need to create the partition for
the backups
on the new computer. There are 232 GB free on each of the
two drives
and I want to create a RAID 1 partition. I opened gparted in
Etch, but
it does not seem to be able to create a RAID. It can see
existing RAID
partitions, and it can create new regular partitions, but
there is no
way to tell it to create the new partition for a RAID. I
searched in
Synaptic on "raid" but nothing showed up that said
it could create a
RAID partition. I could boot to the install DVD and use its
partition
tool, but is there some other tool in Etch that will create
a RAID
partition on unused space?
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
PLUGlists.pdxlinux.org
http:
//lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

On Tue, 2007-04-17 at 10:14 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:43:54 -0700
> "Michael M." <mcubedslashmail.org> dijo:
> 
> > The Debian User list is pretty helpful with issues
like that.  The
> > subscription page for all official Debian lists
(there are lots of
> > them!) is here:
> > 
> > http://w
ww.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe
> > 
> > You probably want the plain ol' 'debian-user,'
unless you want to test
> > out your Catalan, Icelandic, or Ukranian language
skills. 
> 
> Good idea. Done. I gather there are no forums?

There are some around, but I'm not sure if any of them are
sponsored by
Debian.  I'm not partial to web forums myself, I much prefer
mailing
lists and usenet.  (Note that all the Debian mailing lists
can be
accessed via gmane if you prefer nntp to email; also, I
think you can
get to them via Google Groups.)  Debian is definitely
mailing-list
centric.

Here are some Debian-specific rss feeds I'm subbed to, that
I find
helpful:

http://www.debianadmin.co
m/
http://debaday.debian.net/

http://www.debi
an-administration.org/
http://planet.debian.org/

Another good feed, not Debian-specific, but often has
excellent Debian
(and Ubuntu) and general Linux content:

http://linux
help.blogspot.com/index.html

And some helpful websites:

http://www.debianhelp.org/

http://www.debi
anhelp.co.uk/index.php
http://new
biedoc.berlios.de/wiki/Main_Page

And the official wiki:
http://wiki.debian.o
rg/FrontPage


> > The officially unofficial repository for all evil
proprietary stuff is
> > here:
> > 
> > http://www.debian-m
ultimedia.org/
> > 
> > If you're sticking with Etch, you'll want to add
the following to
> > your /etc/apt/sources.list:
> > 
> > deb http://www.debian-mu
ltimedia.org etch main
> > 
> > That will get you access to flash, the packages
you need to play back
> > commercial DVDs, w32codecs, and other stuff.
> > 
> > But maybe you knew that already.
> 
> Having used Ubuntu for some time I am familiar with
adding
> repositories. I note that Etch does not have System
> Administration >
> Software Sources, a handy little GUI tool for managing
repositories
> that Edgy has. However, I knew I could do it in
Synaptic as well.
> Unfortunately, I need the key and my attempt to
retrieve it with wget
> failed with a 404:
> 
> wget http://www.debian-mu
ltimedia.org | sudo apt-key add -
> 
> But it's not critical. Synaptic lists 17,504 packages,
so I probably
> have most stuff already. 


I've only ever edited my /etc/apt/sources.list by hand.  I'm
not sure
why the apt-key failed.  There used to be explicit
instructions on how
to install the GPG key on the debian-multimedia website (in
the [1]
FAQ), but now all it says is:

   apt GPG key : 
   Install the debian-multimedia-keyring package.

So maybe that's all you need to do.

I'm a very big fan of aptitude (vs. synaptic or apt-get
& related).  It
does everything, is copiously documented, and works with or
without X
running.  Maybe I'm overly cautious, but I prefer doing the
update/upgrade thing without X running.  Sometimes there
will be various
library upgrades that will end up requiring a restart of X
anyway or
bork things up if you don't, so I just got in the habit of
doing it from
a virtual terminal.  Aptitude's ncurses interface is as easy
to use as a
GUI interface once you play with it a bit.


> > IMO, Debian testing is the sweet spot for desktop
usage. 
> 
> After having fiddled over the past couple of weeks with
various
> distros, including several RPM based distros, I think I
have to agree
> in general about Debian. Nothing in the RPM world comes
close to the
> ease of package management on Debian. I take back all
the kvetches I
> voiced in the past about Synaptic. However, I think
I'll stick with
> Etch for now. The purpose of the new computer is 1) to
give me an
> alternate way to get on the net when I hose my laptop
again (a regular
> occurrence) and, 2) to function as a network storage
place for backups.
> 
> I'm not ready to commit fully to straight Debian Etch
for the new
> computer. I plan to try out Feisty as soon as it is
final, then I'll
> settle on something. Maybe I'll just use both as a dual
boot.


Yeah, I've come to the conclusion that for me it's worth
setting aside
some gigabytes for something I *know* will work.  Gives me
peace of
mind.  If all else fails, I can always boot into Etch.  And
another
route to check out, as an alternative to upgrading to
testing, is
backports:

http://www
.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

It's pretty useless right now because Etch was just
released, but it'll
get back up to speed soon enough.  It's a painless way to
get new
versions of popular packages into Etch.


> Speaking of backups, my laptop has not been seriously
backed up for
> some time. All I have is temp backups to my thumb
drive. So this
> morning I got NFS working so the new computer can see
the laptop.
> (Thanks to William at the Clinic for teaching me how to
get that
> going). However, I still need to create the partition
for the backups
> on the new computer. There are 232 GB free on each of
the two drives
> and I want to create a RAID 1 partition. I opened
gparted in Etch, but
> it does not seem to be able to create a RAID. It can
see existing RAID
> partitions, and it can create new regular partitions,
but there is no
> way to tell it to create the new partition for a RAID.
I searched in
> Synaptic on "raid" but nothing showed up that
said it could create a
> RAID partition. I could boot to the install DVD and use
its partition
> tool, but is there some other tool in Etch that will
create a RAID
> partition on unused space?


Don't use RAID here.  Search the mailing list archives, or
ask on the
list.

[1] http://www.
debian-multimedia.org/faq.html

-- 
Michael M.  ++  Portland, OR  ++  USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely
under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed,
by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson


_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
PLUGlists.pdxlinux.org
http:
//lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug