[ILUG] Debian is a pain to install!

[Gary Coady]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 02:23:11PM +0000, Donncha O Caoimh wrote:
> How do I install/where do I find a deb for Netscape Communicator 4?
> Netscape 3 is included but the configuration part groaks with an error
> about /tmp/ and renaming files. Yes, I need the proprietary and evil
> Netscape Communicator. Is it on the 4th CD?

Dunno - but if you have enabled non-free access to a Debian mirror,
apt-get install navigator
should resolve the dependencies, even if it IS on the fourth CD - but
you'll have a big download
Something like
deb ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.debian.org/debian potato main contrib non-free
in /etc/apt/sources.list

> The install reported lots of installation errors but when the Dialog box
> came up at the end to ask to run the install again to isntall those
> packages it didn't find any more debs to install. I think that after a
> text warning about the install problems, the installer re-ran those debs
> again itself.
> 
> How do I get a list of installed des. Dselect will let me do that, but I
> want the same as "rpm -qa|grep" to find if something is installed.

dpkg -l

> How do I see the contents of a deb? Or find out what the contents of an
> installed deb is? Or find out what deb a file belongs to? These are the
> first things I as an rpm user can't easily find the apt/dpkg man files..
> (I've looked them over several times at home, but of course may have
> missed the obvious switches that everyone knows.)

List files in installed package: dpkg -L package_name
List files in DEB file: dpkg -c package.deb
Find out what deb a file belongs to: dpkg -S filename
 or
  check out the package dlocate when you move to unstable.

> If I want to add a kernel module(say, NIC driver installed from a
> floopy..), or recompile the kernel, can I keep using the nice "modconf"
> tool? Who do I recompile the kernel? Is there anything special to do
> beyond the usual make dep; make clean; make bzImage; etc. procedure. I
> found a kernel config program, but could only find the setup tool for
> that. (It asked for the kernel version and maintainer, your name. Does
> that ring any bells?)

apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot

kernel-package is a nice interface to compile a new kernel, and create
debian packages for it.
make menuconfig
fakeroot make-kpkg --revision=local0 binary
cd ..
dpkg -i kernel*.deb

would be how I'd do it.
If you reconfigure the kernel after beginning a compile run, run
make-kpkg clean

Umm root access is required to create Debian packages - fakeroot pretends
you have this.

I think modconf is happy with any extra modules you have as long as they
fit within the file hierarchy it knows about. So you're grand, with 2.2.
If you want to use 2.4 with Potato, you'll need a set of special
(unofficial) packages - 
http://www.fs.tum.de/~bunk/kernel-24.html

There's a Debian-specific way to deal with kernel patches, but I don't
know it, just patch the source tree before configuring etc.

Gary.

-- 
Gary Coady..http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~gary/
   ... lend your voices only to sounds of freedom. No longer lend your
      strength to that which you wish to be free from.          --- Jewel