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Debian

Debian 2.2 Reviewed, Interview on Embedded Debian 90

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can-I-apt-get-the-interview? dept.
Patrick Mullen sent us linkage to a nice review review on the latest Debian release. Frank Smith wrote in to say that Geek news has an interview with him (mega biases earn bonus points) about the Embedded Debian Project which is actually looking pretty good (if you're into that whole embedded thing, which might not be everyone :)
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Debian 2.2 Reviewed, Interview on Embedded Debian More

Debian 2.2 Reviewed, Interview on Embedded Debian

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  • Menu (Score:4)

    by spankenstein ( 35130 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @05:27AM (#764316) Homepage

    Just so everyone knows, Debian does go through great details on making it simple to use and maintain. tasksel which lets you selsct "task" packages (e.g. task-laptop, task-helix-gnome) and gets the appropriate debs.

    But my favorite is menu. Nearly every window manager you install will have identical menus that are generated by the programs in the menu package. Most packages provide a menu file that gets added into these menus. The also integrate it into GNOME and KDE.

    It's these small details that everyone overlooks that make Debian exceptionaly to me.

  • Ahhh a stable 2.2 -- I can finally move off that snapshot from March.
    I really wish they wouldn't make tasksel the default choice for package selection. Often when you just want to remove a single item in a package, it will ask if you want to remove the entire task, which may not be what you desire or intend.
  • Does anyone know where accurate statistics are kept on the distribution popularity/usage?

  • Are you saying you have not apt-get dist-upgrad'ed for the past 6 (six) months?! You are not a Debian sole then :)

    Seriously, the only time I run stable is when I set things up, i.e. the first 1hr-1week. It's unstable everafter!
  • More slashdot cultishness! How dare CmdrTaco and Hemos promote their favorite distribution over all others!

    Oh, wait. There was a story on Redhat already today...

    Ignore this rant.
  • Ahm... don't wait: convert [ceesaxp.org] to Debian! :)

    (Disclaimer: this HOWTO is a bit pre-production quality, consider it version 0.0.1)

  • Please stop linking DukeofURL reviews, finally. (Score:4)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @05:58AM (#764322) Homepage
    Yet another shallow review.

    DukeofURL should start doing actual reviews, not just another "look, I can copy a feature list" article.

    So far, every DukeofURL review linked to from Slashdot has been a bore.

    This isn't a flame, but an opinion.

    ------------------

  • My take (Score:5)

    by Straker Skunk ( 16970 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @05:59AM (#764323)
    Well, I switched to Debian (potato) just recently, and I couldn't be happier. Having used RH for as long as I can remember, I was very impressed by Debian's attention to detail. The security setup, for example-- /dev/fd0 is chown'ed to root.floppy with mode 660, so if I want floppy access, I just have to add myself to group "floppy." Similar for "adm" (if I want to read logs), "disk" (if I want raw access to /dev/hd?), "dialout" (if I want to use the serial ports or ISDN devices).

    The review dumps on the install, but that was no big deal. If you've been using Linux for more than a year, and bash doesn't scare you, neither will dbootstrap. (Btw, I have to agree that dbootstrap looks like FreeBSD's installer-- almost exactly. They do say Debian is the most BSD-like of the distros...)

    Oh, yeah, and apt-get/dpkg are sweet. They are very intelligent, almost dauntingly so. Debian's package system keeps a lot of state about packages going in and out. Just yesterday, I wanted to upgrade Esound from the normal "esound" version to "esound-alsa," and the process was something like this:
    1. dpkg -i esound-alsa.deb
      (can't do; conflicts with esound)
    2. dpkg -r esound
      (can't do; several packages depend on esound)
    3. dpkg -i esound-alsa.deb
      (hmmm, esound is being considered for removal, and esound-alsa also satisfies the dependency for those packages, so install it)

    There was probably a better way to do that, but that it could do that sure threw me for a loop. One thing I don't like about dpkg is that it doesn't index files; if you're used to doing rpm -qf <file> a lot, then you'll have to switch to dpkg -S <file> and waiting for the package manager to search for which package the file belongs to, usually taking a few seconds (whereas rpm does it instantly).

    One other pet peeve was that no binary Pine/Pico .deb is available (where apt-get can get at it), but that's because of license restrictions (Pine disallows distributing modified binaries). This was annoying, but it made me think about the licensing. I was going to try following the steps to build a Pine .deb, but instead, I think I'm going to give Mutt a try. It'll probably be better in the long run. (Oh, and nano is better than pico anyway ;-)

    If you're an idealistic-in-thought/pragmatic-in-practice guy like me, Debian's non-free section is nice, in that it reminds you what software doesn't quite meet the ideals that spawned the whole thing. Nothing obtrusive, just a tiny reminder...

