Debian for Newbies? Why or why not?

**ChrisK2972** · September 2nd, 2003, 04:53 PM

This is a long one......

I was reading over some of the post that I have missed over the last week or so, and came accross this one. The thread essentially became a "what distro is best for newbies." The responses took to rating distros from a newbie perspective with a particular concentration on the ease of installation--which leads me to my question. Is the Debian install really that much of a deterrent for newbies anymore?

I have never tried a Woody install and certainly do not doubt the fact that it is challenging. But, I have installed a number of the new debian based distros (knoppix, morphix, mepis, bonzai) and have found them as easy to install as Mandrake or anything else for that matter.

Knoppix, when installed to the hardrive, is Debian unstable, right? From my experiece, nothing could be easier to install. The Knoppix installer(3.2)might not have all the eye candy that the Mandrake installer has, but, it is very simple and easy to follow. If I am not mistaken(I have tested about ten Linux varities recently so it is hard to keep them all straight), Morphix and Mepis have an icon on the desktop for a hardrive installation; how much easier could it get? Bonzai is a bit more complicated, but, it too has a fairly simple text based installer.

Sure, they all(except Bonzai) are somewhat bloated, but, so is Mandrake for that matter. To avoid the bloat, go with Bonzai. A great Debian installer with KDE and a few other packages to get you online and then you can put it together from there.

With the deb/apt abilities, I think Debian in the form of any of these new distros would be a great choice for a newbie; a group that I myself belong to. I mean, package management can be one of the greatest nightmares that turn allot of newbies off to Linux altogether. Why not direct them to the ease of apt and show them it is possible to install and uninstall software in Linux without much trouble. Once they know how to do it that way, then they might be more comfortable experimenting with other methods.

I might be wrong here, but, I think that because of these distros, Debian will become more mainstream and used by both the advanced and newbie alike. Am I wrong? Is knoppix and its varients a valid Debian install or not? If not, why? If so, would they not be acceptable for a newbie to cut their teeth on? If they did, would they miss something that they would gain from a regular "woody" install?(besides the experience and subsequent learning)

On a final personal note, and I do apologize for the length of this post, I decided to go with Slack 9. Although I read many post that said that Slack was not for newbies and that there was no hand-holding in Slack etc, I found the "book" on the Slack site to be an amazing resource. Using it and searches on google and forums, I have been able to solve most of all my initial problems without ever asking the first question. I thought that if I was going to go Linux, I might as well dive right in and learn. If I wanted point and click I would have just stayed where I was. So, I think Slack is a great newbie distro as well and as easy to install as any of them in my opinion, and as I stated earler, I have installed allot of them of late.

**nukes** · September 2nd, 2003, 05:05 PM

Maybe in the form of one of the distros you mentioned, but no way could a total newb do a woody/sid install. Maybe if they knew exactly what they were doing, but they'd probably need some Linux experience first.
Debian derivatives are different from woody/sid in the way they're set up. That's the whole point of a derived work. Its different. I think you have a good point throughout your post though. I'd like to see more newbs on deb, its just the install is a bit much for them, but stuff like apt-get and debconf, and the menu system (since been ripped by other distros like mandrake) all came from debian initially, and make linux a much more seamless experience.

**ChrisK2972** · September 2nd, 2003, 09:06 PM

does woody or sid have good hardware detection or does most everything have to be set up manually? That is what I have understood to be the main difference between a regular Deb install and knoppix(well, the menu in knoppix seems to be all hacked up). In fact, some of the reading I have done recently seems to expect that knoppix's hardware recognition capabilities will be added to the debian install in the future. Other distros have kicked the idea around too; Arch Linux being one that comes to mind. I read where they were going to include knoppix's hardware detection in the next ISO(.o6).

**Redwolf** · September 2nd, 2003, 09:57 PM

Most of it has to be set up manually, although most of it is through modules and picking a wrong one is not going to kill anything (it just won't laod). The trick is getting everything you want to load.

If you REALLY want to try out Debian as a newb, I suggest Looking at Bonsai Linux or Libranet. Check out:

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t76661.html

for where to get those.

I'm still playing around with Libra, but the thing is the apt-respositories are all screwy. Alot of the stuff in the apt-tree won't install properly, if at all.

*

Haven't played with Bonzai too much, but it looked easier from an installation standpoint. It was really just a newer Debian installer.

