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eco2geek - 05.11.2006, 09:06 Uhr
Titel: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than ever (long)

Since Novell's making biz deals with Microsoft (and some other, more practical reasons involving flaky "experimental" software), it's time to try out stock Debian one more time on the ol' spare partition.

Official CDs and DVDs of Debian Etch (testing) are available here. If you boot off the CD and issue the command "installgui", you get to use the new graphical debian-installer -- don't get too excited, though, because it's pretty much just the old text-based installer with mouse support and a white-and-pink skin. (The part where you partition and choose where to install Debian could especially use some help. It's exactly like the text-based installer, except you click on your choices.)

When all was said and done, it had installed a fairly recent kernel optimized for my CPU (2.6.17-2-k7), correctly detected my monitor's resolution, and came up in Gnome. There was no need to hand-configure anything. (It'd be nice if they gave you a choice between KDE and Gnome, but you have to install kdm and KDE yourself.) Grub was correctly set up with all the OS's on my computer listed.

If they keep this up, they'll lose their reputation for being difficult to install!

After upgrading to unstable and installing some ***censored*** packages (y'all know what I mean), it was time to revisit Kanotix. You get used to Kanotix packages like

sysv-freeze (which provides "freeze-rc.d" and "unfreeze-rc.d")
fix-fonts
knxcc and knxcc-kde
kanotix-scripts (which provides a bunch of stuff)

You can, however, install them on stock Sid after adding the Kanotix repo.

Then, after installing the "linux-headers" package that went with my kernel, I downloaded Kano's "install-nvidia-debian.sh" script and used it with the "-c" switch to install the beta nvidia driver. Beryl-0.1.1 packages for Etch/Sid and a How-To are available here.

(Note that the two lines that used to go in the "Device" section of xorg.conf now go in the "Screen" section.)

Conclusions: 1) Debian Etch is almost as easy to install as Fedora Core. 2) If you're going for Debian Sid, Kanotix is not only easier to install than stock Debian, but it also spoils you with its many custom scripts.

(The one thing that annoys me is that this version of Debian doesn't stop kdm when you manually switch to runlevel 3 (or 2), or restart it when you switch back to 5. This makes it easy to, for example, run KDE when in runelvel 3, and wonder why it's not working correctly. Winken

)

zulu9 - 05.11.2006, 16:23 Uhr
Titel: Re: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than ever (l

eco2geek hat folgendes geschrieben::

Then, after installing the "linux-headers" package that went with my kernel, I downloaded Kano's "install-nvidia-debian.sh" script and used it with the "-c" switch to install the beta nvidia driver. Beryl-0.1.1 packages for Etch/Sid and a How-To are available here.

Hi! I tried those packages and they won't work pretty well. The Desktop Cube is broken (see screenshot). svn801 from the same site worked/works well.
I'm using the nvidia-beta driver.

EDIT: I resized the image. I thought I would be done automatically. Thx h2 for the notice.

h2 - 05.11.2006, 19:28 Uhr
Titel: RE: Re: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than eve

debian defaults to starting kdm/gdm at runlevel 3, not 5. Simply using sysv-rc-conf to set the desired startup runlevels will make it do what you want.

Try shrinking the image above out by the way, it's too big.

DeepDayze - 05.11.2006, 23:10 Uhr
Titel: RE: Re: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than eve

h2, would your du-fixes script work on stock debian Etch/Sid? If so, then your script would be even more valuable to people who use standard Debian Sid/Etch.

h2 - 05.11.2006, 23:59 Uhr
Titel: RE: Re: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than eve

deepdayze, no, it won't. Many of the fixes for issues are not in this script, but are in the kanotix repositories long before the fix actually hits sid proper.

The script won't allow non kanotix installs to run it for this reason, but people are free to try if they want, they just have to add this to their install of debian:

/etc/kanotix-version as a text file, with contents, assuming it's a new install, KANOTIX-2006-01 or KANOTIX-2006-64-01 depending.

Once that file is present the script will run as intended, but of course, with exactly ZERO support or guarantee for working.

But it should work I think, especially on freshly installed sid for example, at least until kanotix has to put in the next deb fix in its own repositories. I haven't ever tested it though. And definitely not on testing, that's unlikely to give much joy over time, but sid might work, hard to say, you'd need all the kanotix scripts installed before doing it though.

To me the real question would be why bother? Just run kanotix, and it will all work, much less headache over time.

eco2geek - 06.11.2006, 04:38 Uhr
Titel: Re: RE: Re: Installing "stock" Debian: Easier than

h2 hat folgendes geschrieben::

debian defaults to starting kdm/gdm at runlevel 3, not 5. Simply using sysv-rc-conf to set the desired startup runlevels will make it do what you want.

Excellent idea. Kanotix has "K01kdm" in runlevels 2, 3, and 4, and "S99kdm" in runlevel 5. Stock Debian starts kdm in runlevels 2, 3, 4, and 5, and only kills it in levels 1 and 6.

We certainly are spoiled by Kanotix.

<edit> Also had to edit /etc/inittab to make the default 5 instead of 2.

As for Beryl, it's still experimental. Even if you follow the instructions to the letter, it still might not work. When it does, it's supposed to look something like this.

shame - 07.11.2006, 23:57 Uhr
Titel:

So it seems you have kanotix installed backwards and I'm just wondering you notice any performance differences?
Are there any hardware problems you didn't have when installing kanotix itself?
Also, how did the overall install time compare?

Also regarding Beryl, while on the subject, where might I find some good kanotix related images for cubecaps? NO PENGUINS!
Since I installed Beryl on kanotix I haven't switched it off once, it's been very stable and I haven't had a single crash.

DeepDayze - 08.11.2006, 01:52 Uhr
Titel:

Where can I get that cubecap,eco2geek? Looks pretty damned cool!

zulu9 - 08.11.2006, 02:12 Uhr
Titel:

looks like one of josk's wallpapers:
http://kanotix.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-21197.html

to use it as cubecap, just open it with e.g. gimp and save as .png.

shame - 08.11.2006, 03:08 Uhr
Titel:

Aw no. they all have penguins.

eco2geek - 09.11.2006, 07:00 Uhr
Titel:

shame hat folgendes geschrieben::

where might I find some good kanotix related images for cubecaps? NO PENGUINS!

Best place for that is the Kanotix wallpaper gallery (follow the "Gallery" link to your left). You could also try putting "Kanotix" into the search box on KDE-Look.org, but there's not much there, and even less without penguins.

What've you got against penguins, anyway?

shame hat folgendes geschrieben::

you notice any performance differences? Are there any hardware problems you didn't have when installing kanotix itself? Also, how did the overall install time compare?

It's definitely snappier, but that's to be expected from a clean install. (I'm running 2005-04, dist-upgrade'd to current.) dpkg is managing approximately 100,000 more files on my Kanotix partition, and God knows when I last cleaned out my home partition.

This is a fairly plain vanilla 32-bit computer. There were no hardware problems whatsoever.

Kanotix takes a lot less time to install. Especially when you add in the time it takes to upgrade from Etch to Sid (actually, there weren't that many packages that had to be upgraded). (I think Kanotix is installing an image of itself, not installing individual debs, the way the Debian installer is, so that's to be expected.)

mzilikazi - 09.11.2006, 13:22 Uhr
Titel:

eco2geek hat folgendes geschrieben::

(I think Kanotix is installing an image of itself, not installing individual debs, the way the Debian installer is, so that's to be expected.)

That's exactly what's happening. If you want to speed up a Debian bootstrap or netinstall you could use a proxy like approx. This way all debs are cached in the proxy and you don't have the long wait times of downloading all those debs from the net.