Re: installing Debian and installing programs
Jim Knott wrote:
I bought a distro from someone who sells a lot of Debian and when the install
failed, they even sent me a second set in case the first one was no good. The
installs went good up to the 2nd and 3rd disc's respectively, but wouldn't
install all the way.
Without knowing if this distro is an official snapshot of Debian or not,
we can't begin to guess what problems the CDs might or might not have.
Most people can get going with just the first CD; the fact that you're
having to use the 2nd and 3rd indicates either that you're installing
stuff that most folks don't first time around, or that the CDs are
customized to such an extent that we're not going to be able to know
what's wrong.
Also,
when I do get it installed, I want to be able to use the command line to
download from tucows or others and install programs on my Linux computer, can
you provide step-by-step instructions for that also?
This question indicates that you have network connectivity (hopefully
broadband). In that case, I'd suggest you either use the new Testing
installer available from http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
(you can grab 110MB version, presumably for i386, and burn it to CD as
an image, not as data), boot from it, and install from it. At one point
it'll ask if you want to install from ftp (or http, etc), and you can
setup your system to pull from the internet at that point.
After the install is finished, you can install other software from the
command line. However, you probably want to wait on installing from
Tucows; most of what you'll want will be available in the Debian
repository, and these packages in the Debian repository are designed to
work in Debian; the software from Tucows will not be designed to work in
Debian, and will require extra effort to get working. Later, after
you've gotten comfortable in Debian, you can start pulling in non-Debian
software.
As far as "step-by-step" instructions go, that's a very broad question.
You'll have to be more specific as to what you're trying to install,
what your system specs are (do you have plenty of drive space, do you
have broadband, etc). However, a general answer to your question is to
simply run "aptitude"; this is a menu-based console app that will allow
you to pick-and-choose various software packages for installation/removal.
Just a tip: when installing originally, install the least amount of
stuff necessary to finish the installation. This will result in a
command line prompt after the installation finishes, but is a good place
to be, because it provides you with a working, minimal system. Once
you're there, you can add what you need piecemeal. Let us know when
you're at that point, and what you want to install at that point, and we
should be able to get you up and going.
--
Kent
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