    Anyway, I'm very happy with my new Debian system. The extensive testing really shows, and makes the system feel much more solid than your typical RH setup. If Linux is just Linux to you, then it's no big deal, but if you want to build your system into perfection, Debian is probably the best starting point. I'm well on my way ;-)

  • Debian is EASY to install (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just for the record, I have never found it difficult to install Debian Linux. Also, for the record, I have never found dselect particularly hard either. Setting-up Windows NT is far more obnoxious and tedious. Why do people keep saying Debian is hard?

    Regards,

    Ogin Assword
  • Well I just installed debian 2.2 on my sparcstation the other day and I must say it wasn't as easy as I had hoped. I found a few instances where the installation docs are just plain wrong and missing some steps and it also failed to setup SILO correctly. I think it won't setup SILO if you have a separate boot partition (which I shouldn't need but somehow the kernel ended up >1024 cylinders).
    Oh well, its still really sweet. Their network install is so much better than anyone else's. Red hats is a joke and crashes if the site you are installing from is full.
  • One aspect that most reviewers when they approach Debian GNU/Linux is that they tend to forget to cover is that Debian is really more then a Linux distribution and a philosophy. Throughout my few years of Linux experience, one aspect of Debian that I have noticed really shining through is the community aspect of Debian. More reviewers need to emphasise that Debian has a large helpful community.

    This community isn't just tight-knit between the developers who work on the project, but it's also a tight-knit community that exists between users and developers (remember back to our collective sorrow when Joel died). Go onto any major IRC server and see how many people populate channels named #mandrake or #redhat and you'll notice that their numbers pale in comparison with #debian 's population.

    The non-profit nature of Debian tends to attract the most humanitarian (and perhaps more socialistic) of Linux users, and this no more apparent then in #debian on irc.debian.org (part of the irc.openprojects.net network). This channel is always filled with over 50 friendly people at any given time willing to help you with any problems no matter how large, and most of the regulars there will keep an eye out on people who can help you later if they can't immediately.

    To those consider Debian, I'd like to point out that despite the apparent difficulties involved with installing, configuring, and using Debian GNU/Linux, please remember that there will always be a very co-operative IRC channel and comprehensive mailing list willing and ready to help you through to appreciate Debian. If you're wondering if it's really difficult to keep Debian on the cutting edge, it's not. Just pop into the official #debian channel on irc.debian.org and type in:

    /msg apt helix or /msg apt xf4 and so on...

    And xk's bot, named apt, will tell you the single line you need to add to /etc/sources.list for apt-get to install and configure new software for you. Hang around and you'll see you a few Debian developers and even CowboyNeal who frequents it too. So give Debian a go and the Debian community will help you never look back.

    MashPotato - Mobile Array of Support Helpers for Potato

  • Are you saying you have not apt-get dist-upgrad'ed for the past 6 (six) months?! You are not a Debian sole then :)

    Ahh, that is on my home machine, which connects to the internet via a 14.4 modem. The first time i ran apt-get dist-upgrade it said 127 packages to upgrade. 64M to download. Continue? I decided to wait, instead.

    My (secondary) work machine is on a T1, which has been updated every friday since I installed.

  • My .deb vs .rpm experiences (Score:4)

    by Slayne ( 10400 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @06:05AM (#764328) Homepage
    There have been quite a few discussions about rpm versus deb/apt in the past couple days, and I'd like to share some of my personal experiences with both of these packaging systems.

    I use debian at home, and I absolutely love it. I can understand how installation may be a bit tricky. I always install a really basic system and then configure apt to get the rest of the packages I want from the net.

    I've found both my systems at home incredibly easy to maintain. Installing or upgrading packages is simple thanks to apt-get. I've NEVER had packages fail to install that I've downloaded from one of the debian sites (or even helixcode's gnome archive). apt automatically handles dependencies and installs any other packages you need.

    At work, I have redhat installed. Many people say they prefer redhat because rpms are more widely available and are easier to install. I see this as both a blessing and a curse. I find myself downloading rpms from all over the internet because I can't find the "official" version. Sometimes they install, most of the time they fail to install because of conflicting libraries or conflicting naming conventions. When they do install, I've had quite a few packages segfault for what appears to be no good reason.

    If you want to have a stable, maintainable system, I'd suggest trying out debian. If you want to try out all the latest stuff, I'd also suggest debian - try out the unstable branch, it's got a ton more stuff in it! And if you run across software that's not in the debian archives, you can give alien a try, or you can always build from source.

