Debian - was Re: Server Distros

[Ken Moffat]

Collins wrote:

> Here's an invitation for you debian types in the group. How's about an
> SxS HowTo (or multiples) on working with debian and updates (the
> complete idiot's guide to debian).  

> 	sites and sources for upgrades

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

> 	a really simple primer on debian packages

debian packages fall into 3 groups; stable, testing and unstable. It's 
up to the user to choose how confident he is in the levels, but most 
agree that testing is very safe. The level of your machine is determined 
by /etc/apt/sources.list, obviously a list of packages sources that you 
have chosen. a line fro this file might look like:

deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free

and would point to debian.org ftp site in the stable branch. Changing 
stable to testing would be a step toward the more recent additions. Most 
new installs point to stable, so all you would need to do to update or 
install a package is, as root in a terminal, type

apt-get install foo

where foo is your desired package. This assumes a connection, preferably 
high bandwidth, but modem will do, to the internet. (you can also use a 
cd) Apt will go out to your sources, look at the packages and 
dependencies, determine what is needed, download all needed packages and 
install them. If there is a problem, such as an unreconcilable 
dependency or conflict, it will tell you as much. IMHO It's really the 
most simple and elegant system when it works. And in libranet/debian it 
nearly always works when using stable or testing. When trouble can start 
is in using unstable or outside sources. Or mixing types. But usually it 
just works. I"ve been running libranet for a while with very few 
problems. Redently I tried to use an unstable package for Mozilla, and 
it whiped out galeon. There were a lot of unsatisfiable dependencies, so 
I gave up and went with the Mozilla-installer. This worked, but now I've 
forfeited the ability to uninstall Mozilla using "apt-get remove mozilla".

There is an excellent gui package manager front end called Synaptic that 
lists available, installed and upgradable packages, and simplifies the 
process. And dselect, an ncurses front end, will allow upgrades over a 
network connection. (as will apt-get, of course)

I used Caldera 2.4 and 3.1 but started searching for an alternative, and 
settled on libranet for most things. Although I still, on occassion, use 
redhat, slackware, debian3.0 and mandrake, all of which are installed on 
this box, when the mood strikes, I always come back to libranet. My beef 
is the cost of the current version, but you get what you pay for. 
(sometimes) (although I'm using a beta 2.7 version)


Someone feel free to elaborate and correct. I'm no expert.

-- 
Ken Moffat
kmoffat at drizzle.com