On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 01:52:40PM -0500, David A. Rogers (darogers@xnet.com) wrote: > I've used Unix and other Linuxes for some time now, but I am just starting to > use Debian. What documents should I read and in which order to get up do > speed on how Debian does things? Would it be better to read a book? If so, > which one? > > I particular, I am interested in: > - Setting up X. Read installation docs and try it. If it doesn't set up for you (it usually does), write to list. > - Setting up mail (end user not server) i.e. I have an ISP that stores my mail > and forwards it. If you use Netscape or similar, this is handled through the application. If you want to use locally hosted mail, you'll want to configure exim or postfix as a local mail transfer agent for outgoing mail (which then smarthosts to your ISP's outbound host), and fetchmail to grab your mail from your ISP's POP server. > - Recompiling the kernel Read the READMEs in /usr/src/linux and the Debian manuals. > - Setting up sound (either OSS or ALSA) Sound HOWTOs. > - Debian tips and tricks - I found out about alternatives on this > list. Cool idea. See Rick Moen's tips page, search "debian linxumafia" at your favorite search engine, particularly if it's named "Google". > - Debian uses a lot of indirection. Ex. The contents of /etc/modules/ALSA > gets plunked into modules.conf after update-modules is run. Where is stuff > like this documented? Hellifiknow <g>. > > Some things I've run into already. > > Both the alsa source and kernel source were installed as packed files. Why > didn't apt-get unpack them for me? You mean archives? You have to build your kernel yourself. Read the Debian manual docs. Some of these are under /usr/doc, you should also look at http://www.debian.org/doc/ddp > I finally figured out where the were. How was I supposed to know where > apt-get put them? That's probably a fair question. You *can* browse through a Debian .deb file with mc, GNU midnight commander, a console-based file browser on steroids and acid. Try it, you'll like it. > Under Mandrake, the standard module drivers for the Crystal sound cards have a > really annoying click every time a sound is played. Is this true for Debian? If they're the same binaries, quite possibly. Distros vary software, but the kernel tends to be standardized. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc. http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0
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