|
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
|
Re: [Plug] Debian Install Problems
|
> It gets pretty annoying when you wade through screen after screen of
> packages, finally select what you want, then have the program tell you
> it can't mount the CD or that it got some cryptic driver error.
I haven't installed the new version of Debian from CD yet, so I could be
wrong about this. apt wasn't available on the initial install and I
installed it with dpkg after doing the install from the CD.
If you were using apt and your /etc/apt/sources.list points to
something like deb file:/your/mirror/here/debian stable main, you probably
need to mount the CD first.
I got a bad CD once where the Packages file was screwed up, it would
almost be better installing from floppies and getting the rest off the
net. If this is the problem I would complain to the vendor and ask him for
a new one that works.
What I did as a work around was copy the CD to my hard drive and make a
new Packages file. I think this should still work, but it was with Debian
1.3r? or 2.0.
You need dpkg-dev installed for this and should probably read over some
of the docs.
dpkg-scanpackage /mnt/hamm/binary-i386 /mnt/indices/override.hamm >Packages
The first parameter is the path to the dpkg archives and the second
parameter is to the override file of the release. If the file is not on
your CD in an indices directory you can get a copy from the indices
directory of your favorite Debian mirror.
The details are sketcy at the moment, but I seem to recall having a
problem where the CD put all the packages in one directory and that it did
not match the indices file exactly. At
http://debian.midco.net/debian/indices/ it looks like they have broken up
the indices into the main, contrib and non-free sections and the CD may
contain a mix of the various sections.
> I finally got ppp working, then figured out how to get dselect to pull
> packages down off the internet. That was slower but much more stable.
> Of course, now I have 1000's of packages to choose from now, without
> a real clear idea of what I've already installed.
dpkg -l |less
> So anyway, here are some more comments and questions:
>
> - Is there any way to get the bottom window of dselect to disappear,
> or at least make it smaller? It's nice to get the info, but it's
> also taking up half the window. It's tough to navigate through 1000's
> of packages when you can only see 15 lines at a time.
Press the I key.
> - Is there any tool to help get printing to work? Red Hat has a
> tool that configures magicfilter to use whatever printer you have.
Sorry I have never set up a printer, although my Dad wants me to set up
his for him. Let us know how it goes
> - How about sound? Red Hat has a rather nice sndconfig program. As
> far as I can tell, Debian didn't install any sound modules. They
> didn't even put any sound devices in /dev.
I have always recompiled the kernel, and sound was the hardest part as it
needed a couple dma's io, irq and figuring out what the parameters was a
bit of a chore if I remember correctly. It's been a while since I have
done it and it was on the 2.0 kernels, but I don't remember having to add
any devices for the sound.
Here is the kernel messages from Kathy's machine.
Jul 11 04:23:22 cygnus kernel: Sound initialization started
Jul 11 04:23:22 cygnus kernel: <Sound Blaster 16 (4.13)> at 0x220 irq 9
dma 3,7
Jul 11 04:23:22 cygnus kernel: <Yamaha OPL3 FM> at 0x388
Jul 11 04:23:22 cygnus kernel: Sound initialization complete
> - What's the rationale for not making /tmp world-writeable? Debian
> sets up man to put its temp files in /tmp, but then doesn't let
> regular users write to /tmp!
You have me confused here, all the users can write to /tmp.
drwxrwxrwt 7 root root 3072 Jul 12 07:40 tmp
> - What's debian's equivalent of .Xdefaults? I hate the defaults they
> have for xterms.
I like the small print fine, but Kathy doesn't have such good eyes and we
setup her .xinitrc file with the following.
xclock -digital -font vga11x19 &
xterm -ls -rv -fn vga -geometry 79x25+25+0 -title "Mintaka xterm" &
eterm &
fvwm2
> - How tough is it to upgrade to a 2.2.* kernel?
It's not hard, use make-kpkg to build your kernel as a Debian package.
But I would not recommend it because the stable distribition hasn't made
the move to 2.2 yet. If you still want to do it, there is something about
some of the stuff that gets broken on the Debian pages.
I was trying to setup an ipmasq box last time I attempted to upgrade the
kernel and something or another went wrong so I went back to latest
2.0.x.
> - Where can I find more up-to-date packages? The version of Window
> Maker in Debian 2.1 is ancient, for instance.
wmaker 0.20.3-5 is the stable version listed on the website.
