Nixing Redhat for Debian, what should I do to prepare, and what should I back up?

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I've read plenty about the Debian installation, but any "real world" experiences/tips would be appreciated. Also, I know I should back up /home, is there anything else important that I might want to migrate over to the new installation?

thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

Unless you have personal files in places other than /home, no. You may want to keep your config files from /etc, but I doubt it's worth it.

I think the installer is very straight forward and easy, others don't think so. What I would do is either read up on how to use dselect (it's not very hard, there's a manual but I could post the basics if you need) or skip that part altogether and only install a base system then configure and use apt for all the package installations.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

i know about apt-get, but what is dselect?

 

[Nothinman]

dselect is the original package manager UI, if you install potato you'll see it right after you reboot and it can be very scarey at first. It's actually a very good program, but you have to get used to it.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

ah! i am scared already

so...i'll have to use that and not apt-get? i dont quiiiiite get it.

 

[Nothinman]

You don't have to, but it's good to know becaue it handles package dependencies more completely (mainly it asks you when a package suggests another, I believe apt just picks the first one).

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

hm got a link for a good run through of dselect?

 

[Nothinman]

I'm pretty sure there's docs for it somewhere on debian.org, it's been a while since I had to read them though =)

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

any other tips or things i might not expect, etc?

 

[pedrog]

One thing that comes to mind is your internet connection...

If you have a ppp script setup you may want to grab the config files for that. I have redhat at work and debian at home but can't think of any huge differences to the user other than the package manager...

One thing I guess you should be aware of (maybe you are) is that if you want a current system you should install the unstable tree. Don't let the 'unstable' scare you to much. Apparently what Debian
considers unstable most distros consider stable.

As said above dselect is a little difficult to pick up but pretty nice after you get the hang of it.

hmmmm maybe search around to understand the /etc/apt/sources.list file. I didn't until after I installed debian but I'd recommend spending the 15 minutes ahead of time.

good luck

 

[n0cmonkey]

Ill be installing Debian soon (if I dont get too lazy this weekend) and I am wondering what everyone seems to hate about the installation. Everyone (except Nothinman cuz he is elite ) says that it is pretty tough. Im almost positive I can handle it, but just curious why people seem so scared of it.

 

[Nothinman]

The only thing I originally thought was hard about it was dselect, but now I know how to use it.

 

[pedrog]

If you can install BSD you can install Debian.

It's tough relative to redhat or mandrake but not that tough.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< If you can install BSD you can install Debian.

It's tough relative to redhat or mandrake but not that tough. >>



I figured if so many people complain about OpenBSD's install it couldnt be much harder than Debian's, but Nothinman mentioned that Debian was indeed tougher. Ahh well, Ill try it out and post my results whenever I get around to it

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

hey i'm pretty much a newbie so if i can install it, then most people can. of course whether or not i can remains to be seen . i think i'm gonna do it tonight.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

ok.... turns out disc 1 AND 3 md5 sums dont match...

time to RE download

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

SWEET md5 sums are A-Ok this time

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

i'll have to use fdisk or cfdisk right?? i thought i remember that cfdisk is just like dos fdisk...if thats the case then it will be easy, well is it the case?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< i'll have to use fdisk or cfdisk right?? i thought i remember that cfdisk is just like dos fdisk...if thats the case then it will be easy, well is it the case? >>



I have always found cfdisk to be easier. Ive got all 3 cds burned so if I get around to testing out my network cables, backing up data, and installing it this weekend Ill find out what everyone is griping about

 

[sciencewhiz]

I'm pretty sure that debian runs a partitioning program as part of the installation process. IIRC, slack was the only distro that I've installed recently that requires you to partion before you install.

There are two reasons that I think that debian is considered harder then other distros to intstall. First of all, there isn't a pretty GUI installation program that trys to mimic windows. The installation program is completely text based menus, but is very easy to follow. The second reason is that you must choose the modules to load (no auto detection of hardware). This is daunting to a newbie, but is very easy for anyone who has compiled thier own kernel.

dselect/dpkg is definetly more powerfull then apt-get, but not as easy to use, and not necessary 99.9% of the time. The only time that I had to use it was when installing k-mail and all the dependencies were not satisfied correctly. I find that it is simpler to install just the base system, then use vi to edit sources.list and apt-get install whatever I need.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

what is sources.list?

 

[pedrog]

/etc/apt/sources.list contains a list of sources where apt will look for packages.

 

[Nothinman]

Almost all Debian packages keep their config files in /etc/packagename, it's one of the many packaging policies =)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Im installing Debian now... One complaint, while initializing partitions I wish it mentioned how big they are. Without that information I cant remember which partition was supposed to be which part...