    -Chris
  • Why can I say with such assuredness that debian kicks ass even tho I haven't used it?
    It comes with a game that I helped made, xtux arena.
    Please go to the webpage and but the author to keep doing more code (I'm a mere graphic monkey for the game). He's gotten lazy recently.

    http://xtux.sourceforge.net/

    enjoy
  • I'm rooting for Debian as well, but rather than have it kick Redhat's butt, I wish it would conquer the entrenched masses of stubborn Slackware lusers out there that haven't yet seen the light.
    --
  • [I have posted a similar article in a German Linux user group today, but folks haven't really been able to explain the following curious behaviour, either.]

    I am a longtime Suse user and have tried Redhat with equal success. Because of a few things that I disliked about Suse and Redhat, I wanted to give Debian a try.

    Downloaded the official potato CD set ISOs, burned them, ran install, used the default options. Used the "simple" option for tasksel during installation, chose *no* additional task packages, finished installation.

    Logged in as root for the first time. Started dselect. Went to [S]elect, but chose nothing. Instead, immediately left the package selection menu with [Q] (*).

    Went to [I]nstall: Boom, *69* additional packages are to be installed, among them binutils, emacs, tetex, gpm.

    Where are these selections coming from? I haven't selected them and dselect did not prompt me for them.

    And no, if I use [Enter] instead of [Q] at (*), the same happens. Automatic selection of additonal packages without any information, prompt or query about it.

    What's going on there?

    ------------------
  • And it's not like K5 doesn't promote Slackware much more prominently than /. does Debian, right? When was the last time you saw a discussion of RH or Debian on K%?
    --
  • It's mentioned that KDE is not included, which is true, but only tells half of the story.

    Most (if not all) Debian users install applications using 'apt-get install'. apt-get uses a file /etc/apt/sources.list, which has a list of sites (web and ftp), to check for new packages.

    Previously, if you wanted to install KDE, you would just add the line
    deb http://kde.tdyc.com stable kde
    to your sources.list

    You would then install KDE like you would do any other Debian packages. From a user's pov, there would be no difference from having KDE included. In fact, some people install their GNOME this way (they added a option pointing to the Helix site, so the system installs HELIX GNOME instead of 'normal' Debian GNOME).

    This is one reason I saw no reason to cry about the suggestion that Debian 'not include' non-free.
  • You didn't hear about the billionaire in Redmond who's secretly supporting Debian? Apparently he wants more "innovative" features in it.

  • Getting feet wet with embedded systems (Score:3)

    by GrnyS ( 131646 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @06:24AM (#764335)
    Emdebian is attractive for much the same reasons that Debian attracted me five years ago. Namely, anyone can get involved. Besides, these guys are are committed to the philosophy of free software development, and that is important to me. They are moving along now, and are daily cranking changes through CVS that I have been tracking closely and trying out myself. I really hope the community gets behind them and helps them get where they want to go.

    I have started playing with CML2+OS and have used it to build a small rootfs for my 386sx/20 8M DECpc mouldering in the corner. There have been a few snags, but thanks to some help from these guys on channel #emdebian on irc.debian.org, I was able to work thru them and (mostly) boot the thing for the first time last night. Once I'm done, I will have breathed new life into this old iron, which will serve as a utility on my growing home network. It's a great learning experience. In the end, I hope I will have contributed something of value back to the Emdebian project.

    Thanks for Emdebian, and good luck with it!

  • Man, I can totally agree with this. I started out on RedHat because it seemed the easiest distrubution to start out with. It served me well, but I have to say that I'm very happy after making the move to Debian.

    True, I would have had a much harder time installing Debian as a first-time user vs RedHat, but once you know your way around a bit, Debian is a treat to work with.

    I still have RH on my laptop, but my other boxes run Debian and I love it.
  • Here at OmniTouch (tm) (a subsidiary of CountryTime Lemonade [tm]) it's all about caring. And feeling. When you use OmniTouch, you are touching people--and you are touching the people those people touched.

    I've been looking forward to using Debian for quite a while--until I read your post. You make it sound like some whacked-out religious cult "Join us. You'll never look back." I'll probaby still use Debian--there are good technical and political reasons to do so. But if the people on IRC ever start chanting "Love the Leader", I'm out of there.
    --
    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/

  • Re:My take (Score:1)

    by m2 ( 5408 )
    One thing I don't like about dpkg is that it doesn't index files; if you're used to doing rpm -qf a lot, then you'll have to switch to dpkg -S and waiting for the package manager to search for which package the file belongs to, usually taking a few seconds (whereas rpm does it instantly).

    Use dlocate -S instead. It builds indexes out of dpkg's databases. Yes, it can go out of sync. Yes, the indexes are rebuilt automatically. Yes, you can do that, too, even if your box isn't up 24x7: install anacron.

  • Simple enough. task-packages are just empty packages. No content at all. All a task package is is a debian package that depends on a bunch of related packages, and suggest others.