The unstable section usually has newer stuff and usually works fine by
adding the individual packages, but sometimes things get ugly.
http://debian.org/Packages/unstable/x11/
wmaker 0.60.0-4
Yet another window manager. This the next step after AfterStep.
wmaker-data 0.7-1
Several free icons for use with WindowMaker and others.
wmaker-gnome 0.60.0-4
Window Maker compiled with GNOME support
wmaker-kde 0.60.0-4
Window Maker compiled with KDE support
> - All the files on the CD are from March. But when I run apt-get
> upgrade, it tells me everything is up-to-date.
They usually don't change the stable stuff much at all and the last update
appears to be May 31, they will only add something to stable if needed.
They have added at least 1 or 2 packages to fix things like security
problems.
Packages.gz 31-May-1999 14:31 479k
The last update was a while ago, so you probably got the update when you
were installing things off the net.
I did a locate Package and found my last update:
$ ls -l
/var/state/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stable_main_binary-i386_Packages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1683543 May 31 14:31
/var/state/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stable_main_binary-i386_Packages
Chuck
On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Walt Mankowski wrote:
> OK, so I took the plunge this weekend and tried to install Debian on
> my home machine. After my second attempt it's semi-functional, but I
> ran into a lot more problems than I anticipated.
>
> I think some of the problems may have been due to the Cheap Bytes
> "Essential Debian" CD I was using. The documentation made it seem
> like I would get to choose groups of applications in profiles such as
> "Developer" or "Webmaster". I never saw this screen. Instead I was
> thrown straight into dselect with 100's of individual packages to
> choose from and nothing preinstalled.
>
> Dselect is certainly a powerful program, but as a first-time user I
> found it confusing and intimidating. If you don't realize that Enter
> *doesn't* mean "select this package" and Escape doesn't do anything at
> all, then all of a sudden you're bouncing all around and know where
> the hell you are or how to get back (Escape might be a good alias for
> X).
>
> Other problems I had with the CD install:
>
> - I got an error if I tried to install too many packages. Sorry, I
> didn't write it down, but it was something about a driver not liking
> the -e parameter. Maybe it's doing a "system" call and its command
> line gets too long.
>
> - The packages on the CD weren't exactly where Debian was expecting
> them.
>
> - I'd get an error if the CD was already mounted when it tried to
> install packages. It seemed like what it wanted to do was just
> mount the CD long enough to install whatever I had selected. But if
> I was in another vterm trying to hunt down where everything was, then
> it wouldn't get umounted and I'd get an error.
>
> It gets pretty annoying when you wade through screen after screen of
> packages, finally select what you want, then have the program tell you
> it can't mount the CD or that it got some cryptic driver error.
>
> I finally got ppp working, then figured out how to get dselect to pull
> packages down off the internet. That was slower but much more stable.
> Of course, now I have 1000's of packages to choose from now, without
> a real clear idea of what I've already installed.
>
> So anyway, here are some more comments and questions:
>
> - Is there any way to get the bottom window of dselect to disappear,
> or at least make it smaller? It's nice to get the info, but it's
> also taking up half the window. It's tough to navigate through 1000's
> of packages when you can only see 15 lines at a time.
>
> - Is there any tool to help get printing to work? Red Hat has a
> tool that configures magicfilter to use whatever printer you have.
>
> - How about sound? Red Hat has a rather nice sndconfig program. As
> far as I can tell, Debian didn't install any sound modules. They
> didn't even put any sound devices in /dev.
>
> - What's the rationale for not making /tmp world-writeable? Debian
> sets up man to put its temp files in /tmp, but then doesn't let
> regular users write to /tmp!
>
> - What's debian's equivalent of .Xdefaults? I hate the defaults they
> have for xterms.
>
> - How tough is it to upgrade to a 2.2.* kernel?
>
> - Where can I find more up-to-date packages? The version of Window
> Maker in Debian 2.1 is ancient, for instance.
>
> - All the files on the CD are from March. But when I run apt-get
> upgrade, it tells me everything is up-to-date.
>
> All in all I have to say I'm a little disappointed with Debian,
> especially after all the great recommendations Wednesday night.
> Dselect is kind of cool, once you get the hang of it, but the install
> process could be a lot more user-friendly and I wish they had tools to
> configure things like sound and printing (or at least made it easier
> to find them). Hopefully I'm through the worst part, though I have to
> admit that Red Hat 6.0 CD (also ordered from Cheap Bytes) is starting
> to look awfully tempting.
>
> Walt
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Plug maillist - Plug@lists.nothinbut.net
> http://lists.nothinbut.net/mail/listinfo/plug
>
_______________________________________________
Plug maillist - Plug@lists.nothinbut.net
http://lists.nothinbut.net/mail/listinfo/plug
|
|