[LUNI] debian??

[Ronald E. Petty]

Thanks Larry,
How about upgrading the Kernel and Filesystem?  Can the magic of apt-get
dist-upgrade help those?
Ron

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Larry Garfield wrote:

> Sounds like you used the Woody installer for Debian 3.0.  That was
> cutting edge as of 3 years ago. :-)  For a desktop, I recommend the
> Sarge installer, for the version of Debian that is just about to go
> stable.  If you don't want to reinstall, you can easily upgrade to it
> now by changing your /etc/apt/sources.list file to say "testing" instead
> of "stable".  Then run:
>
> # apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
>
> Why Debian Is Cool:
>
> 1) For servers, "Stable" really is.  It is static for a LONG time, save
> for bug fixes, and before being declared stable it's hammered on a lot.
>   On 11 (now 12) architectures.  If you have a problem with a properly
> configured Stable box, you can be pretty sure it's hardware or something
> you did. :-)  When a new version is declared stable (Sarge is supposed
> to be in September, I think), the command above will upgrade the whole
> system cleanly to the next version.  Not even downtime unless you're
> upgrading the kernel too (which is downtime on any distro, period).
>
> Keeping it patched against security holes is as easy as running:
>
> # apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
>
> about once a day or so.  Debian's turnaround time for security patches
> in Stable is measured in hours, in most cases.
>
> 2) For desktops, you get a HUGE archive of software that you can install
> with one or two commands with fully automated dependency management.
> Yes, Gentoo and Fedora now claim the same thing, but with Debian you
> don't have to wait for it to compile (good or bad, depending on your
> POV) and more importantly you have debconf.
>
> Debconf?
>
> debconf.  Debconf is the package setup script system that Debian uses.
> It's a wizard-style ncurses, dialog, Qt, or command line-based script
> that many packages use (any that require actual configuration) that lets
> you configure most parameters of the package without touching a config
> file.  For instance:
>
> # dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
>
> Gives you a wizard interface to configure your X server.  No playing
> with the config file directly, and in Sarge it even does a damned good
> job of auto-detecting most settings.  Yes, X installation without a
> hassle.  Amazing, isn't it? :-)
>
> Debian also has very nice kernel management tools.  You can download
> precompiled kernels, or use make-kpkg to compile a kernel from source
> and create a .deb package for it that you can install that will take
> care of all the symlinks and modules and lilo/grub and so on.  Having
> been burned by older RH systems' lack of ability to compile your own
> kernel AND keep the RPM database up to date (which made installing newer
> versions of some packages impossible), this is a godsend for me.
>
> For a desktop, you want to run Testing or Unstable/Sid.  Unstable/Sid is
> actually fairly stable, most of the time, and it's what I use for my
> main desktop.  And yes, you can setup ext3 if you use a 2.4 kernel
> installer.  The Woody installer includes it as an option (bf24), or the
> Sarge installer uses it by default and gives you an option of 2.6.  You
> can also convert after the fact with whatever migration tools there
> usually are.
>
> If Woody's your only view on Debian, then yeah, it will look like it
> sucks. :-)  But once you get a look at the bigger picture of Debian it
> becomes highly cool.
>
> Ronald E. Petty wrote:
> > I am new to Debian and was wondering a couple of things.  Not to start a
> > flame war, but what is the advantage to Debian?  I just got it installed,
> > messed up a couple of things on install (partitions that is, picked
> > wrong place to boot from), however I am on the net.
> >
> > I noticed uname -a
> >
> > Linux debian 2.2.20-idepci #1 Sat Apr 20 12:45:19 EST 2002 i686 unknown
> >
> > So the kernel seems a bit dated, and I also noticed I installed ext2,
> > didn't see ext3 as a choice.
> >
> > Do regular Debian users update to ex3/reiser?  How about the kernel?  What
> > are my options for updating these things.  I can redo the whole install,
> > just wandering why it seems so dated?  Is sarge coming soon?  The
> > installer was very retro in feel :).
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Debian newbie
> >
> >
>
> --
> Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
> larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012
>
> "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
> exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an
> idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it
> to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the
> possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of
> it."  -- Thomas Jefferson
> --
> Linux Users Of Northern Illinois - Technical Discussion
> http://luni.org/mailman/listinfo/luni
>