    That way, you can type apt-get install task-gnome task-samba task-c-dev etc, and apt will download and install that selection of packages.

    When using dselect with task-packages, I've found it best to select the task packages (+) to bring up the depends selection, then set the task package to purge (_), but keep the packages that the task package depended on. You may want to keep the task package installed so if something is added to that task, you're next apt-get upgrade will grab that package as well. On the otherhand, if you don't want something that's in a task-package, dselect will complain because the task-package depends on that package.

    It's not a big deal with stable, since the only task packages that will be updated are those from helix and other non-offical packages.
  • I normally install the sources for things, I use rpm only rarely.

    Apart from the deb vs. rpm thing, then, what's in Debian for me? I'm looking for an excuse to switch (from RH 6.x), but haven't found one yet...

    Thanks!

    b.g.
  • Logged in as root for the first time. Started dselect. Went to [S]elect, but chose nothing. Instead, immediately left the package selection menu with [Q] (*).

    I'm not sure I understand you when you say "logged in as root for the first time". You mean after installing the packages pointed to by the task-* packages? As someone explained, those are empty packages that provide only dependencies. If you select "Install" without a prior "Select" in this state, only whatever the task-* packages point to will be installed. After you enter "Select" for the first time, dselect will automatically select the "required" packages. (Look at the priority field). Emacs is autoselected for this reason.

  • Well, if you want to back out of select with no changes you need to type X instead of Q. But that's not the reason.
    The reason is that during the install some packages couldn't be installed because the stuff they depend on wasn't there. All you need to do is run install in dselect and your installation becomes "complete". It's a nuisance, but you can't exactly say it's the most evil thing you've ever encountered. The documentation specifically notes that install may be run several times from dselect before everything is installed.
    If you don't want those extra packages, you can easily deselect them in the select stage because packages are ordered on the basis if they're installed yes or no (and several other ways).
  • You mean after installing the packages pointed to by the task-* packages?

    Yes, during the standard installation process, tasksel will ask what tasks to install. I choose none and right after that, the installation will install a number of packages and finish.

    Then I login for the first time and do as described in my original post.

    Thanks for the clarification, though.

    However, why is emacs, tetex and xfree part of the Debian minimal system when using the "simple" tasksel process?

    Also, why do I have to enter [S]elect first for that? And why is there no prompt informing me about these packages?

    If I enter dselect and go directly to [I]nstall without [S]elect on a fresh system, no packages at all are being installed. Shouldn't the packages you mentioned be marked for install by tasksel already?

    ------------------
  • Part of the issue could also be "required" packages. Its been a while since the last time I installed Debian from scratch, but if memory serves, required, and maybe important packages get selected for install the first time you run dselect and if you don't want them installed you have to manually deselect them. This usually isn't a problem since these packages are for the most part packages needed to take your system from a machine that can boot linux but not do much to a useful debian box.
  • They do say Debian is the most BSD-like of the distros...

    That would be Slackware, I think.
  • The documentation specifically notes that install may be run several times from dselect before everything is installed.

    If I run [I]nstall, nothing is installed. Only if I enter [S]elect before doing so (and choose nothing), suddenly some packages are mysteriously selected and appear in the next [I]nstall run.

    The reason is that during the install some packages couldn't be installed because the stuff they depend on wasn't there.

    This is not meant as a flame, but: Why isn't this necessairy on other Linux distributions? Suse and Redhat both install in a single process.

    It's a nuisance, but you can't exactly say it's the most evil thing you've ever encountered.

    Hmm. I don't find it a nuisance, I just thinks it isn't logical. People told me that Debian is the Linux where nothing happens behind your back. But now things happen behind my back even right during installation...

    ------------------
  • A possibility that hasn't been mentioned yet is: dpkg supports three levels of dependency: depends, recommends, and suggests. apt only tries to satisfy the depends dependencies, whereas dselect will try to satisfy the depends and the recommends dependencies.

    I'm not sure that this fits your problem description, though.
  • is how hard it is to set up X. Once you get it up it is *really* *really* sweet. Maybe someone who knows more could tell me why it can't setup X more like Mandrake or RH? Are there problems with them using the tool? (Looks like the same tool on both Mandrake and RH to me) Other than that everything about the new install is very nice. And of course apt-get makes it worth it to work through the X install. ANy good links to a *good* Debian X troubleshooting/setup page? The article was kind of lame but 2.2 does rule.
  • Note that not everyone has a big internet pipe at home.

    While it's true that doing additional installs over the net is easy in Debian, the fact that some packages are not included in the Official CD Set is worth mentioning.

    But as I already noted in another article here, the DukeofURL guys aren't exactly the brightest and write about it as if you as a user had no chance to help yourself about the "missing" packages.

