Peter Whysall, Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 05:33:35PM +0000: > [Now that I'm subscribed on d-u, I'm reposting this as I'd really like > feedback that I can reply to - I might have made some bonehead remarks > here :-)] > > Symlinking /dev/mouse to /dev/psaux wouldn't hurt THAT much, would it? Depends on wether or not you use gpm. > > Networking configuration. Or the complete and utter absence thereof. For > a distro that wants to install off the internet, not detecting, > configuring and using an absolutely bog-standard 3Com 3C590 10MBit card > is a bit heinous. I had to edit /etc/network/interfaces myself, and the > card never did get its module loaded automatically and interface started > until I had created a 2.4.18 kernel package. When this was installed, it > all Just Worked. Debian doesn't do autodetection, yet. Someone should have warned you to open you box and note what was inside before procedding with the install. The lack of auto-detection isn't that big a deal with the network card, but is _really_ felt during the X configuration process. If you had loaded the module for the network card the installer would have prompted you for the information to configure /etc/network/interfaces > > As I've pointed out to Karsten (and others) in the past, FreeBSD has > this down pat - two floppies and you're away - in stark contrast to the > 13-17 floppies you need for Debian, and networking config is a solved > problem. OK, FreeBSD sucks rocks once it's installed, but you get the > idea :) Debian - Difficult to Install, Easy to Maintain > > Sound? Well, I've got the best sound card that never ruled the world - > the Aureal SonicVortex2, based on the AU8830 chipset. As Creative Labs > bought Aureal to save their blushes (Aureal's A3D surround sound kicked > Creative's EAX all over the shop, and Aureal had the misfortune to go > bust at the wrong time) and promptly killed it, the drivers are in legal > limbo. However, http://www.braincells.com/debian/sid/au88xx/ to the > rescue! Apart from a totally horked genchanges.sh script (pgp > shenanigans), this worked fine and didn't mean I had to step outside the > packaging system to get this going. Slight problems - the module doesn't > get loaded at boot time and /dev/mixer and /dev/dsp had 0660 > permissions, which meant mere mortals couldn't access them. Add yourself to the audio group rather than change permissions. > > Other random thoughts: > > Some wrapper script to jiggle /etc/apt/sources.list to enable easy > switching between testing and stable, and also mirror selection. > ftp.uk.debian.org started going hella slow last night at about 8PM, and > switching to ftp.de.debian.org fixed it - but I had to edit the file to > make this happen. You can always put multiple sources in the same sources.list. When you do an apt-get update, the source which downloads its Packages files first will have a higher preference in the database. I'm not sure whether the ability to add mutiple sources for the same packages is planned or not. > > Hell, *I* might write this :) > > There needs to be apt tasks for GNOME and KDE. If there are, I can't see > them. Not that I want to install KDE, mind, but a simple method of > zapping it when I find it would be nice :) good point. > > Aptitude and apt-utils should be part of the base install. Too useful > not to have. useful but not necessary. > > All in all, though, a rewarding experience. At the end of the evening I > had a fully functional Linux system running GNOME, with Evo and Galeon > in place and working. No user data was ever lost and my Windows > partition (gotta play games, dontcha know) was unaffected. Debian really grows on you the more you use it. ;) Oh, yeah. Play Urban Terror (a quake3 mod) on Linux and you won;t need that win32 partition anymore. g -- Brought to you by Debian 3.0 Linux took 2.4.16 #1 SMP Sat Jan 5 12:52:24 EST 2002 i686 unknown
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