new debian user questions

[Stuart Krivis <stuart@krivis.com>]

I'm currently thinking about making the move to debian.

I've been using Caldera Network Desktop, and now Caldera Open Linux, for a
while now. It has shielded me from many of the nitty-gritty tasks that are
necessary to keep a unix system healthy. However, it has also let me get my
work done with a minimum of hassle.

I'm getting tired of how difficult it is to upgrade most Linux
distributions. RedHat-based products like Caldera are better than some, but
it still is not an easy task for me.

FreeBSD has an excellent package management system and it would be right up
my alley. The problem is that it's BSD and that's not the direction I want
to go in. So, I'm looking at the debian distribution. I've tried debian
before and now I have a 1.3.1 CD. Dselect is very impressive.

Now for the tough part. :-)

I want to be able to use some of the things I've grown used to with
Caldera. In particular, LISA (Linux Installation and System Adminstration)
is a life-saver. It allows me to easily change hardware and network
settings. I'm not unix savvy enough at this point to know where to do this
without LISA. (I'm also lazy and like being able to do everything from one
utility.)

I also use Star Office and Applixware. How well will those work with
debian? They're distributed as rpm packages. How about Netscape Fastrack
Server? 

Another area that seems to be troublesome is Accelerated-X. I use it
because it is more stable for me than XFree86. I couldn't even get Xsetup
to run, but then read about the termcap-compatibility package and installed
that. That let Xsetup run, but the X-server quits with a connection error
or it complains that it can't find the "fixed" font. Has anyone had any
luck with Accelerated-X and debian?

I'd basically like to run a debian system, yet use selected pieces from
Caldera. Can anyone offer any tips on how best to do this?

Thanks in advance.


Stuart 
--

Stuart Krivis     stuart@krivis.com
[Team OS/2]


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