On Sun, 2004-05-23 at 08:53, Shaun T. Erickson wrote: --snip-- > I've never used Debian before. I thought I'd start by installing it on > my laptop (Dell Latitude CPx J750GT). Any known issues/gotchas with that > particular model, that I should be aware of? I'll be wanting to run X, > and use it on both wired and wireless (Orinoco Gold card) networks - > multiple different networks of both types, so I'll need to be able to > switch from one to another easily.
The first thing to be aware of is that Debian doesn't do nearly as much auto-configuration for you as Red Hat. Don't expect X to 'just work'. You'll most likely have to do some hand editing of your XF86Config file. It might be a good idea to make a backup of your Red Hat one and use that. It should Just Work (tm). :) > I downloaded all eight Debian CDs, but before I burn all of them, I was > wondering which ones I actually need. I don't have rewritable media > handy, so it'd be nice to not waste write-once media on CDs I don't need. :) I think EVERYONE who first starts messing with Debian does this. I downloaded all 3 of the Debian CD's when I first started (with Potato). In reality, all you really need is the first CD, and you don't even need all of it. Once you have a base system set up you can fetch all of the other packages from the repository. Since you already have the CD's downloaded, and assuming you don't have a speedy connection handy, you can just burn the first CD to get you up and running, and then use a loop mount to mount the images for 2 - 8 and get to the packages like that. If you DO have a fast connection, just let the setup take care of managing your sources.list and install away. One thing I'd STRONGLY recommend is trying the new Sarge installer. Especially coming from a Red Hat background, it is a LOT easier than the previous Debian installers. Almost everything is auto-detected for you now and it actually seems to get it all right. To anyone who's used some of the previous Debian installers with some obscure network cards (such as myself), the fact that the new installer will set up the card, get an IP address, and take care of your overall network setup before you can blink is really REALLY amazing. :) OTOH, if you'd like more control over the install and you know exactly what hardware you have and what modules you'll need, you can try the expert install. Either way, good luck and I hope you'll come to enjoy Debian as much as pretty much everyone else here. :) Once you realize that dependency hell is something that happens to OTHER people you'll never go back. :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837
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