Why is Debian so huge?

[SickBeast]

I was just reading a thread in here about which Linux distro to choose. It said to go with Debain if you're a power user that wants to just dive right in, so I decided to give it a try. It's 12GB to download! Is it really going to be efficient at such a huge size?

I want Linux as a fast and efficient alternative to Windows.

I also want it to have great hardware support. Ubuntu 7.04 didn't work for me with my 8800GTS.

Any suggestions? And why is Debian so HUGE?

 

[xtknight]

You're probably going down the wrong route if you were disappointed with Ubuntu, but it's big because Debian has so many packages. The base of Debian and Ubuntu isn't that much different.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: xtknight
You're probably going down the wrong route if you were disappointed with Ubuntu, but it's big because Debian has so many packages. The base of Debian and Ubuntu isn't that much different.

Will it run my 8800GTS hardware accelerated with multimonitor support?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: xtknight
You're probably going down the wrong route if you were disappointed with Ubuntu, but it's big because Debian has so many packages. The base of Debian and Ubuntu isn't that much different.

Will it run my 8800GTS hardware accelerated with multimonitor support?

If it didn't work with Ubuntu, it probably won't with Debian either. I'm not sure if NVIDIA has proprietary drivers that support the 8800 series yet. The 8800 is bleeding-edge hardware and as such is a bad match for Linux. That doesn't mean support won't come soon, though, either from NVIDIA or an independent open-source project such as "nouveau".

I'd suggest using an auxiliary, simpler video card in the meantime. Linux will then just act like the 8800GTS doesn't even exist. Other common unsupported hardware includes the X-Fi (for which support may come 2Q 2005 in closed-source format from Creative). Linux has great multi-monitor support, even in accelerated mode as long as a single screen/display works correctly. I've played UT2004 native across two screens using my NVIDIA 7800GT, and it exhibited great performance.

To add on to the explanation of the size of Debian's downloads:

Debian has many installation images you can use, including ones the size of a businesscard and some that are bare minimum that just kickstart the system and download all the packages off the 'net afterwards.

The ones you're seeing include all the packages from the Debian universe which, as far as I remember, contains up to 60,000 packages. That may not be 100% correct and I'm not sure if it contains all 60,000 but those definitely comprise a good part of those 3 DVDs.

 

[drag]

Debian IS huge.

3DVDs are just the tip of the iceberg. Debian supports Arm, Mips, x86-64, and a whole bunch of other types of systems. 11 different types of computers are officially supported.

Almost all the software supported in x86 is supported on other systems. Also you have all the source code for all of that also.

So your looking at probably 40-50 different DVDs for the entire stable release. Then on top of that you have old stable, testing, and unstable and a large number of unofficially supported archetectures and variantes like FreeBSD-based Debian.

Its the largest distribution out there, plus it has some of the best quality control and is very very complete.

They are very politically oriented towards 'software freedom' so it turns a lot of people off.

Check out the Debian Installation manual:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual


If you want to install Debian the best way would be to download the netinstall cdrom image. This is a minimal installation cdrom that will download the software you need from FTP sites. So you want to use it if you have a fast internet connection. That way you only downlod the software you want which will be a tiny fraction of everything Debian supports.

Also if you get comfortable with Debian and want newer versions of the software then Debian Stable offers you can always upgrade to testing or unstable and get newer versions of everything. The downsides are that upgrades are going to be much larger and you'll have to deal with broken packages and more bugs time to time.


The video card support is up to Nvidia, not any Linux distribution. Their drivers are closed source and have restrictive licenses so that you are stuck waiting for them to support your video card.

Debian will offer nvidia drivers through their non-free repositories, but you probably won't want those on such a new video card.

So what you will have to do is is compile and install the drivers from Nvidia's installation script.

WARNING:
*** These will make your system incompatable with Debian-provided nvidia propriatory driver packages. Also if you upgrade portions of X or upgrade your Linux kernel you will break your drivers and they will have to be reinstalled. ****

To install the propriatory nvidia drivers from nvidia's executable you have to go:
apt-get install module-assistant
m-a update
m-a prepare

Goto Nvidia's website and download the latest driver installer. Also you need to do this while logged in from the virtual terminal.

So after downloading the package, put it in /home/username

Log out of the desktop. Switch to the virtual terminal by going ctrl-alt-F1
Log in as root.
Stop GDM by going:
/etc/init.d/gdm stop

Then run the Nvidia installer.
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run
./Nvidia-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run

You can autocomplete file names with the tab button by hitting it a couple times.

When the drivers are finished installing they will offer to reconfigure your xorg.conf, let them, and then start up gdm. You should see the nvidia icon. Also it should install some nvidia utilities for configuring dual monitor setup and such things.

/etc/init.d/gdm restart

Then log in, and then run the nvidia stuff to get your dual monitor setup.

Hope it works for you.

 

[SickBeast]

Thanks for the post, Drag.

I'm actually looking for a single-CD Linux install that's very different from Ubuntu, seeing as it didn't work for me. I'm thinking about going with Knoppix.

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Thanks for the post, Drag.

I'm actually looking for a single-CD Linux install that's very different from Ubuntu, seeing as it didn't work for me. I'm thinking about going with Knoppix.

That is your choice, but I've used RH, Slack, SuSE and Debian and Debian by far had the best package managment system of them all. Installing and upgrading was easy, almost set it and forget it type.

 

[aidanjm]

kubuntu is a decent distribution

 

[Nothinman]

The ones you're seeing include all the packages from the Debian universe which, as far as I remember, contains up to 60,000 packages. That may not be 100% correct and I'm not sure if it contains all 60,000 but those definitely comprise a good part of those 3 DVDs.

It's only ~20,000 right now but I'm sure we'll hit 60,000 eventually. =)

I'm actually looking for a single-CD Linux install that's very different from Ubuntu, seeing as it didn't work for me. I'm thinking about going with Knoppix.

It's ironic then that you say you're looking for something completely different from Ubuntu and yet you keep looking at Debian-based distributions. Ubuntu and Knoppix are both based on Debian.