on Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 03:51:14PM -0700, Jaimos F. Skriletz (somiaJ@excite.com) wrote:
>
> To whom it may concern,
>
> Hello, I'm tradionally a Window's 98 OS user and am currently in the
<nit>
Spell checking on long rants is strongly recommended.
</nit>
> project of teaching myself linux and wanting to learn how to use its
> operating system. After talking to some of my friends who are devout
> linux users, I have recived advice that Debian is one of the best
> issues of linux to use, so I have decided that I will follow their
> advice and install Debian on my old computer and begin learning how to
> use it.
Debian is generally not considered the *easiest* distro to install
and/or get started with. It's generally one of the more *maintainable*
distros. After your first few months of agony, maintenance is the main
issue facing sysadmins.
> My current computer I'm using is a newer P3, and has a CD-burner on it
> so I decided to goto Debian's homepage and try to download the iso
> image in order to burn myself a copy of the Debian instalitation disc
> so I can install the operating system upon my computer
Not necessary, and almost certainly not preferable. Debian's
installation can be accomplished by a number of means, docs start at:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/#new-inst
And, specifically, for x86 installations:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install
In particular, "there's more than one way to do it", you'll want to read
section 5, "Methods for Installing Debian":
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install/ch-install-methods.en.html
This contains, among other things, pointers to various floppy
installation images, or, in section 6.4, instructions for installing
from CDROM.
> (I didn't want to wait for the CD or purchase one since I have no cash
> to spare)
False economies at best. You can purchase the 3-disk set from a number
of sources, I picked up a set from LinuxCentral
(http://www.linuxcentral.com/), cost is about $9, postage included,
delivery within a few days. This would be the time it took you to
browse through the FAQs. Strongly recommended, particularly if you
don't have a high-bandwidth connection.
> to begin this project, but little to my knowledge, I have spent the
> last three days reading though your FAQ's, readme files, etc trying to
> figure out how to get the image which should be a simple afair, yet
> failing miserabbaly and I have the following comments/complaints I
> hope you will at least consider about your system.
The docs could be better organized. However, this list is populated
with folks who've been through most of the pains themselves, strongly
recommended you ask first. We're usually pretty helpful, or so I hear.
> First I will like to say that your meathod is intivative and I
> understand your issues of wanting to save banwith, also after thinking
> about your meathod of using the .list file to direct what pacakages
> will be installed on the machince, I see that for a knowledgable
> Debian user it could be advantage to spelizise that list to get the
> maximum performace out of your operating system which is the final
> goal of most devout users in my opion, but now on to my problems
Huh?
> My complaints are as follows, first off, the process of getting the
> pseudo-image and onward is not 'straight-forward' or 'easy' but I'm up
> for the challange so I read though the files and followed the
> directions to the T, and yet it still didn't work.
I've heard from several users, of varying levels of experience,
including seasoned GNU/Linux experts, who've utterly failed to negotiate
the pseudo-image install. I'd strongly discourage it based on this.
Anyone with other input please step forward.
> I encounterd the following problems. The first and main problem is
> that your interface for the make-pseudo-image file tells the user
> nothing that would be of any use. All it says is that the program is
> 'Getting...' and my dos-prompt flashes from sleep-bash and back and
> forth so I get the sense its doing something. I think you should add
> a feture that not only tells you what percentage of the pseudo-image
> you have finsihed, but also tells you how fast your current transfer
> rate to the ftp server is so you can decide if your on a good one or
> not. After waiting though four hours of 'Getting...' the program
> finaly crashed, Sh had an illegal operation error. So I shut it down
> and tried to restart, as soon as it gets to 'Getting...' Sh crashed
> again and again and again and again.
Valid criticisms.
> After that I decided to start over from scratch and redownload
> everything, including the orignial zip file for the pseudo-image-make
> program from a differnt sight thinking maby there was a croupted file.
> Now I can't even start the 'Getting...' process with out Sh crashing,
> and I have tried at least 4 differen't ftp sights for the pseudo-image
> zip file and 6 differnt sights to connect to, to get the pseudo image.
> So I have wasted the last three days trying to get the iso image file
> for your instalitation CD.
...during which time it would have arrived from LinuxCentral, ThinkGeek,
CheapBytes, LinuxMall, or other sources. US vendors are listed at:
http://www.debian.org/distrib/vendors#us
> All I ask is that you consider this, and maby think of a way to make
> the meathod of getting the iso image easier for non linux users
Reading the installation manual is strongly recommended. Posting
appropriate questions where you're unclear is the next step.
> I would like it if someone would send me a ftp sight I can just
> download the iso image, because I really don't want to go though all
> this process of trying to create one, it just isn't workin.
See above.
Good luck.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
Are these opinions my employer's? Hah! I don't believe them myself!
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