Debian install questions..

[axopro]

Hi...
i was planning to download the ISO images from the debian mirrors, and install the system in one of my HDs..

I got to the installation manual, but it is a whole long book that i do not want to read.

So i just have these few basic questions..

1. I read something in the manual, and it looked like after using the Debian installer, i would get just a command prompt, without any graphical interface like KDE ... is this true?

2. There are like 15 CDs available to download... so can i just use the first one to install the system?. and then use one of those live package managers that download the rest of the stuff that i want to install?

3. being really noob to Linux, i decided that i want to install a Debian distro on a HD... but may be Debian straight from the debian website will be too complex for me?.

I did install Red Hat, Suse and Mandrake long time ago... and they were like installing windows... so i would like the same with Debian,... how can i do?

I want a system that i can play with the server and network stuff to learn something. But not play with the Knoppix CD...
I saw that tutorial that shows how to install the Knoppix system to the HD, but also read before that this is not a good idea in other threads, so im confused, and anyway i found knoppix to be a little buggy ...

Ok... thanks for any help..
Good luck

[UnderScore]

I wrote up a quick run through of a Debian install in this post http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=86789#86789 which should answer your #1 & #2.

As for #3, it _may_ be too complex for you but it is not that hard. I use a dedicated test PC or experiment PC so that I can wipe the HD & reinstall without having to worry about an existing OS. Debian is a good choice to experiement & setup servers. Just this past weekend I setup Debian 3.1 on a Pentium II 266MHz 128MB RAM as a DNS and a network time server. It took some reading & a couple hours of time not because Debian is hard but because I had forgotten all that I had learned about DNS :).

I am currently making a walk through guide to installing Debian 3.1 as a desktop OS to a HD and have it dual boot with WindowsXP. So far I have collected 130 screen shots of the process and I am now writting out the steps. The large number of screen shots might make it seem like Debian is very difficult to install but I have chosen to be very detailed & show _everything_ so that I can lead a new user through to a successful install. Your questions have given me a new idea. Since much of the installation process is the same, I will use my existing screen shots & will also write a walkthrough guide to installing Debian as a server. I hope to have the desktop walkthrough guide completed in the next 2 weeks and the server install will follow shortly after that.

I hope this helps.
James

[Harry Kuhman]

1. I read something in the manual, and it looked like after using the Debian installer, i would get just a command prompt, without any graphical interface like KDE ... is this true?
I just downloaded my first full size Debian CD last week and installed from it (had previously used the business card CD). So for a very limited experience of being about 1 step ahead of you (and a warning that I sure might not know all the answers) here goes:
Debian can up in a GUI just fine. It was Gnome, but it seems easy enough to change that to KDE. At the moment I'm staying with Gnome, plenty to learn here.


2. There are like 15 CDs available to download... so can i just use the first one to install the system?. and then use one of those live package managers that download the rest of the stuff that i want to install?
I have downloaded the first two, but so far only used the first one to install. In theory, yes, you can install find from the first CD and then download what packages you want fom the Internet.

I'm still in the learning curve on this though, so maybe someone else will join in and help educate me too. Here's my experience so far. I had to run base-config before Debian would actually go out to the Internet for the packages. OK, I can take a joke on that. But I told base-config that I wanted the Internet site to be my only source of Debian packages. Yet if I try to install things that it determines have dependencies on CD 1, it wants me to insert the CD. I'm stuborn and don't want to do this; I want it to get all the stuff it needs from the Internet, like I think I told it. So far I haven't managed to convince it not to ask for CD 1. I suspect I need to edit a file somewhere (which brings up the next question of how to edit without using that tool of Satin, vi). But I have no idea where or why I should have to edit a file rather than have a configuration tool like base-config make the proper changes for me.

Installing a package that did not depend on CD 1 went fine. But it did take a few minutes to find it and run it; it's not added to the menu system or an icon left of the desktop or anything handy. Debian could still use some work in the user friendly area here.


3. being really noob to Linux, i decided that i want to install a Debian distro on a HD... but may be Debian straight from the debian website will be too complex for me?.
Actually, I can't imagine a Debian from anywhere else being as simple. Yes, there is a learning curve with Linux. And as I said above it could be more user friendly in some ways. But that is certainly the current state of Linux. I would rather learn to install and use Debian than install Knoppix and have things break whenever I want to install something else or upgrade, or keep asking things like "the network worked fine from CD, why doesn't it work after a hard drive install".