    ------------------
  • Hmm. But dselect doesn't tell me about it, that's what I wonder about.

    ------------------
  • I used to be a RedHat user, up until 6.1 came out. After that i have switched over to Debian and have been incredibly pleased with it. RedHat's early releases weren't bad, however, as their distro's version number increased so did the number of problem's i've had with it.

    When RedHat went public, i knew i had to switch. On advice from friends, i tryed out debian. The best decision of my life, i must say.

    RedHat may try and be the 'easy to administrate' linux distro, but debian's apt-get update/upgrade makes security updates a flash(and we all know how important that is). I have had many more problems with other distros, especially security problems. If you write a cron job to automagically update the security related packages, you'll always be one step ahead of the crackers.

  • How abount Emdeb?

    M@t :oP
  • Indeed, .rpms are more readily available. However, the 'alien' tool is surprisingly good and enables one to convert almost any rpm to a .deb package. This is extremely powerful, as it combines the advantages of both package systems (ease of .deb, availability of .rpms)
  • Where are these selections coming from?

    Any package marked with a Priority: of "standard" or higher is automatically selected for install by dselect if it's a new package (everything is a new package at install time). AFAIK this isn't customizable.

    At one point in time I tried [debian.org] to get tex and emacs pulled from standard, but I never got the concensus necessary from the policy cabal [debian.org] to carry out my evil schemes. Oh well.

  • Now if only Debian folks will spend some time on the base installer and get that part to work right. What's there now is a total POS. They'd be better off just providing a tarball snapshot if a base system ready to run apt-get to get everything else.
  • I'm pretty sure apt-get would have done that change successfully if you would just have typed "apt-get install esound-alsa"... but anyway... try these commands:

    dpkg --force-depends -r esound
    and then
    dpkg -i esound-alsa

    I'm almost sure that will work...

    --
  • Having been accustomed to RH's non-human-readable /var/lib/rpm/*.rpm database files, all I can say is:

    That kicks ass.

    Thanks for passing the tip!

    (P.S.: It's actually /var/lib/dpkg/info/${pkg-name}.list ;-)
  • uhm.. oops... I didn't read what you said well enough.. sorry
    --
  • I have to go with VP on this one. FreeBSD, working under the BSD liscense, is pretty free with its liscensing. Debian, however, is the distro most anal about enforcing the "GPL v. non-GPL" distinction and, like you said, won't include Pine/Pico for that reason. There is a small niche for a politically-active/pure distro, and Debian fills that niche, but it's hardly the same niche as FreeBSD'd. Slackware, on the other hand, with its even slower release-schedule but almost cult-like following of old unix hardliners, is much closer to FreeBSD.
  • I had those problems, and one more. The fdisk program segfaulted due to the hard drive NOT already having a Sun disklabel. But the installer package failed to detect the problem and just went on to try to do the remaining steps, which would of course fail. While the fdisk bug itself isn't their fault, the installer not checking return codes is. Most of a day was spent trying to figure out why the subsequent steps kept failing. I tried Redhat 6.2 for Sparc and it's fdisk also segfaulted (but they let you know) so I went back to Debian 2.2 and tried it on the shell and the problem was revealed. I had go way back to Redhat 5.2 to find something that would make a disklabel correctly.

    Eventually I ran into the SILO setup bug, but lost patience in debugging stuff, and switched to OpenBSD for a while (yet another bug, but at least this one was just broken documentation). I'll go back to try Debian again later.
  • I hope some day Debian actually puts up a page for reviewing and submitting bug reports. Maybe then I'd actually submit one. Or a few (if I can remember them all).

    Please don't waste time asking me to get on some mailing list to do that. That won't ever happen.
  • If you're interested in stats on use and planned use of various linux variants in EMBEDDED, there's an ongoing survey (which shows current stats) here [linuxdevices.com], and a just-published report (The Embedded Linux Market Survey -- Sept. 2000 Snapshot") here [linuxdevices.com].

    btw, if you're interested in embedding linux, please vote in the survey -- tnx :)

  • I think it is of supreme importantce to have a free and unencumberd embedded system development environment. There are about 10 times more embedded systems than desktop systems, and they are getting more, quickly. Now, linux seems to become a more and more important player in this field, but freedom (as in speach) is not really mentioned frequently in this buissness. And very well this might come back at the whole linux community when weights shift slowly to corporate buissnesses interests and away from conviction and passion for good and even free software. We need to look ahead and make sure that the best distributions and tools for embedded systems come from the community and not from GimmeMoneyCorp. Cause in the long run this will decide upon the future of linux.
  • In 2 months of trying to get Debian 2.2 installed on a couple machines, I ran into about a dozen people who wanted to help, but were too ignorant to do so. One exception was found, but in the midst of the steps involved, he disappeared and never showed up again.

