Re: reinstalling Debian - part I
Nuno Magalhães wrote:
Hi
I have an amd64 system that is still dualboot with XP. It has a 100GB
FAT32 that i use as my "/home" but since i barely use XP anymore and i
had some issues with FAT32 i'm gonna resize my 20GB XP partition (oh,
wait, i have game isos...) and change the fat to ext3. Also, my system
got infected with this virus called gnome, which is really hard to get
rid off. I hear KDE is the same and with so much X experimenting i'm
not sure anymore which session/display/window/file/___managers i have
and which are default. It's annoying. I also surely have some lost and
unused packages and i could use some tweaking as far as partition
sizes go, so, this implies repartition and reformat anyway.
Are you sure you need the reinstalling?
If your partitions aren't too full, then you can repartition
without reinstalling. Basically:
* Delete all you don't want
* copy all files in the partition to be resized into a subdirectory
on another partition. (This other partition must have room enough)
* Delete the partition, create a new one with different size or
different filesystem. Format it (mkfs), then copy stuff back.
Filesystem change accomplished without reinstalling.
You can also delete unused packages without reinstalling.
That's why a proper package manager like apt is so great.
apt-get remove package, and it goes. It will also tell if it need
to remove other packages first, you can then decide if it is ok or not.
You could also switch to "aptitude" which will remove some unused
packages automatically for you.
If you have broken some packages (by deleting their files, for example)
then run "debsums -s". It will tell you about packages with errors,
you can fix those with "apt-get install --reinstall packagename"
If you don't like gnome/kde - just remove them.
"apt-get remove gnome-core" ought to get rid of a lot of
gnome. Many gnome packages need gnome-core, and will
go away when the core goes.
Before i do that, i want some advice. Here are the specs:
power supply: 400W
motherboard: Asus M2NPV-VM
processor: AMD Athlon64 3500+ (2.2GHZ PIB SOCKET AM2 512KB CACHE)
RAM: 2x Kingston 1G DDR2 800MHz CL5 (with two empty slots)
hard-drive: Maxtor 160GB SATA II 7200RPM 8Mb Cache
DVD: LG RW GSA-H10A (never used it in Debian yet actually)
There are 3 other computers, two debians wired to the NAT router,
another wireless with Vista (i'm thiking printers and Samba later).
Starting with general questions, one of my future projects will be to
fiddle around with Linux from Scratch. The thing is, if i compile
everything, will i be able to compile a package manager and use it to
manage everything i've already compiled? If not i'm stuck with a
system that's not easily upgradable (although that's not the point
with LFS).
The answer is "no". Stuff you compile yourself is removed with "rm".
Use a distribution with a package manager, or use your own approach.
Linux from scratch is all about doing things yourself instead of
getting help from a distribution. So no package manager,
unless you create and maintain your own big package that contains all the
stuff you needed before getting to the package manager.
Religious question #1: which PM to use? I mostly use APT and i'm quite
happy with it. Aptitude seemed ok. I want automatic removal of unused
packages and whatever else is there to make management easy.
apt is nice, aptitude is better and it does the removal of unused stuff.
Religious question #2: Display Manager. XDM does the job and i guess
with some fiddling it could even become pretty. I have other machines,
The question is - do you care about looks or speed?
xdm starts faster than gdm and kdm - which is nice. And you
can add a background image as well as position the login window.
Who needs more. . .
only one monitor and i'm lazy. I can get away with openSSH but i'd
like to open a window on my desktop and connect to the other boxes. I
did it once!! So, i'd like to use the same DM in all machines, one
that will later allow me to remote session. I think SDM is
discontinued (used SSH - i don't need it on my local network but its
fun), i refuse to use GDM or KDM since i dislike the corresponding
desktop enviroments (although i'm now using gdm). So... unless(?) i go
for VNC i'd like a DM that can handle XDMCP.
xdm, kdm, gdm - they all handle xdmcp.
And the difference between a display manager and a session manager?
Languages and i18n. My mother tongue is NOT english. I'm ok with it
being the system language, i actually like the interface to be
english, since i don't really appreciate other translations, but i
want to be able to use the system (keyboard et al) for my own language
(portuguese), as well as others (esperanto and russian). I want to be
able to have filenames with portuguese accented letters, cyrillic or
hebrew characters if i freaking want to - and use them on the console.
Admitedly i ran into most problems with the FAT32 partition, but i
still get a lot of garble.
Use a UTF-8 based locale then, possibly english if you prefer that.
Also make sure the console is set up for UTF-8. You will want
a framebuffer console, not vga, as vga is limited to 256 or 512
distinct symbols and you might need more.
In X, use a terminal emulator that supports unicode well.
I think several of them do - uxterm should be a safe bet.
How can i guarantee a default Unicode system? Which brings us to the
next question.
Install locales, set it up for unicode locales and no others.
Fonts. While fiddling with the default X meta-package (oh :(, i'd
forgotten about that) i ran into 3 different locations for fonts.
Apapretly Xfs is deprecated. I want my fonts to be central and
unicode, available to all programs, at least. I don't want fonts that
are not unicode - any tweaks?
Install only unicode fonts then. I don't know which ones that would be.
Short of compiling it how can i assure that my X server will be
adapted to my hardware? It often installs drivers for a bunch of cards
unnecessarily, for instance. And this motherboard has an onborad
nVidia chip which i'd like to use to the max (and how could i test
that?). Also i know this monitor (Samtron 55E) supports more than
800x600 resolutions, but i can't really know if it's using something
above that. Also there doesn't seem to be a standard as fas as icons
(and its size/behaviour) go...
Install the correct driver for your hardware then.
"lspci" tells you what you have. For nvidia, use the proprietary
driver to "use it to the max" or the nv driver if you
want to stay open-source.
The installation: i want to be sure i'll only instal the most basic
packages, the "minimal" system. I could use the netinst CD i used last
time (May) but it would be interesting to use a USB pen-drive. I have
a 2GB Kingston, i assume that's feasable.
Sure, you can install a minimal system on a 2GB drive.
I once had debian on a 240MB harddisk. . .
Helge Hafting
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