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The Well-Tempered Debian Desktop
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Dec 25, 2006 09:37 AM
from the warms-the-cockles dept.
from the warms-the-cockles dept.
An anonymous reader writes "What happens when the editor of a popular Linux website attempts to install a Debian Etch desktop on an old ThinkPad? How does it turn out? Surprisingly well! The article comprises an entertaining account of the entire process, complete with lots of informative screenshots, from downloading the net-install to tangling with Wi-Fi and modem PCMCIA cards as the last step — and everything in between. A great primer for Debian newbies... Go Debian!"
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Any idea...? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Any idea...? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Any idea...? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Only on Slashdot would me-tooism be celebrated as a virtue.
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I've heard your sentiments expressed here countless times.
Re:Any idea...? (Score:4, Insightful)
People aren't switching for the GUI, they're switching for the price. The GUI is one of the reasons they stick with windows.
(Statements apply to the vast majority of non-technical people I know; the people who know what they're doing and *do* swap for the interface know how to set a non-default WM)
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Well, I can't speak for how everyone else is using it, but I use Linux much the way I use Windows 2000 - each window is maximized, which makes it almost like one application == one desktop. I have some sort of button in the corner I push to start stuff.
Quite frankly, dress it up as OS X or whatever "new paradigm" you want but I must say it's way down on my list of
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The problem is that MacOSX has this "Application Folder" concept, so you can just browse to
To be able to provide the same simplicity we must change the current layout of the Linux filesystem, I know at least one Linux distro that have done this: GOBO Linux [gobolinux.org].
Gobo use a rather radical approach to the problem, where every application goes under the
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The reason it doesn't work so well to do it the way you suggested is because there is a lot of gray area. Every person, company, shareware maker, vendor, etc. is going to have a different opinion of where software should go. Just look at unix in general or even other distros (besides debian/ubuntu/gentoo). Apple can do it without few
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Well, for two reasons. The first is that it makes it easier for new users to switch to GNU/Linux, and the second is that it is a pretty good system (*gasp*).
I mean, think about it. What are the parts that are copied? Similar looking and placed minimize, maximize, close buttons, a menu button, some sort of a menu and panels. Those are all very useful. Their exact location and appearance is there because it is more familiar to Windows users. It is fairly easy to change, too.
For example, my setup is as fol
On an old laptop? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really that old... (Score:2, Interesting)
I read the article on an IBM Thinkpad 560X with a Pentium 200MMX processor, 96MB of EDO RAM, and a 30GB Linux partition, running Debian Sarge. If his laptop is old, is mine an antique?
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Fine and all but (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question is: what happens when non-popular-linux-website folks attempt to install a Debian Etch on an old thinkpad? I'm not sure the report would be so peachy...
Re:Fine and all but (Score:5, Insightful)
Good question...and the answer, my friend, explains why Linux won't make it to the mainstream desktop for quite some time. I'm going to focus my comments on hitting a particular target audience, and neglect the technical/security superiority of one platform over another.
FTA:
Two points of interest here:
(1) The author had to create symbolic links to make Firefox and Thunderbird work.
(2) "A quick bit of googling" was required to get the missing library installed.
Read the first quoted paragraph again. Note the author had to unzip and untar the files into the directory "where Debian likes to keep them," and make the symlinks where "where the system expects to find them." Does the Debian distro put Firefox and Thunderbird in a different directory than the Ubuntu or Fedora? How about Slackware?
Lots of Linux fans berate Microsoft for stooping to the lowest common denominator, i.e. the common user, when it comes to making Windows more or less configurable. These same Linux fans point out that most users are just doing Web surfing, e-mail, word processing, and playing multimedia files/viewing photos--activities that don't require knowledge on configuring user permissions or defining firewall rules or any other low-level ("low level" as in base system) settings.
If these users are the ones that the Linux community are trying to get to migrate to Linux, there's a long road ahead of them. These "commoners" aren't going to know about installing libraries, or making symbolic links because "the system" expects the files in one locations but that particular distro "like them" somewhere else. Here's the real kicker; they don't CARE about these things. They want to read and send e-mail. They want to look at Web pages. They want to look at the pictures taken with their digital cameras. They know "click the setup.exe" files and the installation takes care of the rest, including installing other library files that may be needed. Click the desktop icon, and your program starts.
