gottahavacuppamocha

Over the past week or so, my main PC has been giving me some minor annoyances. So I decided to take the opportunity to explore some of the other Linux distros out there. In the past, I’ve used Mandrake and at the moment I’m using SuSE 8.0. Since I’ve been using Linux for a while now, I wanted a change of pace. I pondered Slackware, which I understand is a good distro for someone who is experienced with Linux. I checked out Ibiblio and LinuxISO for information about the different flavors of Linux and BSD. In the end, I ended up going with Debian. Debian is a distribution that is not for beginners (at least by reputation). It is non-commercial and run solely by volunteers. It’s not the only non-commercial distrbution, but it is the largest.

Since I was looking for a winter project (aside from Mocha2), Debian looked like a good option. Step one was downloading the ISO images and burning them onto CD. This was kind of a pain in the ass.

The first one I burned, I ended up with one big ISO file burned to CD. This means it isn’t readable by the computer. So The next thing I did was “mount” the ISO image to an empty directory, and then used a CD writing software to “master” the track and make it’s own ISO image, which it would then burn to a CD. This kind of worked, in that I could mount the CD and see the files, but for some reason it wasn’t bootable. I scratched my head and tried something else.

I went to DebianHelp and some other sites, before I found out I was more or less screwed up in the way I was burning the CD’s. The ISO image is an already mastered CD. Most of the CD writing software I was using wanted to create thir own ISO’s, rather tha taking one that was ready to burn. I ended up using the advanced options tab in KreateCD to make it burn an ISO image like it was meant to be burned.

With a bootable CD in hand, I rebooted the system and was surprised when the computer actually recognized it as a bootable CD. I started going through the install process, which wasn’t as hard as I though it would be. At least until I came up to the section where it starts to install the base system. It starts going through the base install, then tells me that the iptables package is corrupt. That’s strange, I thought. I ran md5sums and compared what I had with what was on the website and they were the same (MD5SUM is kind of like an error checking mechanism. If the numbers don’t match, then the downloaded image is corrupt in some way). Of course, this posed a minor problem. My only CD-RW is on the PC I was installing Debian on. And of course, since the Debian Installer had already made the new partitions, that meant I would have to reinstall SuSE, in order to download and burn new CD’s. Which is where I am now.

Debian has several types of installions. There is the generic boot-US and generic boot-NON US. In addition, there is the “vanilla” installation, the compact install, the IDEPCI install, and the BD2.4 install which has the Linux 2.4 kernel. Originally, I downloaded the generic US version, but since that came up with a problem, I decided it would be a wise idea to download and burn a few more CD’s, with different images, so it will be more likely to install correctly. I decided to download the generic NON US version, the plain vanilla CD, and the 2.4 CD. I may also grab the net-install CD. That one just installs a basic system, and then allows for downloading the rest once the system is set up. I guess the idea behind this is you have greater control over what is installed.

Anyway, once I get Debian installed, I will be fooling around with different things on it. I will have to learn where things are, and at least try to make it somewat similar to what my PC looked like with SuSE. Luckily, I backed up all of the important stuff, like my website stuff and the databases. I also backed up Kmail and Evolution (which is important if you’ve ever lost important emails due to a computer crash). Over at SourceForge I saw (and will probably install) a package called CDBackup. Essentially, it is supposed to take your important files and remind you to back them up (burn to CD). It keeps track of what’s changed or been added since the last backup. Sounds cool, not to mention very useful.

Other than that, the only thing I think I might like to try out is Slash. I’ve tried it before and had problems with it, so I’m hoping that getting it working on a new DIstro will be easier, especially since Debian is supposed to be what Slashdot uses.

Well, back to the downloading. I post how it all goes soon.

Related posts:

1. Playing with ASP Linux 9.0
2. Playing with Slackware
3. Slackware 10.0
4. Shoulda known better
5. OpenCD Project