To give you an idea on the current state of affairs with the Debian installer, I have a much, much easier time Installing Gentoo (including post-install stuff) than I do installing Debain Woody (gentoo is consitered to be a very 'advanced' distro, meaning it has so many options and is so user-unfriendly it will make your head spin

). Biggest reason is that the Debian CD doesn't seem to like IDE cards (workarounds are avaliable, but a bit complex). Also my drives end up getting reversed somehow and I ALWAYS end up screwing something up with LILO in the install because of that. A more advanced user (Spooky, Pretorian come to mind) could help you (and me) with alot of those issues (don't worry about it guys, you've all heleped more than enough with it, and it just doesn't work out right for some reason).

Both Libra and Bonzai have autodetection of some kind, BTW.

-edit- Don't explect too much from APT and DPKG. APT doesn't seem to like working with your downloaded DEB files (unless you are willing to set up a package tree for it), and DPKG is sometimes worse than RPM. But APT is a very, very nice program. Don't let me scare you away from it. Once you start learning how to edit the sources list and start finding sources out there, you'll fall in love. Well, you should.

**nukes** · September 3rd, 2003, 01:10 PM

Alot of the stuff in the apt-tree won't install properly, if at all.

That's because of the differences in the setup of the distro. If you use plain 'ole Debian, it will work. Some of the stuff in unstable is broken, but 99.9% of the time it will work fine. I've never had any trouble installing downloaded .deb files either.
Also, messing too much with the sources.list isn't a good idea. If you have all three debian sources in, it won't like it, nor will it if you leave unofficial sources in after you've got the software you want from it. That's the only time apt's gone screwy with me.

does woody or sid have good hardware detection or does most everything have to be set up manually?

Everything has to be set up manually, in terms of drivers and XFree. Stuff like apache and ssh work out of the box though, but anything you need tailored to your system needs to be done by you. Also, it uses a 2.2 kernel by default. You have to specify bf24 at the ISOLINUX prompt.

Biggest reason is that the Debian CD doesn't seem to like IDE cards (workarounds are avaliable, but a bit complex).

What does that mean? I've installed debian on systems with PCI IDE cards, running hard disks and CDROMS off them in different configurations. What sort of problems have you been having?

slackware is consitered to be a very 'advanced' distro, meaning it has so many options and is so user-unfriendly

Now, that really isn't true. Almost everything in Slack will work out of the box, including Xfree. The installer is really nice and straightforward, and steps you through everything you need. It will autodetect things like CDROMs and LAN cards. The ONLY things you may need to do on a desktop slack install is setup the X server if you want hardware acceleration, and compile your soundcard into the kernel if it didn't work straight away.

**SpookyEddy** · September 3rd, 2003, 03:02 PM

[rant]
*AS A HINT TO THE APT DEVELOPERS, PLEASE IMPLAMENT SOME SORT OF PRIORITY SYSTEM FOR EACH SOURCE!!!*

[/rant]

*as a hint to the lazy debian user (look no caps), checkout man apt_preferences.

Several instances of the same version of a package may be available
when the sources.list(5) file contains references to more than one
source. In this case apt-get downloads the instance listed earliest in
the sources.list(5) file.

So.. more important comes first, easy eh?

and DPKG is sometimes worse than RPM. But APT is a very, very nice program.

APT only works because dpkg is such a (comparitively) good package format. I have also never had an issue with manually installing .deb files, infact I have about 30 kernels installed at the moment in that manner.

Oh, and back on topic. I think debian is a great distro (infact its my favorite) but it does require some basic experience with and understanding of system configuration via the command line (not that its a big deal). Probably a better 2nd or 3rd distro than 1st, but certainly not impossible.

Regards

ed

**dunbar** · September 3rd, 2003, 03:15 PM

My advice is to go for Debian if you feel that editing files at a command line is not overly painful. That just asks about your mindset, the Debian installer is fairly thorough.

Debian Woody advice: no matter what, at all costs, avoid using the dselect command which is suggested during the Woody during the installation process.

ChrisK2972: The installer for Arch 0.4 had a bug where it erases every hard disk in the PC under certain installation selections (been there, done that); I tried 0.5 but it suffered incompatibilities with my hardware. Still too early for Arch, IMO.

**Redwolf** · September 3rd, 2003, 04:26 PM

Biggest reason is that the Debian CD doesn't seem to like IDE cards (workarounds are avaliable, but a bit complex).

What does that mean? I've installed debian on systems with PCI IDE cards, running hard disks and CDROMS off them in different configurations. What sort of problems have you been having?

I need your IDE card then!

