I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one. With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?) Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made. I understand that the latest version is a lot more user-friendly. [1] altered the hda1 FAT32; hda2 FAT16; hda3 Fat16 to a single unformatted partition awaiting the command to format. [2] the line at the bottom which said 'print help' or something similar had a cursor at the end of it, but I couldn't find any way of moving it or highlighting the lot, or getting it to work. So I removed the CD and shut down. I have a feeling that this is going to be a long job... -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 12:43:32PM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one.
With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?)
Yes! :-) The general advice seems to be to always have a swap partition about the same size as your memory unless you really have very little memory in which case swap should be larger.
Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made.
This sounds like fdisk rather than formatting, Admittedly fdisk is a little obtuse at times. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
The message <20051104145214.GB10676@areti.co.uk> from Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> contains these words:
On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 12:43:32PM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one.
With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?)
Yes! :-)
The general advice seems to be to always have a swap partition about the same size as your memory unless you really have very little memory in which case swap should be larger.
Ah well, I've got 3ยท4 gig, I suppose I can spare a bit.
Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made.
This sounds like fdisk rather than formatting, Admittedly fdisk is a little obtuse at times.
Probably. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
Hi Tony On Friday 04 November 2005 12:43, Anthony Anson wrote:
I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one.
Sarge is now the current "Stable" release - Although there are still a few bugs lurking, some of these are addressed in the debian-security repository.
With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?)
I have 768Meg on one box, and went a bit over the top with a 4Gig swap partition. Having had to manipulated some very large images recently with the Gimp, I am glad to have plenty of swap space.
Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made.
I understand that the latest version is a lot more user-friendly.
Having seen some screen shots of the newer Debian Installer, the partitioning stage still looks counter intuitive. A curses based front end to an installation is pretty arcane in my opinion.. One reason I feel Red Hat and SuSE have become market leaders is their early adoption of a graphical installer rather than for any technical merit. Anaconda from Red Hat is certainly one of the easiest systems to use - Watching an eight year old installing his first Linux with anaconda (with minimal help) says something. If you want to try a Debian Sarge using anaconda, I can quickly throw a CD together for you.. Regards, Paul. -- From the Klingon book of C: Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
The message <200511041511.21311.bdi-emc@ntlworld.com> from Paul <bdi-emc@ntlworld.com> contains these words:
If you want to try a Debian Sarge using anaconda, I can quickly throw a CD together for you..
Please. I take it that most of what's on the rest of the CDs in the set (IIRC I have seven) will not be too out of date? -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
Hi Tony On Friday 04 November 2005 15:02, Anthony Anson wrote:
If you want to try a Debian Sarge using anaconda, I can quickly throw a CD together for you..
Please. I take it that most of what's on the rest of the CDs in the set (IIRC I have seven) will not be too out of date?
A quick recap on the package list: KDE-3.3.2 - Includes kmail, ksirc, kspread, kcalc, and a few other general common KDE packages. Cups - The standard print manager on most distros now. Samba - Just in case you need to share resources with the dark side. xfce4 & evilwm - Not everyone wants a heavyweight window manager.. gcc & friends so that you can compile "stuff". With some 613 packages out of a possible 14,000 or so, there is still plenty of space on the CD if you want anything else - Currently, a 576Meg ISO.. Regards, Paul. -- From the Klingon book of C: Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
The message <200511042024.16329.bdi-emc@ntlworld.com> from Paul <bdi-emc@ntlworld.com> contains these words:
Hi Tony
On Friday 04 November 2005 15:02, Anthony Anson wrote:
If you want to try a Debian Sarge using anaconda, I can quickly throw a CD together for you..
Please. I take it that most of what's on the rest of the CDs in the set (IIRC I have seven) will not be too out of date?
A quick recap on the package list:
I forgot to asp - Anaconda?
KDE-3.3.2 - Includes kmail, ksirc, kspread, kcalc, and a few other general common KDE packages.
Cups - The standard print manager on most distros now.
Samba - Just in case you need to share resources with the dark side.
Is that similar to Wine, or something different? I do want to try to run my ISP's mail/news handling software on a Linux box. (I'm a beta tester, so I'm going to keep using it, possibly alongside Thunderbird.
xfce4 & evilwm - Not everyone wants a heavyweight window manager..
gcc & friends so that you can compile "stuff".
With some 613 packages out of a possible 14,000 or so, there is still plenty of space on the CD if you want anything else - Currently, a 576Meg ISO..
I have got ATmission 1.1-03 and MEMPIS 3.3 test 01 on a cover DVD - comments? -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 20:49 +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
Is that similar to Wine, or something different? I do want to try to run my ISP's mail/news handling software on a Linux box.
No no not at all, Samba is a Linux equivalent of File Print sharing on Windows. It can act as a client or a server and pretty much do everything you would want to do involving connecting to/making available Windows file and print shares. To run your ISP mail/news handling software it does sound like you want to be trying to use wine. Wine's compatibility is variable depending on what side of the Microsoft EULA you like to sit but I have managed to get some fairly complicated software running well in the past.
The message <1131148562.3072.177.camel@localhost.localdomain> from Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com> contains these words:
On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 20:49 +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
Is that similar to Wine, or something different? I do want to try to run my ISP's mail/news handling software on a Linux box.
No no not at all, Samba is a Linux equivalent of File Print sharing on Windows.
Whatever that is...
