On Mon, Dec 11, 2006 at 07:08:14PM +0000, andy wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I'm new to Debian - having run Slackware solidly since 8.1 I have
> become used to particular ways of maintaining my machine and also
> became used to a certasin belt-&-braces mentality. I loved Slackware,
> found tremendous respect for the stable way Pat Volkerding put it
> together and maintained it over the years.
> I am still on a very steep learning curve, so would
> welcome anyone's steer in terms of learning how to optimise my system
> and good documentation for a Debian-n00b.
>
Welcome.
You've had lots of response but I'll add a few. I've never used
slackware. I started with RH that I got basically free from a used book
sale, then the RH upgrade wouldn't work on my old hardware so I switched
to Debian while I was still a newbie. Remember that the steep part of
the learning curve is where you make the fastest progress over time.
Assuming that you really want to understand Debian and how it does
things compared to what you're used to:
After you have read the Release notes, Installation manual and the
debian-reference, you should read the policy manual and the FHS
that is attached to it.
Package management is the cornerstone to Debian. The individual
packages are installed by dpkg but how they're selected, managed, and
have their dependancies resolved is the job of a package manager (that
then run dpkg on each package in the right order). There's lots to
learn here. Unless you go totally manual and just use dpkg you will
probably use apt to fetch packages so you should read the apt HOWTO and
the apt user's guide. Then if you use a front-end to apt (aptitude, or
others) you should read the aptitude user's manual.
I second the motion on mc. When I do an install, I only put in the
minimalist base system. I make sure I've got aptitude and get it set
up, then I install mc. It can delve into tarballs, read html (and other
formats with the right helper aps installed), provide a front-end to ftp
and sftp, and includes a basic editor. In fact, if I'm on a system too
small for vim I can do 90% of my daily tasks out of mc on a terminal.
The biggest thing I've learned is to install things a bit at a time; one
major package (and its dependancies) and get it configured, then move
on. Lets say you choose aptitude, then you install that and from then
on use that untill you learn how to make it play nice with other package
tools (see controversial recurrent threads on debian-user). Then I
install mc followed by lynx. Then I make sure I've got all the
documentation packages I want (e.g. the HOWTOs and man pages). When I'm
ready for email I install exim4 (it works out of the box, don't worry
about it), mailx, mutt, and fetchmail (again, one at a time in that
order). The __last__ thing to install is X. Only when everything else
is working. X only (xorg in Etch) and a basic window manager (I use
icewm) untill it works fine from startx and only then add a display
manager if you wish (e.g. gdm).
I once had to reinstall due to a failed hard drive (now I use raid1 on
my main system) and thought I'd just go ahead and select everthing that
was installed prior to the crash. I ended up with the biggest mess. I
didn't have time to figure out exactly what happened. I just
reinstalled and went slow. It was easier than it seems since the base
install only takes about 20 minutes.
Enjoy.
Doug.
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