I did install Red Hat, Suse and Mandrake long time ago... and they were like installing windows... so i would like the same with Debian,... how can i do?
I'm not sure I understand this question. The install was very simple. Too simple, in fact; this version did not ask a lot of the hardware questions that I have been asked in the past. As a result I did not tell it about my sound card (a common, genuine Sound Blaster 16 on one of the systems I've installed to) and it apparently did not detect it. I'm still trying to figure out how to get Debian to know it's there and let me have sound.


I want a system that i can play with the server and network stuff to learn something. But not play with the Knoppix CD...
I saw that tutorial that shows how to install the Knoppix system to the HD, but also read before that this is not a good idea in other threads, so im confused, and anyway i found knoppix to be a little buggy ...

Ok... thanks for any help..
Good luck
Good Luck to you too. If, as I, you want to learn, then I think the proper way to do it is to dive in and start installing Debian. You may do a few installs before you have things the way you want them, so haveing a full CD rather than installing across the Internet each time seems a good idea.

[axopro]

Ok... first of all..
Thanks you 2 for the time and effort you put on each of your replies. With nice people like you it is a pleasure to learn something from a forum... Thank you very much..

I tried to follow the clues that you gave me... this is what i got and i am stuck ...

I downloaded and burned the 1st debian CD.

Then boot the computer with the new HD installed... (I umpluged the main HD, windows, just to make sure i will not screw my system up).
So i booted the cd with the command "linux26" as you suggested.
Everything was going ok, until i got the message "DHCP not found".
My linksys router is in DHCP mode... but anyway, then i selected to configure the network manually.
IP, MASK, Gateway, DNS... everything ok, i used the same settings and numbers i use with windows.
Then the installation would continue, but i start seeing this all the time:

Eth0: TX timeout - resetting.

Every few seconds, and blocking my sight to the rest of the questions the installer was asking me... it was so anoying..
Then the installation wanted to connect to de debian servers to download the updates, but without luck... it was obious that the connection was not working for me. I have one NIC onboard, and another one PCI. I did try moving my ethernet cable to the other, because i wouldn't know wich one was detected as Eth0.
No luck.

I got anoyed, and decided to start over, but this time i would skip the network configuration option, so i dont get those errors.
I did it... i selected the option "configure later"
So i got to the stage where i created one user account, root password, and this time, instead of choosing "Desktop", i selected the "Customize packages" or something like that option.

Both ways were the same...
The computer will just boot with a username and password prompt. Root, then password, OK. and i am stuck here at the command prompt. No GUI or anything.. the installation finished and i never got any option about using any GUI or anything...

Then googled for "kde and debian"... what i found was a command like this "apt-get install kde"...
i tried that, but i get a message that tells me that it is not possible to install it... i dont know the terms that were being used in the message....
anyway, i guess i am going the wrong way...

I don't know what else i can do... ?
Clueless...
Nothing
Nada,
No go
????
Bye :?:

[axopro]

BUMP!!!

Anyone??

[rusty]

Hi, I'll jump in with a couple of of ideas.

First, Im not sure you've actually established a network connection to the debian mirrors. It might be that the install script is going along and timing out when it's trying to download components. If you have an onboard NIC it's possible that debian does not recognize it. One of the nice things about knoppix and other live cds , Kanotix and Mepis especially, is that the developers have included drivers for more hardware than you moght find in the debian install.

I'm also not sure your using a net install cd http://www.us.debian.org/CD/netinst/ or just the first cd from the cd set. The net install cd would leave you with either a gui or not, you can choose to install x-window-sysem or not, then use apt-get tp=o get kde or whatever.

Although some in the group might advise against it, I would look over kanotix and mepis and hard drive install one of them, at least temporarily untill you get the feel for linux in general and debian in particular. Especially if the debian installer won't find your NIC.

Post back your hardware setup too.

Good luck.

[UnderScore]

Sorry about not getting back to you. Work & home life ate up most of my time.


Ok... first of all..
Thanks you 2 for the time and effort you put on each of your replies. With nice people like you it is a pleasure to learn something from a forum... Thank you very much..

I tried to follow the clues that you gave me... this is what i got and i am stuck ...

I downloaded and burned the 1st debian CD. Just to clarify, the CD you should have gotten is http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/i386/iso-cd/debian-31r0a-i386-binary-1.iso
The md5sum is http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/i386/iso-cd/MD5SUMS
The Dowloading FAQ http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Downloading_FAQ has some real good info about downloading ISOs & burning ISOs.


Then boot the computer with the new HD installed... (I umpluged the main HD, windows, just to make sure i will not screw my system up).
So i booted the cd with the command "linux26" as you suggested. Everything was going ok, until i got the message "DHCP not found".You did inot mention the make/model of the network card. Is it a wired ethernet card or is it a wireless card? Did it work with Knoppix?


