Got Debian?

[denny]

Well yes, just about. There were some severely kludgy moments in the middle, but I've now got a mostly functional Debian (Sid) system up and running. All I have to do now is retrieve all my bookmarks and contacts for various 'net programs, and move some relevant data files back on here. And spend hours trying to reconfigure things to look the way I like - I can't seem to get any GNOME themes to work except the ones that come with the system, which is a bit annoying.

For anyone who's interested, I really don't recommend trying Debian unless you're feeling quite geeky - it's not a simple install. Alternatively, go with ciphergoth's suggestion to me, which was to get a Debian geek to sit next to you while you do it - I suspect that would have made things go a lot more smoothly.

Incidentally, y'know I was complaining about there being no hardware detection? There's a Debian package called 'discover' that seems to have most of the required functionality - it's a shame the installer doesn't appear to make any use of it.

Comments

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was just installing woody. As you, say, I've been administering unix for over ten years now, but debian installs still present you with surprises every time. :)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Eek! You're running sid? You can't really expect things to go smoothly if you're running "unstable"...

I run "testing" aka "sarge". I'd assumed that as a newcomer to Debian you would install "stable" - silly me :-)

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

You can't run 'stable' on a desktop system, the packages in it are too out of date. Evolution 1.0? Ick.

I was advised by Debian using friends that there's not much to choose between testing and unstable in terms of reliability, which seemed like a weird thing to say to me, but I took their word for it. This morning, every time I try to run Galeon my machine hard-locks, so I'm feeling less trusting now... perhaps I'll try bouncing back a stage.