Debian Etch released!

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm sure IBMs are good, but man they are mad expensive!

No doubt, but I'm not the one paying for it. =)

Dell has always had great, official support for Redhat and SuSe. I wonder if this is a Debian-only problem, or if it is a kernel issue that has not been addressed yet. Maybe by the time Redhat 5 is out, this will be taken care of.

Dell support was terrible everytime we used it and the onboard Broadcomm cards were oh so unreliable.

Did you have Enterprise Gold Support? That could make a difference, or it could just be luck of the draw (and I've never had a problem with the onboard Broadcomms). You never know about people's impressions - a previous employer refused to buy anything but Gateways because their support was "so great."

 

[Nothinman]

Did you have Enterprise Gold Support? That could make a difference, or it could just be luck of the draw (and I've never had a problem with the onboard Broadcomms).

No clue about the support contract, we were mostly an HP shop so it's probably doubtful since Dells were fairly rare. And I find it odd that you didn't have problems with those cards, they never autonegotiated right and IIRC we had at least two times where they stopped issuing interrupts and the module had to be reloaded to get the network going again. Our firewall vendor also started using rebadged Dells because they wanted to force "appliances" on everyone without actually building them, after a year or so they stopped supporting the onboard NICs and started throwing in an additional Intel card to take their place because of constant problems. Hell we couldn't even get a crossover between two of them to work consistently.

 

[Sunner]

Yay, finally, been playing around with it for a while, waiting for the release.

And yeah, I agree on HP/IBM > Dell

 

[sourceninja]

Anyone know how to get Etch to install on a ESX 3 server? I can't get either installer to load, graphical, or text based. It starts to boot and just hangs there.

 

[Netopia]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I think that Debian will leave data files and modified configuration files after an uninstall. Some or all of this can be taken care of with one of the apt commands though.

Ya. By default it's going to leave configuration files and it won't overwrite them if you reinstall the software.

To get rid of configuration files you have to use the --purge option using apt-get or use the _ button in aptitude. Then that will get rid of files more aggressively.

I'm not advocating building your own servers but I've had enough problems with Dell equipment that I would go for HP, IBM, etc over them any day.

I figure if your setting up a server with a OS that is not officially supported by a vendor then that is pretty close to building your own system.

Stuff like that clock business. I am sure that Dell's attitude is that if it works fine in Windows then it's not their problem if it doesn't work in Debian. Which is fine by me; if your not paying them to support Debian, then why should they?

I checked with Dell before the purchase and they said that as long as it was a newer release of Debian, like Etch, all should be fine.

Joe

 

[Netopia]

Well, I did the install of KDE (thank you Nothinman!) and figured out how to get FreeNX running (the files are in very different places than on a RH/FC box...and some important ones are even named differently!)

I have run into one issue that perhaps someone on here knows how to fix. After installing KDE, I can no longer respond to "graphical" messages in terminal windows. For instance, while installing Postfix, you get a configuration screen that tells you that you need to choose from a list of default configurations on the following screen. The is an <OK> at the bottom of this screen, but if you click it or hit ENTER or SPACE, nothing happens. I tried it remotely with putty and another terminal program (ZOC) as well as the terminal in the KDE desktop and there was no difference. The exact same thing happened when I got a "graphical" screen warning me that a new kernel was being installed and that I should reboot soon. Same <OK> at the bottom, but absolutely no way to do anything.

I got the stuff installed/configured using synaptic, but am somewhat bothered by the fact that the CLI is now partially crippled.

Any ideas?

Joe

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
Anyone know how to get Etch to install on a ESX 3 server? I can't get either installer to load, graphical, or text based. It starts to boot and just hangs there.

hmm, while in testing, Debian Etch has installed fine on ESX 3. I'll give it a try with the final and let you know.

