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Re: Greetings and a minor rave!!



On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 07:08:14PM +0000, andy wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I'm new to Debian - having run Slackware solidly since 8.1 I have become 
Hi Andy,
welcome to Debian. as of today the next stable release 'etch' has gone
into 'freeze', this is the last stage before it is released as 'stable'.
So, if you are running Sarge, you may want to read the etch release
notes before upgrading. If you are running 'testing', you can fix your
/etc/apt/sources.list to read 'etch' so that you upgrade and stay with
'stable' when its released or you'll stay with 'testing'. 'testing' is
usually most useable a few months after a release. This is because
things are being added after the release to fix things that could not be
added because of the 'freeze'. The other thing about testing is that
packages get taken out from time to time and are not replaced in a
timely manner. Unstable or sid is were all bugfixes go, so if there is a
bugfix it enters unstable and in about 10 days, if all goes well it may
enter 'testing'. I said 'may' because there are multiple conditions that
allow a package or a group of packages to migrate into testing. So if
you want 24/7 rock solid dead easy - go with stable. If you want fast
bugfixes but not dead easy - go with unstable. If you want somewhat easy
and newer that stable then go with testing. All these choices has
consequenes. But if you start with stable, if will allow an easier time
to get used to 'the Debian way'.

> used to particular ways of maintaining my machine and also became used 
> to a certasin belt-&-braces mentality. I loved Slackware, found 
> tremendous respect for the stable way Pat Volkerding put it together and 
> maintained it over the years.
Much props to Mr. Slack! Every pioneer who paved the way had a hard road
to pave that is littered with blood sweat and tears. We stand on the
shoulders of giants.
> So, this is my first venture forth into Debian and using Etch with Gnome 
> as my DE, with 1Gb RAM, a P4 processor and 200Gb HDD I am feeling well 
> equipped to ride the obvious and demonstrable pleasures that GNU/Linux 
> Debian Etch brings the user. This is *so* very cool.
Well that system will able to do anything like compiz, beryl, mythtv, or
other hi cpu stuff. Have fun!
> 
> Well done any developers who read this - thanks for building this: this 
> is a rush!! I love apt-get and how stable the system seems to be, and 
> responsive too. I am still on a very steep learning curve, so would 
> welcome anyone's steer in terms of learning how to optimise my system 
> and good documentation for a Debian-n00b.
> 
> I am seriously impressed with this system and just wanted to introduce 
> myself. Lots to learn - lots of fun to be had: this is what computing 
> was meant to be ...
There are many sources of info: here is one. irc.debian.org on #debian
using irssi (my choice). wiki.debian.org has expanded this year into a
great resource. /usr/share/doc/ is where all documentation is. watch for
any file that has 'debian' in the name for debian added notes. apt-file
is cool for finding stuff. aptitude is the tool for most folks to
install. apt-get or dpkg maybe needed to do surgery. apt-cache is
useful. 
aptitude remove: remove application files and documentation
aptitude purge: remove application files, documentation and
configuration file(/etc).
aptitude upgrade: used for updating packages
aptitude dist-upgrade: used for adding, removing and updating packages
(this is a rough definition--read apt-get or aptitude man pages for more
info)
almost forgot: www.debian-administration.org a site by a DD(debian
developers) which has cool stuff. And planet.debian.org to get the
latest Gossi^H^H^HNews on all thing Debian.
Cheers,
Kev
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