Well, the Debian installer won't recognize my card. It just completely skips over it. All other Distros I have tried have recognized it perfectly. I can workaround it with pb's excelent tutorial on www.linuxjunior.com , but it's still a pain.

[rant]
*AS A HINT TO THE APT DEVELOPERS, PLEASE IMPLAMENT SOME SORT OF PRIORITY SYSTEM FOR EACH SOURCE!!!*

[/rant]

*as a hint to the lazy debian user (look no caps), checkout man apt_preferences.

I'll do that. Thanks again eddy (sorry bout the caps, I was too tired to think straight enough to not shout.

Several instances of the same version of a package may be available
when the sources.list(5) file contains references to more than one
source. In this case apt-get downloads the instance listed earliest in
the sources.list(5) file.

So.. more important comes first, easy eh?

Well, I completely missed that one... That probably explains why I'm having so many problems, especially with the newest version of Arts wanting to wipe out KDE completely...

and DPKG is sometimes worse than RPM. But APT is a very, very nice program.

APT only works because dpkg is such a (comparitively) good package format. I have also never had an issue with manually installing .deb files, infact I have about 30 kernels installed at the moment in that manner.

I said sometimes, not all the time. I should have put about 20% opf the time. I have run into a few problems with dpkg that could be easily avaoided or that just don't exist in RPM. Most of those revolve around installing individual packages you have dled into a directory and want to install from there. I'm speaking from my own experience, there are most likely workarounds to that (there always is, isn't there?)

slackware( I mean gentoo ) is consitered to be a very 'advanced' distro, meaning it has so many options and is so user-unfriendly

Now, that really isn't true. Almost everything in Slack will work out of the box, including Xfree. The installer is really nice and straightforward, and steps you through everything you need. It will autodetect things like CDROMs and LAN cards. The ONLY things you may need to do on a desktop slack install is setup the X server if you want hardware acceleration, and compile your soundcard into the kernel if it didn't work straight away.

Yeah, I meant to say Gentoo. My bad.

Debian Woody advice: no matter what, at all costs, avoid using the dselect command which is suggested during the Woody during the installation process.

I don't really agree with this. Sometimes tasksel will not install all the packages needed and you end up with broken dependencies. Dselect looks really, really intimidating, but it's pretty easyt. You will need to set aside about 30 mins to an hour to use it if you want to look through all the packages (don't check or uncheck any critical or system options you aren't sure of!).

I highly reccomend at least entering the program, read the keystrokes at least, pressing space to exit the help, pressing enter to accept the current settings (from tasksel), and then work with whatever broken packages there are (if any).

My advice is to go for Debian if you feel that editing files at a command line is not overly painful. That just asks about your mindset, the Debian installer is fairly thorough.

nano -w

it comes in handy for text editing

To edit a file, like say...ohh /etc/lilo.conf you simply type

nano -w /etc/lilo.conf

Oh, and the little carrots mean the Control key...just in case you didn't know that when it comes time to sayve your work.

Also, messing too much with the sources.list isn't a good idea. If you have all three debian sources in, it won't like it, nor will it if you leave unofficial sources in after you've got the software you want from it. That's the only time apt's gone screwy with me.

'Stock' install of Libranet 2.7. Haven't messed with the sources.list at all. I guess I'll have to play around with it.

**ChrisK2972** · September 4th, 2003, 01:21 AM

This thread has turned out to be some really good and informative reading. Thanks! My point in a nutshell is this: Debian, by all accounts, is a great Distro with many advantages. Since you can get to it via knoppix, bonzai, etc etc without all the frustrations of a ""woody" install, why wouldn't it be as good a choice for a newbie as any other distro? It seems to me that the debian variants have pretty much overcome the install issues. And, what does a user really forfeit by going that route except the learning experience and a headache? If I can arrive at the same destination faster and easier, what is wrong with taking the easy route? Is knoppix/debian really that much different than woody/debian? Same software etc etc.... I just think that sometimes newbies (myself included) get psyched out about a distro and forfeit a great experience because they are made to be afraid of something because someone said it was not for newbies. I recently installed Slackware 9 and was scared to death at first because I had been told that I should leave it alone till I gained some experience. In the end, it was extremely easy to install. SInce I installed it, I have compiled the 2.4.22 kernel (to get my onboard via 8233 sound working) and installed allot of software from source, even made a number of packages myself. Slack has a great "book" on their site that tells you about anything you need to know to get it up and working like a charm. If one can read....... I think that is one of the greatest problem. I have learned that if I simply read and follow the instructions, it usually works like it is supposed to. And, if someone is not willing to do that, no distro is going to suit them......