    If you want to prove to me that real help really exists, track me down and let me know you'll stick with it to make it work no matter how long it takes (and based on past experience, it will take a while until the base installer get replaced).
  • is how hard it is to set up X.

    Well, i don't know how redhat and mandrake do it these days that make it really easy, but for me with debian it was a matter of downloading the 4.x binaries of Xwindows, installing it, then (okay, here there might be an easier way, but for my card this worked) running whatever program it was(that comes with 4.x) that generates a XF86Config file for your card, saving it someplace and then run xf86config. Take all the screen stuff from the last step and use it to replace the screen stuff from the first step.

    It's not hard, it's just not pretty. But this way you get all the driver generated stuff without having to figure it out yourself.

  • Does anyone know where accurate statistics are kept on the distribution popularity/usage?

    It's extremely difficult to get even inaccurate figures on Linux usage, never mind accurate figures on the usage of individual distributions. Tracking of sales/downloads is not centralised, and once installed they can be hard to tell apart, and hard if not impossible to find.

    Debian is especially hard to estimate, since I suspect the vast majority of installs are over the net, and once installed Debian is highly upgradeable. I installed slink for instance, bought some CDs while I was on a modem, and have been upgrading over ADSL ever since. Oh, and I installed three more boxes purely over the net, two of which are inside the firewall at my current work and one of which is an intermittently-connected laptop.

    Besides, who cares? It's not a pissing match, and Debian in particular is not composed primarily of beancounters...

    While I'm typing this, I'd recommend giving a couple of distributions a try; personally I've kind of settled down with Debian after a brief flirtation with RedHat. Do buy at least one set of CDs though whether you need them or not -- it's important to get some degree of financial support back to Software in the Public Interest (see the Debian web site [debian.org]).


    --

  • Actually, there is such a tarball snapshot: potato/main/disks-i386/current/base2_2.tgz. It's handy if (a) you know what you're doing and already have a Unix system handy on which to unpack the tarball, or (b) you want to install a small potato system inside an existing Debian system.

    (The latter isn't as silly as it sounds; if you're building Debian packages then it's useful to have a "pure" base system to build and test them on, as normal systems can build up cruft that sometimes causes problems.)

  • Whoa, that was a bit too strange...

    At first I read your second sentence as 'but I have to say I'm very happy after making love to Debian'.

    Sorta gives loving a distro a different meaning ;).
  • I think Embedded Debian is called Embedian - but that could just be the fumes that come from down the hall talking :).
  • Humor, friend.

    I LIKE Debian. I USE Debian.

    I was mocking those who think Slashdot's coverage of Debian is inappropiate. Hell, they could cover Jesux all the time for all I care. I'd still read it for the other news.

  • You don't have to be on a mailing list to submit bug reports or review them. The bug submission process uses email, but there are front-end programs that can help you (reportbug and bug).

    The bug tracking system's page is http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ [debian.org]. You can search bug reports there, anonymously.

  • It probably would work, indeed. However, I tend to think that using --force-depends (or --force-anything) should only be for special circumstances; if the packages aren't broken, you shouldn't ever need them. (For instance, leaving out the --force-depends in your example would have worked as the guy you followed up to said, and wouldn't have left you with a broken database for a while.)
  • Actually, the bugs website [debian.org] has been around for ever, and there are instructions there for submitting bugs. Or you could use the reportbug [debian.org] package, which also comes with a program called "querybts" for querying the bug tracking system without the aid of a browser.
  • # apt-get install ssmtp
    (verbiage that amounts to 'adding 1 package removing 1 package, ok?')
    [Y/n] Y
    (-much- verbiage that amounts to 'lessee, we have to take out sendmail to put in ssmtp, doing that, oh dear, all your mail-readers are broken for a moment, okay, installing ssmtp, there ya' go!)
    # _

    The same thing works for all those conflicting packages, assuming your apt configuration is up to
    date.

    If your favorite software is distributed in debs but doesn't have an apt-compliant hierarchy, encourage them to put up an apt-compliant hierarchy. (The only example I can think of this is the tdyc version of KDE, and that's going to get rolled into Debian proper, but I suppose there might be software out there that isn't in debian's tree, and if they pull non-free hosting there'll be -lots- of software that isn't in debian's tree.)


    --Parity
  • At the risk of poking a troll, what's your beef with Slackware?


    --
  • ...humanitarian (and perhaps more socialistic)

    Kindness, sympathy, public spirit and other noble human traits are not a function of political system or religion. All human institutions espouse these things (at least for themselves).

