Debian
From ZENotes
(Difference between revisions)
m (1 revision) |
Latest revision as of 23:59, 14 October 2011
Recalling an install of Debian 'Testing' (upgrade from 5 aka Lenny): Good points, challenges, achievements and showstoppers.
Contents |
Notes
Journal of a typical install (unstable 30/01/2010)
Apt-Pinning to surf between unstable, stable and testing.
More on sources.list: http://www.mayin.org/ajayshah/COMPUTING/debian-principles.html
And here is my draft sources.list
Since Vino is dead, here is the list of recommendations from wiki.deian.org: http://wiki.debian.org/VNCviewer
A bare Debian install doesn't feature build tools so you do have to install headers, make, gcc and the likes. Slackware rules!
- From outside: to scan your target' machine port: nmap -p <port> <ip_address>
- From inside: to check your iptables rules: sudo iptables -F (shouldn't have any on a blank debian)
- From inside: to check outside available services: netstat -lnptu
+ the Tale of the Missing Packages
Bluetooth HowTo Fail
And unrelated Debian information
YES
Quite Cool...
- It's so fast, even with full Gnome Desktop, so low on memory (<200Mb idle @ cold start, <120Mb with Enlightenment16!!)
- Testing as a rolling release model.
- NFS share mounts out-of-the-box.
- locate works as user out-of-the-box.
- Brightness fn keys OK, sceen-off too.
- Wireless OK, after zero-fuss driver install.
- Lock Screen & Leave a Message is fun. Why not?
- Crisp, no fuss, no niceties ...so ut's fast.
- Good Documentation albeit everything is slightly outdated.
- GConfiguration Editor included.
Just Works (With Testing)
- mounting nfs shares
- Compositor in Metacity
- 3G cellphones as Modem (after installing NetworkManager, that is)
- Suspend/Resume (not anymore - sleeps but a pain to come back)
- webradio (mplayer)
Added
- screen
- rsync
- mplayer
- x11vnc
- openssh
- e16, the enlightenment Window Manager
- lxde, the Lightweight X Desktop Environment.
- gDesklets (hey, it's a laptop after all, it may as well look cool. They are quite unfinished though.)
- gomeDO
- TuxPaint
- BitTorrent CLI tools
- VirtualBox
- VLC
NO
Showstoppers
- Testing uses Grub2.
- The gnome desktop comes with remote everything, but openssh-server is not included! You believe services are running, and wonder why you can't connect... ssh now fixed, vino still dead, using good ole' x11vnc instead.
- Upgading to Testing is a nightmare of dependencies, you have to switch between dpkg and apt-get or even synaptic all the time. Took 2 days to 'fix': when something doesn't upgrade, it's discarded; when you finally reboot, there is nothing left of your OS, you have to manually re-add everything that makes an OS: core network files, X server, gnome tools... everything. Keep an eye on udev (broken with 2.6.26) and mono (for circular dependencies: a needs b, b needs c, c needs a, etc... and refuses to install).
Still to try: failure to import virtualmachines created elsewhere will pull the plug on this install.
Bugs
- sudo cd doesn't work when trying to go to an unreadable folder sudo: cd: command not found. Stupid!
- iwl3945 not included, but is opensourced from intel...
- basics as rsync, screen, mplayer or smbfs not included by default.
- no Samba share in Nautilus anyway.
- gDesklets is, to say the least, early alpha. Unrecoverable crashes, popups with warnings, unconfigureable applets...
- Lots of warnings, error messages on boot; nothing in dmesg|tail...
- Messy X start-up with 3 different stages of plain colored screens. Differently colored, of course.
- Tap-to-click disappeared at some point; followed advice to install gsynaptics that restores Tap... and forgets about it as soon as you suspend/reboot;
Cures
- WiFi: Use a wired connection to install 3945 firmware aptitude install firmware-iwlwifi. (You will need to add non-free repository to /etc/apt/source.list, use the synaptics repos manager to do that easily)
- Tap: Look for Touchpad in gconf-editor and tick that box.
- Install openssh. Duh.
Still ToDo
- VirtualBox import of previous virtual machine at latest state with snapshot; get vboxguestadditions in.
- stk11xx patch to flip camera.
- Microphone setup on skype.
- CleanUp error messages at boot
- Run a vncserver that other machines can connect to.
