Re: Getting Dubian to work
Hello Steve,
On Fri, Oct 09, 1998 at 10:36:51PM +0100, steve wrote:
> I have tried three times to intstall debian 2.0.
>
> I don't seem to have a problem once the install is complete. The system
> boots just fine.
Great, this is the first step in the Debian world!
> However, I have been trying to using man to look at the various manuels for
> assistance and the os reports that it can't find "man".
Install man-db package, which contains the man executable, which isn't
installed first. or use dselect to install all standard package,s which
gives you a comfortable base system to start with.
> Also in trying to download new "packages" I have downloaded some .deb files,
> for example man-db_2_3_10-65 and manpag_1_19-1.deb. This I have done so
> as to read the manuuels. I cannot get the os to recognise the new .deb
> files either in dos or using the rawrite2 prog to copy the "images" to disk.
>
> I cannot seem to get the system to read the floppy and load or install the
> .deb files. I have tried this with both dselect ant dpkg -i.
Mmmh. Copy the files on MS DOS formatted diskettes, using windows or dos.
Then use either "mcopy" from the mtools packe (if installed) to copy the
files to Debian (as root, maybe), or mount the floppies:
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
then "cd /mnt" and you should see the content there (try "ls"). Install with
"dpkg -i *.deb" or so. Then "umount /mnt" to remove the mount point (after
leaving the directory). Do this as root.
> The directories are also not reporting their contents correctly apparently.
> The prog when I do try to install tells me that the device isn't in the mtab
> or fstab files. Yet when I navigate to these files I cannot open them and
> there is nothing listed as being contained in the files.
I don't understand what is going wrong here, but I've never heard of linux
not reporting directory content correctly, so I assume you are doing
something fundamentally wrong here. Could you give a transcript of what you
typed and the exact error messages?
> I know I am a "newbie". It has been a pleasure to find and use another
> operating system besides w95. But despite three attempts at installation I
> cannot seem to be getting the system ot work properly.
Please try the howtos, which give you a start:
"zless /usr/doc/HOWTO/DOS-to-Linux-HOWTO.gz"
if you have the doc-linux package installed (maybe the package name is a bit
different). Or search the web for it.
> I hope I have ezplained my problems clearly but if not please ask me
> questions as I would like to make full use of debian and maybe learn enough
> to help someone else.
Great, welcome home! Your report wasn't too bad, but some things are unclear
to me(see above). As a thumb rule it is often useful to report commands and
error messages verbatim.
Marcus
--
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