My linksys router is in DHCP mode... Wired or wireless?


but anyway, then i selected to configure the network manually. IP, MASK, Gateway, DNS... everything ok, i used the same settings and numbers i use with windows. Then the installation would continue, but i start seeing this all the time:

Eth0: TX timeout - resetting.

Every few seconds, and blocking my sight to the rest of the questions the installer was asking me... it was so anoying.. Then the installation wanted to connect to de debian servers to download the updates, but without luck... it was obious that the connection was not working for me. I have one NIC onboard, and another one PCI. I did try moving my ethernet cable to the other, because i wouldn't know wich one was detected as Eth0.Ahhhh. This is key. You have two NICs & we don't know which one is eth0. Booting knoppix will allow us to use a working OS to identify if the NICs are detected & if so which one is eth0 & which one is eth1.


No luck. I got anoyed, and decided to start over, but this time i would skip the network configuration option, so i dont get those errors.
I did it... i selected the option "configure later"
So i got to the stage where i created one user account, root password, and this time, instead of choosing "Desktop", i selected the "Customize packages" or something like that option.Not the right choice. The correct choice is to choose Desktop. It will then load both the GNOME & KDE desktops to the PC & will configure it to automatically boot into GUI desktop.


Both ways were the same... The computer will just boot with a username and password prompt. Root, then password, OK. and i am stuck here at the command prompt. No GUI or anything.. the installation finished and i never got any option about using any GUI or anything...That sucks. I want you to have a great & frustration free Linux experience & I guess we have some work to do.


Then googled for "kde and debian"... what i found was a command like this "apt-get install kde"...
i tried that, but i get a message that tells me that it is not possible to install it... i dont know the terms that were being used in the message....
anyway, i guess i am going the wrong way...The good news is that you have real initiative & are a real smart fellow because you used google to your advantage. The bad news is that apt-get probably was not fully configured & will not work.




First, Im not sure you've actually established a network connection to the debian mirrors. It might be that the install script is going along and timing out when it's trying to download components. If you have an onboard NIC it's possible that debian does not recognize it. One of the nice things about knoppix and other live cds , Kanotix and Mepis especially, is that the developers have included drivers for more hardware than you moght find in the debian install. I too suggest at least using a LiveCD like Knoppix to test if your PC will work with Linux. Knoppix ia great tool for rescueing data or testing a PC.

Although some in the group might advise against it, I would look over kanotix and mepis and hard drive install one of them, at least temporarily untill you get the feel for linux in general and debian in particular. Especially if the debian installer won't find your NIC. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.


Post back your hardware setup too. Please post the deatils of your PC.

[axopro]

..
OK... Update

In these days i have reinstalled Debian like 3 times more...
I got to KDE, but found it to be not very friendly showing me hardware and setting up some things..
So now i got Gnome installed...
apt-get is configured to use one of the Debian mirrors instead of the cds.. now everything installs nicely.
I even installed Apache2 , set up a dinamic DNS service for a home web server.. configured my network and had to change ports
because my ISP is blocking port 80.
I got Apache running and found where the HTML files are located...
By now, i just would like to configure just one directory to display htm files... not php or any scripting stuff...
Then have FTP access to that folder. Later i will try more advanced stuff, but by now, that will be my goal.

Then i did some research on how to configure Apache...
Found a very extensive manual from Apache, and not noob proof with basic concepts anywhere searching google.
I installed Perl, to be able to run Webmin, a GUI interface for Apache.
Webmin, will take you for example to the httpd.conf file "graphically", but then you will have to input text commands, just like if you
where editing the file without the help of a "GUI" interface...

I also created an Index.htm file, and got access denied (from root account), when i tried to open it in the web browser.. so i changed the
permisions like i do in windows, right clicking on the file... but i know i will have the same problem with the rest of the new files.

So any tips are much apreciated.
I am not asking for a tutorial step by step to get everything up and runing the way i want to...
Im asking for sources of very but VERY basic information on editing these configuration files, and any other info will be valuable too...
Here is the list of available commands that i found in the Apache documentation... it is too much for someone that just starts to learn:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/directives.html

Thanks

[johnsmith01]

i just installed debian and it was a pain in the ass , first i wanted to update the packages from the cd's i downloaded and it didnt' work , anyways , stupidly i pressed enter when selecting the packages , and then when i tried to get the Xserver tit didnt start after 4 hours , so i has to reinstall and configure evertything carefully , so now it works , but the thing is my sound card isnt working , and i don't know how to install it again , theres no Alsa-config , soundconf , sndconfig nothing , so can anybody help me ?