    I like Debian and advocate free software. I enjoy helping people with it, and other things that I know better. I am NOT as socialist.

  • I tried that once, made a huge mess on my server. ;-)
  • How about apt-get source?
    If you set up the sources lines in your apt.conf file, apt can get the sources, which are in a group of files so that you can have either debian sources or the 'upstream' sources, and depending on options you give it, it can automatically unpack, build, and install from source.
    Of course, unless you have customized libraries, there's not much point to this; usually, I apt-get install the binaries, but I sometimes apt-get source if I want to tweak something or if I want to see how something works so I can write code to talk to it.
    Also, debian is very good about leaving /usr/local alone, so you can install with apt-get all those things that you don't need source for (supposing you're a Gnome developer, you probably don't need sources for base libraries, development tools, e-mail clients, networks daemons, etc, but you might need sources for X, and you'll certainly need sources for many if not all of the gnome pieces... conversely, if you're developing some network daemon you don't need gnome sources but you might need sources network drivers, etc.)

    Anyway, I find the seamless ability to switch between binary and source very convenient.


    --Parity
  • My personal approach has always been to instantly quite dselect as soon as it starts, without going to Select, or Install, or anything of that sort. I then update all my present packages to their latest versions with apt.

    After that, I apt-get install aptitude, and use that for my package installation needs. I find it to be a far better tool than dselect.

  • Re:review is helluva biased (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not as biased as some others can be. I am suprised at just how biased the Linux "press" can be. Take a look at this very intersting thread on the recent RH 7.0 release:

    CmdrTaco, RedHat and everything...Don't Panic??? [slashdot.org]

  • Does Debian 2.2 have support for raidtools-0.90 in the kernel, or do I have to patch it myself?
  • The review dumps on the install, but that was no big deal. If you've been using Linux for more than a year, and bash doesn't scare you, neither will dbootstrap.

    I never understand this. Slink was my first linux install ever. Of the 3 brands I've installed (Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake), it was the best. It was easy, gave me control over the stuff I needed to control, and worked from a small base download.

    Now I admit, the networking on the early potato frozen installer was a bit fubared, but it looks, from one of the screen shots, like that's fixed.

    --

  • Re:My take (Score:1)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    Is there a good place to find the tips and tricks of the Debian packaging system? I run Debian on all my machines, and I still haven't figured out how to get a full list of every package installed in a machine.

  • and then she KICKED HIM IN THE DING DING!

    The end.
  • The real reason for all of this is, dselect is a horrible thing and is going to go away; front ends to apt are going to replace it, so, nobody has been putting any effort into making dselect behave sanely because it's expected to die a well deserved-death any time now.

    I think the console-apt is in unstable and there's maybe a gnome-apt too; I just use apt-get from the command line and haven't touched dselect in years. (Before apt, I just used dpkg; dselect was never worth it to me.)


    --Parity
  • A number of people (including the author) have commented on the install for Debian being hard - I just installed the latest free version of Stormix [stormix.com] (which they did mention in the article) and it was rather easy.

    Also, it sems that Stormix includes KDE which is a nice option to have (though I find myself liking Gnome quite a bit). They even have a selection phase during install to select Gnome or KDE, and then pick your window manager.

    If you want to give Debian a try, it looks like Stormix is the easiest route.
  • It expain it in the (annoying) help screen which is displayed after you choose select option:
    (Mainly for new installations:) Standard packages will be requested by default. Use capital `D' or `R' key to override this - see the keybindings help screen.

    I just noticed these lines a few days ago, after two years of using Debian.(sic!)

  • I, personally, like optimizing my system for speed. I installed pgcc and optimized it with:
    CFLAGS=-march=k6 -O2

    I download the source with apt-get, edit the rules and makefiles, then build from the source, optimizing for my particular cpu. X, while taking forever to compile, runs about 40% faster compiled against a k6, than it does compiled for the i386.
  • After that, I apt-get install aptitude, and use that for my package installation needs. I find it to be a far better tool than dselect.

    Yup. Aptitude rules. Especially the version in unstable-- have you tried that? It even tells your reverse dependencies on the spot, i.e., "which packages depend on this one".

  • It seems like more and more sites want to do the Linux thing, and more and more sites do it very badly.

    Personnally, if I was choosing a new distro, I'd like to hear something more than: "It's harder to install" or "It includes this and this software".

    And if you *are* gonna mention that the distro isn't bleeding edge and that you're gonna have a hard time upgrading everything, perhaps you should do a bit more research! (/etc/sources.list anyone?)

    -JF.
  • I was not trolling, I'm simply fed up with all the 'RH sux0rs, Slackware is the sh1t' kind of posts that flood /. whenever there's an announcement on RH's part.

