Michele Neylon :: Blacknight Solutions wrote:
>>Hi I'm going to tryout debian.
>>>>Which release should I use?
>>>>>>I'd go with "testing" or "unstable"
>>You could go for stable if you are happy to accept old software for a
while until the next release comes out (should probably be in the next
few months, perhaps very soon). You would have a large update when the
next release comes out. Given that stable is over 2 years old now you
probably don't want to do this on a workstation.
If you want a more up to date system (and you probably do for a
workstation) then I would try sarge, which is the next release. It is
a better bet then testing as once sarge is released a new testing
release will begin, and you probably won't want to start using that
straight away. Also there are no security updates for testing until
release is imminent (they should have started for testing now and I
think they have), if you use sarge you wont have to update your
sources.list when sarge is released.
If you want the latest from debian then use unstable, but note that you
will most likely spend more time involved in updating your system if you
use unstable (unstable refers to the fact that the actual packages are
not neccessarily right as oppossed to the softwares stability, though
they may go together, so sometimes dependecies can change and be broken
in unstable until a series of updates is completed). If you don't mind
occassionally not being able to update your system, or having to roll
things back to unbreak stuff or any of the other peculiarities you can
get with new lightly tested versions of packages and you really do want
the latest and greatest of EVERYTHING then go with unstable.
The final option is to have a hybrid. What you can do is use apt
pinning to get the system to default to using one release (say testing)
but still have the option to pull in software from another release (say
unstable). Then when you really need a new version of foo only in
unstable you can "apt-get -u -t unstable install foo", the -u means it
will offer you the choice of continuing or not if other packages are to
be changed then foo, and the -t unstable tells it to install foo from
the unstable distribution. Of course doing this can require that large
parts of your system be updated to unstable to satisfy the dependecies,
and then you will need to decide if you want to go that far or not to
get the latest version of foo. If you want to do this, finding the
details is a quick google away http://www.google.com/search?q=apt-pinning
>>>>I've got ADSL, and want to
>>install a workstation type installation, which method is best to use?
>>>>>>Grab the net install 100 MB boot cd
>>If your adsl "modem" is ethernet then the net install is the way to
go. If it is USB, things may be more complicated. You may find that
it doesn't work with Linux, or it isn't supported by debian, or that it
works fine in debian but not on net-install or that it just works (or
needs a command or 2 to get going). Unless it is supported by the
net-install you would need to get the full cd so you could install
enough of a system to get the drivers working (which could involve
compiling). If it is a usb adsl device the first step is to figure out
how it is supported under Linux, and if it uses binary drivers you can
be pretty sure you won't find it on the net-install cd (at least I would
be very, very, very surprised as while debian does currently ship binary
microcode, they don't touch binary drivers e.g. NVidia's).
You could optionally not use debian proper to install debian and use
something like Knoppix instead. If it is basically debian you want,
this is fine and could save you a lot of effort (configuring hardware,
setting up a basic system), but as you asked for debian I will preume
you want debian proper! Installing something like debian but not
debian can create a tiny bit of work in updating your system as you are
not using one single clean source for all packages.
>>Which apt-get sources should I use ?
>>>>>>There are two Irish mirrors:
>http://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/debian/>http://ftp.ie.debian.org/debian-non-US>>>>>So I'd go for:
||deb ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.debian.org/debian sarge main
deb ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US
sarge/non-US main
deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main
Or the ie.debian.org equivalent. You may also want to add contrib and
maybe even non-free depending on the software you need, to do this just
end each line with "main contrib non-free" instead of just "main".
Once sarge is released you could change sarge to stable and then you
should remain a happy debian camper until you decide you must have a
newer version of something and you can delve into the world of
testing/unstable or apt-pinning.
>Mr Michele Neylon
>Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd
>Hosting, co-location & domains
>http://www.blacknight.ie/>Tel. +353 59 9137101
>>>>Hope that helps!
Niall
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