Re: Possible convert to Debian
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 15:10, John Fleming wrote:
> Consider me a newbie, but with enough experience to be dangerous. I started
> learning Linux with RH8.0 about a year ago. I later installed Fedora Core 1
> and have upgraded to FC2, but I'm not happy with the upgrade process (they
> recommend a fresh install of each upgrade, and of course, Fedora has a
> relatively frequent planned upgrade cycle). For my intended uses, I don't
> care about support for the latest whiz-bang USB devices, cameras,
> Centrino/ProWireless etc - I just want easy to install and maintain basic
> server functions with decent security. With my FC2 server (Dell 600SC), I
> have these things going: pop and imap mail, Squirrelmail, Mailman,
> SpamAssassin, Webmin, and Apache with several virtual hosts.
I'm fairly new to Debian myself (but with experience with commercial
unix flavours and other linux distros) so probably know where you're
coming from.
>
> I've toyed with Debian and Knoppix a bit, but haven't tried to fully
> implement the above services yet and have a few questions.
>
> 1. It sounds like Sid is actually pretty stable, I'm guessing especially
> for the basic mail and webserving things I use. Would you recommend I go
> with Sid, or with testing or stable?
Personally I would recommend the "testing" distribution. Sid/unstable
really can be unstable at times. I upgraded last week and lost all
network connectivity for a while. Others have reported losing all
graphics, etc. Unless you're fairly happy poking around in config files
from a console the unstable distribution can be nasty.
I ran testing for several months, though, and had only the occasional
minor inconvenience in return for access to software *reasonably close*
to the latest releases.
Stable is really old at the moment - though hopefully a new release will
be out within a few months. It's really more appropriate to servers than
desktop systems.
>
> 2. It seems that installing from the Knoppix CD might be a bit easier for a
> newbie? I've never tried something like woody 3.0r2 on new technology -
> only on an older limited computer, and I had problems with NIC being
> recognized and others. I have installed Sid using the Knoppix CD on my Dell
> laptop after first partitioning with Partition Magic and have a dual boot
> going with Sid and that other OS. I have done some preliminary
> experimenting using apt-get to install Squirrelmail and Webmin, tinkering
> with the sources list and so forth, so I'm a little familiar with how that
> works.
Lots of work has gone into a new debian installer over the last year or
so. It is at "beta 3" or similar at the moment. I used it to install my
current system and found it pretty good; it's not as friendly as
RedHat's Anaconda installer but from what you describe of your
background I think you would be comfortable with it. BTW, I'm not
criticising the new debian-installer by comparing to anaconda; there are
lots of things it can do that anaconda cannot.
A lot of work has been done on auto-detection of hardware & peripherals,
so you might be pleasantly surprised.
> 3. If I start with the Knoppix CD, I really do end up with the same Debian
> Sid distro as if I started with the unstable CDs themselves?
Not quite, according to the reports I've seen. Yes, you can point a
Knoppix installation at standard debian repositories to get updates. But
apparently Knoppix sets up some of the system scripts etc. differently
from debian so there can be surprises (unexpected breakage) later on.
NB: all this is just hearsay.
>
> 4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, if I use Sid and keep it
> updated, I should never have to do a complete reinstall of the OS as
> recommended for Fedora upgrades. And if I use the stable version, I can do
> an apt-get dist upgrade and upgrade to the new version(s) as available
> without a complete reinstall, right?
I believe this is the case no matter whether you run stable, testing or
unstable. Running dist-upgrade just pulls down the appropriate files.
I've not been using Debian long enough to go through a major release
upgrade yet, but I've heard only good things about the process.
>
> 5. I am interested in software RAID 1 and have 2 identical HDDs. Is there
> an option during the install from Debian CDs (didn't see it in the Knoppix
> HD install) to setup RAID? If not, any recs on the easiest way to get RAID
> 1 going after the initial installation?
No idea.
>
> Any other comments for this relative newbie that's old (>50) and not a
> sysadmin by trade? Thanks a bunch for your time!
I have used RedHat8 and 9, Mandrake9 and 9.1, and debian.
My early experiences of debian never got past the amazingly complex
installation process. However using the new debian installer was quite
reasonable and I am now sold on debian.
Cheers,
Simon
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