You want the masses to migrate to Linux? Make application installations "point and click" operations, including all necessary dependency checks and library installations as part of that initial click of the mouse button. Installing apps has to be that easy. There's no getting around it. Computers are no longer the domain for the tech-savvy (and haven't been for some time) and have to be made easy to use, like a television or microwave oven. Computers are a commodity, not an oddity.
Before you go off accusing me of being a MS apologist or fanboy, note that the only thing I use Windows for is playing a couple of games on rare occasion. The rest of time I'm on an OS X platform. I've used Linux in some research projects and tried to convert comp
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Using an apt frontend of your choice really is that easy though. This author has gone out of his way to do things in a weird way, the same way it would be weird and difficult to set up an apt-like system for windows. That's what has made it hard for h
Re:Fine and all but (Score:4, Insightful)
If, however, the app you want isn't available via apt in the way you like (e.g. you want to use Firefox and not Firepandadovebollocks that Debian ships now...dunno why but last time I tried Linux that really irritated me, possibly a bit more than not being able to get my surround sound working properly) or it isn't available in apt at all (mplayer anyone?), or you need to add extra repositories (which is NOT going to be easy to do for a newbie)...you may be slightly fuct.
Put it another way: if I want to play DVDs in 5.1 surround in VLC, here's how it works on Windows XP:
1. Download VideoLAN installer
2. Run VideoLAN installer
3. Click Next a few times until the installer finishes
4. Go into Windows' speaker settings and change the speaker type to 5.1 surround (which has a little descriptive picture to make it nice and clear) and click OK a few times.
4. Run VideoLAN and play my DVD, with surround sound working
I recently tried to do the same on Debian, and this is precisely how it went:
1. apt-get install vlc
2. Run VideoLAN client, try and play DVD
3. Notice that it crashes every time giving no cause or reason
3a. Smash with hammer
4. Google with the only real error message I get, which has nothing to do with DVDs
5. Find out that libdvdcss is required, and it's on an additional repository, so edit sources.list and apt-get update
5a. Realise that any sane person would have given up at step 3
6. Apt-get install libdvdcss (or whatever the precise package name is, I forget)
7. Run VLC, find out that my DVD plays now...in stereo
8. Play with volume settings and read lots of stuff about alsa.conf via Google
9. After much futzing, work out that ALSA outputs the rear to the subwoofer and vice versa for no explicable reason, so I had to swap the cables round
10. Watch my DVD, only with a pisspoor slow CPU-intensive picture because I haven't installed the NVidia drivers yet, which is yet another rigamarole
For its part, Xine (or at least Kaffeine) was even worse; that just crashed whenever I tried to play a 5.1 DVD. Now; which will be easier for a new person? For most people, over the phone I could tell them to go to VideoLAN.org and click the big Download link, and then tell them where in the Control Panel to go to enable surround. Can I do that on Debian? No. I'd have to explain to them how to edit sources.list, which commands to type in, when to type them in...you get my point.
This isn't just APT though, it's a lot of things. Why does ALSA change the subwoofer and rear plugs around for example? Where is the simple clicky box that changes the speaker settings from Stereo to 5.1? And I understand the licensing implications of including libdvdcss, but...well, who outside Slashdot is going to take "Well, it's the big bad mean MPAA" as an explanation for why getting DVDs working is such a pain in the ass?
Sorry for the length, it being Christmas I may have drunk a little bit too much Hobgoblin (or, I'm sure a few people are lining up to say, "the Kool-Aid")
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So, Nvidia drivers aren't all that bad. There's a nice installer for them nowadays that you can download from their site. Same for ATI. Not really that big of a deal; you have to do it on Windows, too.
DVDs are a bit of a pain, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be. You can add sources to your APT list from within most package managers (in a GUI), and you only have to add one source to make it work.