Once again, thanks for all the good information guys!

Red, have you actually installed Bonzai? I know it has KDE. Have you booted into it yet? If so, do you like how it is set up? I wish there was a good english site for this disto. That is it's only drawback in my opinion. 180MB download with KDE and good HW detection, with good control over what is installed, a debian dream come true......

**nukes** · September 4th, 2003, 01:55 PM

I don't really agree with this. Sometimes tasksel will not install all the packages needed and you end up with broken dependencies. Dselect looks really, really intimidating, but it's pretty easyt. You will need to set aside about 30 mins to an hour to use it if you want to look through all the packages (don't check or uncheck any critical or system options you aren't sure of!).

Yes, but once you get through the install, sometimes it won't install them right, at least with my Woody CD, it works fine installing stuff manually with apt-get though.

I need your IDE card then!

Well, the Debian installer won't recognize my card. It just completely skips over it.

What IDE card is it? Are you using the bf24 kernel rather than booting the default one on the CD. For reference, I have a PCI CMD-649U Controller on a Longshine board. It cost me about £10 new and has worked with everything I throw at it, although when I was in one of my darker hours, I stuck XP on and it didn't like it, kept wanting to restart every time I booted the machine.

**Redwolf** · September 4th, 2003, 03:48 PM

It's an Sil680 based card. No RAID, although it supports RAID 0. Bf24 skips it too, so I have to pass ide2= and ide3= to it every time. Bonzai and Libra both work with my card, as does pretty much every other Linux distro as well. It messes up the install too, because the card has a higher priority than the controller on the motherboard, so installing it with the Woody install throws off the boot loader.

**Redwolf** · September 4th, 2003, 03:51 PM

I'm reinstalling Bonzai right now (currently Libranet). I didn't have much of a chance to play with it before, so I'll get back to you on Bonzai. For all practical matters though (from what I saw), it is essentially Debian with a better installer and KDE 3. Which is nice...

**SpookyEddy** · September 4th, 2003, 04:13 PM

Debian with a better installer and KDE 3

KDE 3 is in debian, testing and sid currently have 3.1. Which is nice.

Regards

ed

**Redwolf** · September 4th, 2003, 10:56 PM

Trying out Bonzai, I must say that it's probably best to stick with Libranet or Knoppix if you really want Debian. The installation does have an autodetect, but the first portion of the installation is almost identical to the normal Woody installation, sans a newer Kernel. It would probably be best for a 2nd or 3rd distro, but I'd avoid it as a first.

Have to go, will post some more tomorrow.

**ChrisK2972** · September 5th, 2003, 02:10 PM

I would agree with you there. When I loaded it, it ask allot of questions sorta like you are compiling the kernel during install (that might actually be what your doing, I don't know) and the help for that part is not that exhaustive. You really need to know what you need before you begin the process. Once again, an english install manual would be nice. I felt more comfortable compiling my first kernel than I did with the Bonzai install, howeve, I suppose that is really an advantage because you basically optimize your kernel during install rather than having to do it later, or load a bunch of modules, etc. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

**Redwolf** · September 5th, 2003, 05:09 PM

No, Bonzai doesn't optimize your kernel (srry!). They let you choose what kernel to install, but there's only one choice I think.

You may want to check out Libranet IMO. You may be pleasently suprised by it. I was.

**ChrisK2972** · September 6th, 2003, 04:14 AM

I have Libranet (2.7) installed on a hardrive along with Bonzai and Yopper. I haven't poked around much in it yet. I was just installing distros on that hardrive to find the easiest installer. But, I think I will check it out a bit more. I have noticed that you like to change distros allot and if it has your attention, it must be a decent distro!

**nukes** · September 6th, 2003, 01:42 PM

I used to be like that, I was testing every one under the sun, and ended up with Slackware 8.1/Debian Dual boot, until I got hold of Gentoo and I liked that better than either. So now I am on Gentoo only.
IMO, You should recompile the kernel anyway, some distros (Mandrake, RH, SUSE etc) install a lot of bloat in the kernel, such as httpd acceleration and unneeded services, such as the IP Virtual server etc, which most people don't use on a desktop system. Plus you get to know what's going on.

**ChrisK2972** · September 6th, 2003, 02:20 PM

I agree. That was the first thing I did when I installed Slackware 9 was compile the 2.4.22 kernel and upgrade. I did it mainly because my sound would not work out of the box with the 2.4.21 kernel. And, I did it for the experience. When it was done, I had learned a great deal as well as gain allot of confidence.