It can act as a client or a server and pretty much do everything you would want to do involving connecting to/making available Windows file and print shares.
Sorry, you've lost me. Perhaps it's late. Well, it is late, in an early sort-of way.
To run your ISP mail/news handling software it does sound like you want to be trying to use wine. Wine's compatibility is variable depending on what side of the Microsoft EULA you like to sit but I have managed to get some fairly complicated software running well in the past.
It is reported that it does run in Wine, but there are minor cosmetic anomalies which don't affect the functions. (However, ZIMACS 3.* is being written in VB.NET I think, and this may alter the perspective a bit.) -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
On Friday 04 November 2005 12:43, Anthony Anson wrote:
I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one.
Hey, reading through your experiences on this thread, maybe you could try SuSE or ubuntu as an aside - either of which is likely to suit you if you don't like having to examine lots of minutiae during installation and prefer to start off with a functional system, and it can't hurt to try. I'm just about to put one of these 4 quintigigillion ubuntu disks to use and install it myself on an nth partition somewhere, actually. If you do decide to stick with Debian, however, I suspect you'll be glad you did. It's a choice between the quick fix and the One True GNU/Linux (which I still maintain despite my dirty little affair with SuSE*) :)
With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?)
Definitely - to pick a figure from the ether, if you go for about 2 gigs, you won't regret it :) When you run your GNU/Linux with one of the heavier desktop environments, it can get uber memory-intensive at times.
Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made.
You say you were using cfdisk and worked this out, but not how. People with the same problem reading/googling the list could benefit from being told that pressing W for "write" at the main screen to commit the changes you've made :)
I understand that the latest version is a lot more user-friendly.
Maybe - the versions of cfdisk I've used certainly are. It's not very good if you find clui's counterintuitive, though.
[1] altered the hda1 FAT32; hda2 FAT16; hda3 Fat16 to a single unformatted partition awaiting the command to format. [2] the line at the bottom which said 'print help' or something similar had a cursor at the end of it, but I couldn't find any way of moving it or highlighting the lot, or getting it to work.
So I removed the CD and shut down.
I have a feeling that this is going to be a long job...
How're things progressing? :-) Well I hope... Hey - just a last thought, if you decide to have a go at ubuntu, could you get a second machine into IRC? It might be quite cool to install and set it up together. Maybe we should have an alug installfest at some point.... Anyway, later, may the FOSS be with you. *Life gets boring without variety, and having done the nonfunctional->functional transition, I feel the need now to start with a preconfigured system and bork it myself. -- Ten
The message <200511051030.32679.runlevelten@gmail.com> from Ten <runlevelten@gmail.com> contains these words:
On Friday 04 November 2005 12:43, Anthony Anson wrote:
I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one.
Hey, reading through your experiences on this thread, maybe you could try SuSE or ubuntu as an aside - either of which is likely to suit you if you don't like having to examine lots of minutiae during installation and prefer to start off with a functional system, and it can't hurt to try.
I'm just about to put one of these 4 quintigigillion ubuntu disks to use and install it myself on an nth partition somewhere, actually.
If you do decide to stick with Debian, however, I suspect you'll be glad you did.
I think I shall stick with Debian, thanks. FTTB, at least.
It's a choice between the quick fix and the One True GNU/Linux (which I still maintain despite my dirty little affair with SuSE*) :)
With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?)
Definitely - to pick a figure from the ether, if you go for about 2 gigs, you won't regret it :)
Two gigs? That's nearly half the flippin' HD size!
When you run your GNU/Linux with one of the heavier desktop environments, it can get uber memory-intensive at times.
Such as? (I have a feeling that this is unlikely - the most memory-hungry thing I'm likely to play with is my scanner, which molishes very large files if you tell it to.
Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made.
You say you were using cfdisk and worked this out, but not how. People with the same problem reading/googling the list could benefit from being told that pressing W for "write" at the main screen to commit the changes you've made :)
Yes, true. I discovered this by careful reading of the help file, and then interpreting it to mean something which it didn't actually say.
I understand that the latest version is a lot more user-friendly.
Maybe - the versions of cfdisk I've used certainly are. It's not very good if you find clui's counterintuitive, though.
Oh, I think i can manage cfdisk now, but as for the other thing, I don't have a clui - never met it, that I know of.
[1] altered the hda1 FAT32; hda2 FAT16; hda3 Fat16 to a single unformatted partition awaiting the command to format. [2] the line at the bottom which said 'print help' or something similar had a cursor at the end of it, but I couldn't find any way of moving it or highlighting the lot, or getting it to work.
So I removed the CD and shut down.
I have a feeling that this is going to be a long job...
How're things progressing? :-) Well I hope...
Hey - just a last thought, if you decide to have a go at ubuntu, could you get a second machine into IRC? It might be quite cool to install and set it up together.
I don't do IRC - I'm on dial-up and a very tight budget. (Hence no broadband.)
Maybe we should have an alug installfest at some point....
Anyway, later, may the FOSS be with you.
Thanks.
*Life gets boring without variety, and having done the nonfunctional->functional transition, I feel the need now to start with a preconfigured system and bork it myself.
Just give it to me to play with - I borked the last installation of these CDs - well, it refused to play at all when I plugged the HD into the newly-built box, just started loading things and then fell over. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
participants (5)
-
Anthony Anson -
Chris Green -
Paul -
Ten -
Wayne Stallwood