 

[Nothinman]

I have run into one issue that perhaps someone on here knows how to fix. After installing KDE, I can no longer respond to "graphical" messages in terminal windows. For instance, while installing Postfix, you get a configuration screen that tells you that you need to choose from a list of default configurations on the following screen. The is an <OK> at the bottom of this screen, but if you click it or hit ENTER or SPACE, nothing happens. I tried it remotely with putty and another terminal program (ZOC) as well as the terminal in the KDE desktop and there was no difference. The exact same thing happened when I got a "graphical" screen warning me that a new kernel was being installed and that I should reboot soon. Same <OK> at the bottom, but absolutely no way to do anything.

If you can type into the terminal you should be able to use the ncurses dialogs, you have been hitting tab to change over to the OK button before hitting enter, right?

 

[Netopia]

If you can type into the terminal you should be able to use the ncurses dialogs, you have been hitting tab to change over to the OK button before hitting enter, right?

WHAT, do you think I'm stupid!?!?!

Ok... I guess I am, since I was just doing the things I said, hitting ENTER, SPACEBAR or trying to Click on <OK> . I'll have to try to get the dialog again and try tab. I actually hope that's it and that I was just ignorant of it... that's a much easier fix!

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Netopia

If you can type into the terminal you should be able to use the ncurses dialogs, you have been hitting tab to change over to the OK button before hitting enter, right?

WHAT, do you think I'm stupid!?!?!

Ok... I guess I am, since I was just doing the things I said, hitting ENTER, SPACEBAR or trying to Click on <OK> . I'll have to try to get the dialog again and try tab. I actually hope that's it and that I was just ignorant of it... that's a much easier fix!

Thanks,

Joe

or the arrow keys should move you around, too, I think. And make sure the terminal window is the active window.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: sourceninja
Anyone know how to get Etch to install on a ESX 3 server? I can't get either installer to load, graphical, or text based. It starts to boot and just hangs there.

hmm, while in testing, Debian Etch has installed fine on ESX 3. I'll give it a try with the final and let you know.

I installed Debian and tried to post this from lynx, but lynx wouldn't let me login to the forum Anyway, the final version of Debian Etch installed just fine for me on ESX 3. Do you have the latest version of ESX 3 (3.0.1)? Did you create the virtual machine as type "Other Linux"? Did you use the "debian-40r0-i386-netinst.iso" file?

 

[sourceninja]

I'm downloading the netinstall cd again now, it looks like the image is bad.

 

[drag]

It's usually better to use bittorrent to download cdrom images. Their are so many seeds right now it's not realy needed that you remain seeding after you download unless you want to.

The nice thing about bittorrent is that it's cheaper for everybody and it also uses running checksums to comfirm correct downloads.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: drag
It's usually better to use bittorrent to download cdrom images. Their are so many seeds right now it's not realy needed that you remain seeding after you download unless you want to.

The nice thing about bittorrent is that it's cheaper for everybody and it also uses running checksums to comfirm correct downloads.

I've toyed with the idea of setting up a torrentflux server at work for this reason.

 

[sourceninja]

My work has an explicit banning of bittorrent, no matter how useful it might be.

 

[Netopia]

Where are you guys going to get killer Bittorrent speeds? I've tried several times over the last couple days and never get more than 10KB/s and usually less (so I cancel them after a while).

Joe

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
My work has an explicit banning of bittorrent, no matter how useful it might be.

I'm the guy that does the banning here I would restrict to only the one machine I set up, of course; and Torrentflux requires you to log in to use it.

 

[Nothinman]

My work has an explicit banning of bittorrent, no matter how useful it might be.

As most probably do and for good reason.

Where are you guys going to get killer Bittorrent speeds? I've tried several times over the last couple days and never get more than 10KB/s and usually less (so I cancel them after a while).

As long as the appropriate port is open/forwarded, you limit your upload speeds so that they don't get in the way of the downloads and there's enough seeds/peers it should saturate your line easily.

 

[drag]

Be sure to give the download about 20-30 minutes or so before before giving up. By the nature of bittorrent you start off pretty slow.