    Maybe it's a knee-jerk thing, but it is my opinion that RH is in general a good distro (albeit flaky somtimes) and the company strives to be a good player within the community. In return, they get a lot of shit from 'leet types, who generally tend to be of the Slackware persuasion.

    OTOH, technically I think Slack is a dated system that had its hey-day (damn it, I started with it) but turned out into a backwards-looking, anti-innovative, non LSB compliant one man show. We should let it die the peaceful death it deserves and support forward looking systems, such as Debian or all the RPM based distros.
    --

  • Debian does not exclude Pine simply because it doesn't like the license. Pine would need to be modified in order to adhere to Debian's file system layout guidelines, but the distribution of modified Pine binaries is forbidden by the Pine license. Debian's not being anal, it's just being legal.

    noah
  • Seriously, it's nothing that couldn't be solved by a couple symbolic links. But Debian would rather maintain its "purity" then do what's necessary to accomodate proprietary software. It's their choice, but don't give them more credit then they're due.
  • dpkg -l
  • I was going to try following the steps to build a Pine .deb

    For future reference, this is as simple as

    cd /tmp
    apt-get --compile source pine
    dpkg -i *.deb


    Now all we need is a Debian wrapper package that has a postinst that spawns a script that does the above, nuking the original package in the process. Voila - Pine conforming to Debian filesystem layout without actually distributing any modified versions :)
  • I honestly have no idea why Debian's X configuration is so awkward, and it's probably the thing that annoys me about it most as well. xviddetect and anXious help, but the xviddetect card database dates back to February. I've just finished hacking together an X setup script for a netbooting system I'm working on - it's now able to write a working XF86Config file for most PCI/AGP based systems with no user interaction at all. This was mostly done using standard Debian tools, so it really shouldn't be too hard to do for Debian. Maybe one of these days I'll get round to registering as a Debian developer...
  • Perhaps I sounded a little too much like a cult indoctrinator or a documercial presenter, but not all of us are that idealistic, it's just that some take it's ideals further than others. For example, those who avoid non-free at all costs.

    The point that I'm trying to get across is that most other distributions have appeared to have lost the true spirit of the open-source movement and instead of helping you with technical support with open arms reach for your credit card first.

    Try Debian and you'll understand the point I'm trying to make.

    MashPotato - Mobile Array of Support Helpers for Potato

  • When you install, it asks what type of system this is going to be. Remember, the smallest it will let you go is basic (I believe). After that you run dselect automatically. By choosing basic, it selects packages that aren't installed yet, but selects them assuming you want more functionality than the base2_2.tgz file can provide. But, if you exit dselect, and manually apt-get everything you want, this won't be a problem. This, as far as I know, the only flaw with dselect. But, apt-get works better. Hope that solves your problem.

  • I agree... but fuck pico and just use vi. It's better anyway.

    __

  • This was mostly done using standard Debian tools, so it really shouldn't be too hard to do for Debian. Maybe one of these days I'll get round to registering as a Debian developer... In the meantime, you could email debian-x@lists.debian.org or debian-devel@lists.debian.org and see if anyone is interested in packaging it. It sounds interesting to me, if it can do what you claim. (one question: does it handle X4? Woody will include X4..) Daniel
  • What happens if there isn't enough space for everything at install time? Will dselect intelligently drop emacs, tex or whatever to make the system fit on your disk?

    (I'm fed up with RedHat's installer which will happily start installing 600Mbyte of stuff on a 300Mbyte partition, even though it knows the size before starting. I'm sure Debian isn't as stupid.)
  • I'm sure Debian isn't as stupid.

    In this instance, that's wishful thinking, see: #15865 [debian.org], #24950 [debian.org], #65690 [debian.org].

  • To be honest, my observations have been that the "'leet types" tend to be using Debian more than Slackware. I can't count the number of times I've read somebody bashing Red Hat on the basis of RPM, when "apt-get is sooooo much better!"

    Frankly, I don't think any distribution is any more backwards-looking, anti-innovative, or caters to the 'leet types more than any other distribution. They all have their design goals. Slackware, even with it's very basic package management and BSD-style scripts, is operating under its design goals, just like Debian does with it's necessity for DFSG-compliant packages.

    Frankly, I wish everybody would stop the distribution-bashing altogether. It's very counterproductive.


    --

  • dselect (Score:1)

    by Lish ( 95509 )
    I have found that unless I know the exact name of the package I want, dselect is the way to go. Search for a substring of something you want (ie. mp3 to find mp3 players/recorders) and jump through the instances of it. And, it tells you all the dependencies related to a package you're installing/uninstalling/upating. If you know the exact name of what you want and don't want to bother with the menus, apt-get is more robust than dpkg.

    Just throwing in my $0.02...

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