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Re: Getting Started with Debian 3.0



Andrew Konosky wrote:

It is now a Win98SE/Debian 3.0 dual boot system.

I was a little uneasy about the text-only installation after getting used to RedHat's anaconda installer and Suse's fully automatic YaST (which is pretty cool if you've never tried it!), and even more puzzled when I started up KDE2 (which crashes on startup!) instead of 3.2 or 3.3, and Gnome 1.4, which does work. Then I checked the Debian website, and the release date of Nov 21, 2003 explains that. So I have an out-of-date system. I know how to use apt, since I use Synaptic on my FC2 system, but the network card doesn't seem to be working (typing this e-mail on FC2 system...). What program does Debian use to configure network cards?

Debian 3.0 (Woody) is ancient. You might find it easier to install Sarge (the next version of Debian, to be released Real Soon Now) rather than try to get the network working on Woody.

But . . .

run "lspci" to see what ethernet chipset you have. Then run "modconf" (or "modprobe" plus adding the module to "/etc/modules") to install the appropriate module for that chipset.

Make sure that "/etc/networking/interfaces" has the appropriate info for your network (fairly simple; look at the examples in "man interfaces").

Then restart the network, by rebooting or by running "/etc/init.d/networking restart".

Once I get the network card setup so I can get online, where might I find a sources.list for apt with some Debian mirros to get updated from?

You can google, or folks on this list would probably offer theirs as an example, like:

enjae[westk]:/home/westk> cat /etc/apt/sources.list
# See sources.list(5) for more information, especialy
# Remember that you can only use http, ftp or file URIs
# CDROMs are managed through the apt-cdrom tool.
#deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
#deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
#deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free

# Uncomment if you want the apt-get source function to work
#deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable non-US

# UnStable
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Stable
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free

You almost certainly want to upgrade to Testing (Sarge) or even Sid (unstable). I run unstable on all my workstations; stable on my servers. Don't let the name "unstable" disturb you too much. You were running a mix of stable & unstable & experimental & third-party stuff when you were running Knoppix. unstable means that it's the playground of the developers, so packages are constantly getting bugs, bug fixes, changes, etc; it does not mean that your box itself will be unstable.

Once you have your "/etc/apt/sources.list" file the way you want, just:
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

My FC2 system runs a Samba server to share my mp3 files, which Win98 is setup to see, but I would like to configure Debian to use my FC2 Samba server as well. Any tutorials on this?

apt-get install smbclient smbfs samba
and answer the questions; then you mount a share with a command like:
smbmount //fc2server/mp3share /home/andrew/MyMusic

And lastly, any general tips/hint/suggestions?

Search the Debian User mailing list archives; almost any question you'll have has been addressed in the past year. Don't post HTML messages (use plain text). Reply in Interleave mode rather than top-posting. When replying to posts, reply only to the list; don't CC the original poster(s). Don't take threads offline to a private conversation unless there's a need to do so; otherwise we (and others through the archives) miss out on the solutions/insights/etc. Be aware your messages are archived. Snip irrelevant material from replies. Feel free to jump into this community and ask and answer and share your experiences. Keep the stable/security line in your "/etc/apt/sources.list", even if you upgrade. Don't run as root unless necessary; use "sudo" instead. Be aware that non-free software is not as easy to install on Debian as it might be on other distros that aren't philosophically pure, Freedom-wise, such as Java, Flash, DVD playing codecs, etc, but it can be done.

--
Kent



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