 

[sourceninja]

I've been running etch all weekend on my main personal pc (the one in my sig). I have been using KDE and the 686 kernel. I have to say it is much more stable on my system then ubuntu edgy was. I also enjoy that things work a lot simplier then ubuntu. I find making the system work the way I want it was much easier then it was in ubuntu. I no longer feel the need to stay with gentoo.

Anyone know how to install ntfs-3g on etch?

 

[logicmaster2003]

I havent used Debian's debian BUT i've been using ELIVE (where Debian meets the Englightenment).

 

[drag]

NTFS-3g is aviable in Debian unstable.

You can probably download and install the binary package from packages.debian.org, you can add Debian unstable and 'pin' yourself to Etch, or you can do a source code backport and compile.

I do this time to time when running stable when I need a newer version of whatever package I want to use. I did a source code backport for OpenAFS once since the OpenAFS version for Sarge sucked and it worked fine.

Simple pinning works fine and allows you to install binary packages from newer or older versions of Debian. The downside is that you can end up with a sort of horrible hybrid between stable/testing or something like that. Working with source packages keeps that to a minimum.

There are a lot of online stuff for doing pinning. All you realy do is add unstable sources and setup a /etc/apt/preferences file.

But working with source files can be more complicated. Here is what I did to install ntfs-3g in etch...

added:
deb****** http://<yourdebianmirror>/debian unstable main contrib non-free

to /etc/apt/source.list

(you'll want to create a work directory for this)
apt-get update
apt-get build-dep ntfs
(then I got a error about no aviable version of libfuse-dev so I need to pull that dependancy back..)
#grabs the build dependancies..
apt-get build-dep libfuse-dev

# grabs the source code
apt-get source libfuse-dev

# builds the packages.
apt-get -b source libfuse-dev

# installs the packages
dpkg -i *.deb

Now that I have the dependancies cleared...

apt-get build-dep ntfs-3g
apt-get source ntfs-3g
apt-get -b source ntfs-3g
dpkg -i *.deb


And that's it. If your using a tool called wajig it's even easier...
wajig build-depend ntfs-3g
wajig build ntfs-3g
dpkg -i *.deb

But that's pretty much it.
Using the apt-get commands it can also allow you to compile optimized packages or manually apply patches, a lot like Gentoo.

Then those deb packages are good enough you can just copy them from machine to machine or give them out to other people.


apt pinning is pretty simple also. It deals with binary files but it's not bad.

What apt-pinning is very good for is when you want to upgrade from stable to testing. That way you can setup mirrors for stable, testing, AND unstable and say testing has highest priority. This is usefull because often testing will have missing packages or whatnot that only are aviable in either stable or unstable. This way you can have access to everything and relatively easily pick and choose which you'd like.

Also it's nice if your running unstable, but you'd like to temporary upgrade packages to experimental versions.

I do this for Gimp, for example, because the development version of Gimp is much better then the 2.2 series.


edit:

Oh and don't forget to add your user to the 'fuse' group. This will alow you to use userspace file systems without root permissions.
adduser username fuse

then you have to log out and log back in for group changes to go into effect.

 

[drag]

Why did it go deb*****??

When all I wanted to add was
d e b - s r c

(minus spaces.)

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: drag
Why did it go deb*****??

When all I wanted to add was
d e b - s r c

(minus spaces.)

this is covered in a post under forum issues that im too lazy to link to. fusetalk uses that directly or some such and the workaround is apparently to just censor it altogether

 

[Seeruk]

Played with ubuntu feisty at work today (I love quiet days ) and it shows what a poor job ubuntu devs are doing with the great source from debian.

Debian has so far been flawless with my laptop, everything works (though being almostly completely intel is probably to be expected).

But on ubuntu JEESUS H CHRIST!!!! I hit probably 15-20 issues in the 1st 2 hours of use... not saving proxy authentication info, smb flaking out constantly and randomly, cant handle a resolution change when taken out of the docking station (or put back in for that matter!), loss of keyboard/mouse when ejected from docking station.... the list goes on.

Why ubuntu is such a flavour of the month/year/whatever I will never know.