Jeff and Red! Good news about Debian.

[nrunge]

Some people realized that Woody's installer is a bit old, so they made Hilux, an updated installer for Woody. I didnt look at it much so I dont know if it works with the Network installers, but that doesnt matter. Woody is a nice stable version of Linux that now has an installer which will better detect new hardware. Check it out.

http://oss-us.sns.ro/Hilux.html

[Jeff]

that is good news. I'd like to give it a shot again sometime, but I'll probably wait til I'm back on campus.

[Red]

Ditto. I'm not bothering with Linux until I have my two computers at Stout to mess with. Plus, I'll wait for Nate's guidance. :]

[Red]

I'm downloading Hilux right now. I might actually partition my hard drive again and give it a shot this weekend.

[nrunge]

Cool. let me know if you have any problems. On a side note I really enjoy playing around with windows again. It was nice to take a break and force myself to exist as Linux only. Its really nice to have diversity.

[Jeff]

Nate, help. I'm stupid.

I'd be looking into this and reading up, but I don't have time. I can get the Debian install to connect to the internet for fun extra features. But the UI for that install system is, n my opinion, nothing short of stupid. I'm not really sure what I want in there, but I always end up creating a conflict, and I can't figure out how in the hell to get back to the root menu. Also, is a GUI somewhere in that list, and can I configure it to load up right?

I've got two old test PCs for this, and I'm getting fed up and thinking of Mandrake or Redhat, just so I can finally get in to play around. But I'm holding out for Debian, so any help would be appreciated.


I should note that I was comfortably inebriated on Smirnoffs and Hard Lime when I was going through that packages list, so that could be why I was frustrated.

[Jeff]

Bah. Red's recent attempts made me try too. Well, nothin' doin. X crashed because of my USB mouse. Odd, since Debian recognized it as being there. Whatever. I'm running Mandrake now; and what's this shit about registering to get updates? I thought this was a free distro...

[Kage]

It was, wtfits. I guess they turned greedy. Thats okay though, when in doubt..

[nrunge]

To get X up and running a little googling around is all I can tell you because I dont have the specifics of your problem. Also Linuxquestions.org is a great place to post problems.

[Jeff]

I checked a lot of supposed Debian X remedies for USB mice, but nothing seemed to help. I suppose I'll have to start actively soliciting assistance.

[nrunge]

I had some problems with my mouse as well. For starters what kernel are you running? I would reccomend using the newest 2.6 kernel if you are not. Other than that I had some problems with my USB mouse. I had to play around with what I compiled into the kernel and what I chose to be modules. It shouldnt matter but for some reason it does.

[Jeff]

well this is straight from the hilux installer, so what is that, 2.4? i'm not sure how to update the kernel from the command line.

i didnt have to choose any extra driver packages at the install, since it shows up when i poll usb. i was told to map it as /dev/psaux, so i did that, but when x fails after i try startx after i reconfig, it says it had a problem finding a mouse on /dev/input/mouse. so i dont know why its not reflecting the change.

[nrunge]

Yeah that would be 2.4.x. I dont know about mapping it to other devices. My mouse is just automatically detected and works without any of that shit. You can download the newest kernel from kernel.org with a text based web browser like lynx or links. Then to re-compile your kernel just:

1. download the kernel to /usr/src and untar it
2. run apt-get install ncurses to make sure you have that software
3. cd to the source directory (ex. /usr/src/Linux-2.6.7)
4. type 'make menuconfig' and go through the config options, post any questions you have about what to include/exclude.
5. after you are finished running that type 'make-kpkg binary'
6. wait while your kernel is compiled into a .deb then cd to /usr/src and run dpkg -i 'name of kernel deb package'
7. also run dpkg -i on the kernel-image and kernel-headers debian packages

this should make all of your lilo entries as well. For further clarification refer to
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/kernel-pkg.html

[nrunge]

This looks to be a promising article on installing Debian.
http://www.bio-informatics.nl/debinstall1.php

[Red]

Well, got Linux installed. KDE works fine and dandy.

The solution?

I gave in and downloaded Mandrake. Installed and running in 10 minutes. Sorry Debian. I guess my skills ain't good enough yet.

[Jeff]

muahaha! my mandrake machine works flawlessly.

but can yours update without you paying some fee?

[Red]

I'll have to look into that.

[Jeff]

I've had some Debian failures, but Xebian is running on my Xbox swimmingly.