Debian CDs

[Harry Kuhman]

This post is really intended for James, but is being posted here rather than sent as a private message in the hopes that his response may help others than just myself.

I have downloaded the frist two CD of the stable version of i386 Debian by BitTorrent from the links found on this page. I do want full CDs rather than Installing from the Internet.

I've seen that you have suggested using a newer version than the stable release. So I followed the link marked Official bittorrent files for the "testing" distribution on CD (all architectures, regenerated weekly) on that page. It took me to a page with links for different archictures. I followed the i386 link. That gave me a small list of links and I selected the BT CD link from that list. That took me right back to the torrents for the stable version that I had already downloaded. I also followed the CD ISO link on the above page and that took me to a list of downloadable ISOs, but from the version numbers and dates these are also the stable versions.

Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong? Can you point me to a link when I can get a torrent for newer than stable versions of the full Debian CDs?

[UnderScore]

I've seen that you have suggested using a newer version than the stable release. While in the past it was true, now it is not quite as true since some things have changed.
See http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=80147#80147 and http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=84794#84794 for what I have said in the past. At that time my recommendations were to not use Debian 3.0 (woody) 'stable' but to use the release CDs from the 'testing' repository called (sarge). Debian 3.1r0a (sarge) was recently released Mon June 6 and it superceeds (woody) to become the new 'stable'. New development for the next Debian release is now going on in the new 'testing' repository and its name has already been choosen (etch). Debian also has a 'unstable' repository (sid) and its name never changes. Thus it is best to identify a release by either its version number or by its nickname (characters from the film Toy Story see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Debian_releases) and not its repository since stable/testing/unstable is always a moving target.

So in the present you should use Debian 3.1r0a (sarge) to install a new Debian GNU/Linux system. The url for the bittorrents are http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/i386/bt-cd/ and the torrents will give you ISOs which are found at http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/i386/iso-cd/ and you can find a quick run through the installation at http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86789#86789.

Let me know if this makes sense.
James

[Harry Kuhman]

Let me know if this makes sense.
James
Yes James, thanks, it makes sense. I had just though that using one of the testing or unstabe versions might be a better choice, as they seem pretty stable too. But I'll stick to stable at least for now.

[Harry Kuhman]

Well, my first install of Debian from CD (as opposed to from across the Internet) went pretty smoothly. Here are a few observations:

I took most of the defaults. Deleted my old Debian partition and let the Installer create a new one. It created two swap file in space it found available on my extended partition. I'm not clear on why two (each about 600 megs) rather than one large one. Not clear that I need more than 600 megs of swap space on this system either, but the space was there it might as well grab it; I can get it back if I want it.

In asking about the boot loader, it wanted to install grub on the mbr. There was no discussion of lilo. I use SBM on the MBR and want to keep using SBM or XOSL, so I told it to put the boot loader on the Linux partition. In the past I think I just told Debian to use the Linux partition, this time I had to type in the partition name (no big deal but might slow down some total novices). I was surprised to see that grub came up with a menu that included a Windows boot option even though it was installed on it's own partition. I may have to learn about grub and get rid of that, but I see the menu has two Debian boot options, so maybe I can't or shouldn't bypass it entirely. I used to just tell SBM to boot my Linux partition and that was the last boot menu I would see, which does seem cleaner.

During the main install I again let the system pretty much take the defaults. I chose a desktop environment with a file server. One thing that seemed strange was that the installed asked of it should use plug and play stuff to get the monitor info, I said yes and it seemd to accept that. But a minute later it wanted me to tell it the monitor horizontal and vertical frequencies. No big deal for me (fortunately I had another computer with Internet access running to look up the specs), but again I can see how this would throw off a new user, particularly after the automatic setup dialog.

Beyond that the install went without any problem (a few errors did scroll past). Debian came up with a gnome desktop. Debian can see the Win98 systems on my network but is having problems letting me get past the user/password prompt to access the shared partitions. I'm pretty sure I've gotten past that in Knoppix but know there are some issues, I'll resolve it later. Plan on doing a few different installs to better understand all of my options before I put too much work on any one install. Not sure yet about things like sound support, but at least I got into no argguments or unanswerable questions during the install. The Internet was available as soon as I logged in.

This certainly went clean enough that I can't see a need to install a made-for-live-CD knoppix. Of course, the could be a lot under the hood that I'm missing. But personally, to the extent that Knoppix may have better hardware detection or other tweeks, it might be nice if the peole who do Knoppix install scripts would come up with a script to let you boot knoppix, and if everything is good, apply the Knoppix configuration to an already install Debian system.

I do have some good and fresh documentation for installing a Debain system. :) I've held off on reading it so far so I could see how my first CD install and first install at all of this version would go if I approached it with blissful ignorance. Now that I have answered that I have to do a little more studying before I take a few more shots at a more agressive install. Certainly happy about my new CD's. For any one else interested in them, I got them here (http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/) by following the i386 link (other hardware versions available). The BitTorrent downloads started out much slower than other things I've downloaded by BitTorrent, but after a few minutes picked up speed and soon I was downloading at my full download capacity (something I've never seen from a Knoppix mirror and seldom hit with Knoppix BitTorrent downloads). I got the first two CD, plan of installing anything else I want across the Internet. Looks like even the second CD may not be needed, but I want the experience of seeing how the package selection varys with multiple CDs. I expect I'll be seeding what I have downloaded until the official Knoppix 4.0 DVD is released.