If your 5.1 actually works ma
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Installing the drivers on Linux using NVidia's installer requires dropping down to a console (already a daunting prospect for a newbie), making sure you have all the correct kernel sources/headers (non-trivial on Debian, considering the number of linux-headers packages available), and then running the installe
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Oh, is VLC back in the main repo? Sweet. Mine comes from the VLC repository. On the VLC front page, click "Debian Linux" under installs, and follow the directions. About as painful as, say, fetching
Uh-huh, but, did you have to quit X? If so, how is a newbie supposed to know how to stop GDM/KDM, install the drivers and restart the X server? How do they know if they ha
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No, the only point of interest here: He wanted to do something way outside what normal people would. He wanted to manually unpack and install software outside the distro's packaging and even outside normal packaging for Debian over a trademark dispute. Even of the few that knows, most of us don't care and maybe a few even like Debian "making RMS look soft" Legal. And it's so most definately in the category of "nice to have", if not "get a life". Would it be a showstopper if he co
Surprisingly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if you don't know Debian and you don't know IBM ThinkPads. If you do know them, you know that Debian generally works really well. Of course, Linux support for laptop hardware isn't always stellar, but IBM seems to actually have made an effort to ensure their hardware, including ThinkPads, played nice with Linux. Alas, Lenovo seems to have no intention of continuing that tradition.
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Note the bolded text. If he is ``ooh'ing and aah'ing [sic] about the fonts and graphics'', then those are clearly important to him.
I just did that! (Score:4, Informative)
The only hitch in the procedure that is even sorta the fault of Linux is that I don't know how to get it so that the computer will hibernate/resume.
Re:I just did that! (Score:5, Informative)
Check out swsusp [suspend2.net].
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You linked to suspend2. Actually swsusp and suspend2 are different. swsusp is in the main sources from kernel.org. It suspends to disk. suspend2 also suspends to disk, but also has additional features like compression and eye candy. It is not in the main sources from kernel.org so you have to patch your kernel or see if your distro offers a kernel already patched with suspend2 sources (Gentoo does, for example.)
On another note, suspend to ram is built in to the main sources. There's only one
...and (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah, and my sound card doesn't work.
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Oh my, look at that... The first result provides some clues...
for Dell Inspiron 1150 (Score:3, Interesting)
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This page describes install of Debian Etch on Dell Inspiron 1150 [rdegraaf.nl], including tweaks for Compiz and Truecrypt encryption.
Looks like this is where the author obtained most of his information.
Anyways, one issue I find with all of these installation guidelines is that they do not always talk about 915resolution etc.
I had installed ubuntu and debian sarge/etch in dell laptops, and every time I had to get the help of 915resolution to get the max resolution possible.
Issues I found in debian etch are -
1. 915resolution needed, as mentioned above.
2. Sound/Audio -esp in flash based sites like youtube. The problem is - this works rando
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Some cases, when it takes longer time to boot, turn out a problem with /etc/hosts when name resolution can not be done and lookup times out before continuing the init processes.
Re:for Dell Inspiron 1150 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Well done... (Score:2)
Not that useful (Score:2)
The article is interesting and all but it's not that useful. Installing Etch on a laptop that has components more recent than a PIII 600mhz cpu would be a much useful writeup. Most people are working with much newer equipment and seeing how well Etch supports recent laptop hardware would be much more useful for them.
But... (Score:5, Funny)
I kid, i kid! =)
The Author Isn't Very Thourough (Score:2, Funny)
KDE (Score:2)
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Etch and Thinkpads (Score:2, Informative)
debian is _THE_ distro (Score:3, Funny)
to the point of tattooing the swirl on my left arm.
and windowmaker's icon in my back.
and yes, i'm as geek as geek can be.
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it's with my mother right now. can't wait for her to (finally) buy a mac mini so i can get it back, wipe the disk and install debian.
i bought the quality hardware, not the OS.
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This FUD ? again ? Ubuntu is free of charge and always will. Canonical want to make money on SUPPORT.
But it's a good idea to look at Debian from time to time. And anyway as an Ubuntu user, I consider to be part of the Debian family.
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To some Linux is a Movement. To others it is an Operating System.
You are not obliged to sign on to the Revolution when Debian is your Distro of choice. Thank God.
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A. Keep doing what he is doing, and suffer compounded problems in the long run. (Which is why I think he is a newb, as most people learn this lesson early).
B. Deal with what his package manager gives him.
C. _Understand_ his system and the intimacies of his package manager. Prevent problems before they happen. Instal
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