[CLUG] Migrating to Debian

[David Dorgan]

Quoting adam beecher (lists at beecher.net):
> Is Debian substantially different to Red Hat? The most important
> applications will be Apache, PHP, MySQL, sendmail and possibly Bind, am I
> going to have any problems with these? 

No, you should have no problems. You might want to check
and know what versions you need. On debian desktops I use,
I use unstable, it's slightly misleading, it's just as stable
as redhat/mandrake etc... and has more up to date packages,
it is stable really. There are strict guidelines for maintainers
etc...

However on say sponge, I use stable. If you look at the ssh
version on sponge, it's pretty old, but patched. In stable
you often see 'older' packages which have security/serious flaws
fixed in them. 

> How does Webmin perform on Debian,
> anybody using it? How does Debian operate as an all-in-one solution (router,
> firewall, mail server, proxy, etc)? How does the file system and operation
> compare to Red Hat, i.e. is it substantially different?


Well, packages in general, you never have to worry about in
debian, if you apt-get it, and it exists, then you're done.
You install, and it's setup and done, all working, except in a few
cases where you'll get a configuration dialog.

> How do updates work on Debian? I don't run up2date automatically on Red Hat,
> but I want it to be as simple as Red Hat to update the machines: login, run
> an up2date-like command to check what's new, and run another command to
> update the box. I don't want to be pissing around with manual lilo/grub
> updates and the like. I want the box to come back up after a kernel update
> with no whines or grumbles every time.

This is probably about the best feature in Debian.
I put apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade on a nightly cron.
You don't have to do this, run it manually. On stable it's
mostly security fixes. Say for ssh, it's well tested etc...
So you run it, it stops and starts the sshd and you're done.

To see if a package exists, just do apt-cache search package,
for example,

davidd at sponge:~$ apt-cache search webmin | wc -l
     35

These are mostly plugins mind you.

Or say I want a newer kernel, on this stable box,
and I want 2.4, apt-cache search kernel-image gives 31 matches.
Say I want an i686, apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18-1-686 .
I've never once had an issue with a kernel upgrade
on debian, in fact I upgraded my work workstation at 3am last night
from home, for ipv6 support, put a script into startup to assign
the ip , tunnels etc... Came in this morning and all was done.

It's pretty much flawless.

> Any other tips, tricks or suggestions welcome.

Well I mean, apt-get will really really blow your mind if you've
never used it, you'll ask yourself why all distros don't use it.

It's simple, easy to keep secure, update and high quality.

Just remember, stable is very very stable, with older (patched)
packages, unstable has always been rock stable for me and
testing is well, testing ;-)

David.