taking one step closer....

[Twelveguage]

Well I have decided to take off Linux Mandrake 8.0 off my laptop, and put on Debian. I have a couple of questions:

#1 - I cant boot from CD, but I heard you can run DOS and go into the /boot directory on the Debian CD and start a certain batch script to boot the installer. Is this right?

#2 - Does the Debian install program let you partition your hard drive during installation?

I would apreciate it if someone could answer these questions :)

[Tyr-7BE]

1) Yes there is an install.bat file in the root directory of the debian install CD...starts you right off.

2) I'm very inclined to say yes, but I'm not certain. If mandy 8 is on there you can just use those partitions (assuming you'll take it off).

Once you make it through the install you'll never go back :)

[aliasQ]

I've tried to get through the Debian install many times with limited sucess.
Why does the install insist on setting up news service links and half a dozen mail server thingies which are stupid and dorky.
Blowing them off (cancelling) seems to freak out the install.
And gnome always fails to install too.
And how about my cable modem.
Screw the dialup stuff.
It seems dialup is the only internet option in the install.
So I'm left with no Gnome and no internet connection.
So this newbie puts his Mdk disk in, again...

[Twelveguage]

one more question again :D : I am going to download the first 2 ISO images from linuxiso.org and I am going to create those into CD's (ive done it before with drake). After that I can start my installing right? or is there anything else I need to get?

[Tfortysix]

You will only need the first iso if you want to go that route. Use that to install, and when you are up and get your net connection going, edit /etc/apt/sources.list I have "deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free" in mine and it works real well. Then type apt-get update and let it finish. You can then type apt-get install "whatever you want to install" to add any apps you want. It's awesome!!!

[compunuts]

Originally posted by aliasQ:
Why does the install insist on setting up news service links and half a dozen mail server thingies which are stupid and dorky.
Because you choose to install those packages. And the way Debian do things is that it will configure it before it finally installed it. You can always choose default though. And that's why Debain is more stable/secure out of the box (once it's configured) than say Red Hat which will set up the mail for you and the newbie didn't even know the mail process is running and inviting the crackers.
Blowing them off (cancelling) seems to freak out the install.
After you install the base system, dselect will start. In there, you can deselect those to not install it. If you do not want it, just quit dselect and you've got yourself a base only system with very clean state. You can built up from there what you want.

And gnome always fails to install too.
Care to eleborate? Why it's fails? It does not support your video chipset? If it's so, you can choose only SVGA or VGA server instead of your chipset. I have ATI Rage pro II+DVD and it's Mach 64 chipset. It doesn't work with Mach 64 but it works well with SVGA.
And how about my cable modem.
Did you configure your NIC when with "modconf"utility? Is your cable based on DHCP or PPPoE? If it's PPPoE, then you need to get Roaring Penguin (http://www.roaringpenguin.com)'s PPPoE client software. It's not part of basic Debian software. It had no problem supporting my static IP.

Screw the dialup stuff.
Yeah Debian seems to keep dial up around for just in case and so does every kind of OSes even Windows.... It has dial up networking installed as default.

It seems dialup is the only internet option in the install.
It's not true at all. Quiet frankly, most Debian users are high speed net users since Debian works best if you have high speed access. You can still use Dial up and CD ROMs but it's less appealing.....

So I'm left with no Gnome and no internet connection.
Install the NIC card as described above. Assign IPs to /etc/network/interfaces file. Apt-GET install (your desire package here). You can find many Debain (stable) packages here (http://www.packages.debian.org/stable/) as well as many X-window specific packages here (http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/). Make sure you've got plenty of disc spaces since APT and broadband access will kill ya and you just can't stop using APT.......

Ha... HTH......

Darn UBB codes....

[ 24 May 2001: Message edited by: compunuts ]