Re: Debie Newbie
On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 08:07, Alex Malinovich wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-01-08 at 13:23, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 10:36:08AM -0800, Daniel L. Miller wrote:
> > > Will the Redhat binaries work under Debian?
> >
> > Hard to say. Executables will work fine (or can be made to work fine by
> > installing additional packages, if you happen to get link errors). I get
> > the impression that this is a kernel module, though, and it's not clear
> > to me that Red Hat kernels are module-binary-compatible with Debian
> > kernels.
> >
> > There's unlikely to be any harm in trying. If it doesn't work, you'll
> > know.
>
> Having been in a similar position when I first started messing around
> with Debian, I'll try and give you the "straight" answer about Red Hat
> stuff. First off, Colin is right about the kernel modules. There's no
> harm in trying, but don't expect them to work. What I'll try to cover is
> the right way to go about things like this.
>
> Most of the programs you find floating around on the net for linux are
> usually released in two forms, RPMs and source. Your first instinct
> then, coming from either a Windows or Mac or even Red Hat or Mandrake
> background is to download the easiest form of the package and use it. So
> you download the RPM and use it. And maybe you find out about the
> "alien" command in Debian that can convert RPMs to DEBs. And that works.
> But that's the wrong way of going about it.
>
> Debian has the incredibly useful and powerful apt system. If you want to
> find a package, you just type "apt-cache search searchwords", where
> searchwords are what you want to find, and it shows you matching package
> names. When you find the packages you want, it's just a matter of
> "apt-get install packagename".
>
> Sometimes, however, there doesn't yet exist a Debian package for a
> program you want. In that case, I always suggest building from source.
> Debian has a nice way of seperating compiled from source packages from
> the rest of the system. They all go into /usr/local/* as opposed to
> /usr/* or even /*. This way it's relatively easy to get rid of them
> cleanly in the future. Also, most Makefiles nowadays have an "uninstall"
> target, so after you compile and install a program, uninstalling it can
> be done from the same source tree.
>
> Finally, to get to the point of the kernel modules, just as with the apt
> system, it's always best to check what you have before you start
> downloading stuff. Just about every major piece of hardware nowadays is
> supported directly in the kernel. If you roll your own kernel it's quite
> easy to select which drivers you need during compilation. If you run a
> Debian packaged kernel, it will come with just about every module that
> could possibly be compiled in the kernel. Then you can just load those
> modules using modprobe or modconf.
>
> If you were to download the RPM of the drivers and use that, it would
> most likely just place the driver in your kernel modules directory. I
> hope that makes sense and, more importantly, I hope the above clarifies
> a few things about starting out with Debian. It's always good to catch
> bad habits such as using alien before they start. :) Good luck and
> welcome to Debian. :)
>
> -Alex
Well spoken. I am still rather new to Debian. I often find myself doing a
Google search for what I want to do. Then when I find some likely software(s)
I follow with a local search of my debs for the program(s) name I found on
Google.
Mostly the neccessary debs are there.
Bob
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