Install Report from a Linux newbie - some comments

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Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 09:06:21 -0800 (PST)
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

Hello,

I tough of posting my Linux experience as a complete
Linux & Unix newbie that chose Debian to start playing
with linux. (out of laziness and pure ignorance - I
wanted to do a net install instead of waiting for
entire cds iso to download and had no clue that Debian
was an "hard distro")

First the installers: tried the new one and the old
one.

My first try: sarge & new installer

 The new one is real simple to use but it scared the
hell out of me: after installing x the only thing my
sceen could display was: "warning sync error will shut
down in 5 sec"

But, after rebooting, magic, tadam!, I was welcomed by
KDM! still didn't figure out what happened.

I managed to got everything net installed by
configuring pppoeconf right at the very beginning (and
played for the first time with apt, wget and lynx).
After choosing a rather random selection containing
gnome and KDE with taskel, I never managed to get my
dsl connection to work again (yes I was loggin as
root, rebooted etc...)!!! After intense googling with
my powerbook (I was installing linux on an old Aptiva
desktop) I found some bug report on debian mentionning
a somehow similar problem with the new installer and
needing hacking in many .conf files that seemed
obsolete... And went through too many cryptic howtos.
I almost quit linux at that point... I had enough!

Untill I found an excellent document in French:
"Formation Linux" (this NEEDS translation)
http://www.via.ecp.fr/~alexis/formation-linux/. That
was way more detailed on how to install Woody and get
some real things done (Play cds, burn, configure and
optimize X etc...)
I still haven't found any document matching it in
english.

That is what is missing from Debian. An interest in
producing documentation aimed at getting things done
and not about knowing all the possible ways to
configure everything. Also the too many "use your
brain to solve your problems" answers to newbies post
I ran accross surfing many newsgroups are
inacceptable, if Debian is to become anything more
than a geek toy.

Anyway, I decided to give Linux (for me at that point
Linux and Debian were synonyms) a second chance
following carefully every steps from "Formation
linux."

Installing Woody the old way:

Actually I found installing the old way was simpler
because now I had proper documentation and new what I
was doing. I managed to get everything (almost) to
work the way I wanted.

After a week of Woody I easily upgraded to Sid.
(following again the clear instructions from
"formation Linux") I can now use my usb wheel mouse,
print to my usb printer, surf web, play movies, rip
mp3, get e-mail, burn cds, process my tex documents
with Kile, run open office, run Matlab (I own the full
product copy - but now consider mooving to python
numeric) etc... Life is good!!!. Sincere thanks to
the Debian community.

Problems I still have to solve:

Get pon dsl-provider to work for users:

 (still have to login has root everytime) and continue
it to work evenafter I unplugged the ethernet cable
for more than 5 minutes...

Networking:

After too many tries with samba SWAT to communicate
with my osX powerbook, I gave netatalk a try. I didn't
work untill until I ran classic on top of X and access
the good old chooser from the mac side. Still don't
understand this trick. I have connected many samba
macs osX and windows box lately without problems.
Would like to get samba working! (Still haven't played
with NFS) Again clear instruction on how to achieve
this probably trivial thing are just lacking.

What package to get?:

From a newbie perspective the debian choice can be
overwhelming. I still didn't find a better way than
apt-cache search to get packages that probably do what
I want to do. I normaly guess what is appropriate but
I would really appreciate a place where you can see:
want to do this : this is the best tool.

Finally I would just like to say that are truly enjoy
the freedom Debian-linux now gives me: I somehow fell
that I emerged from the MS matrix and now live in the
free world. I think that if the Debian community put
more efforts in documenting more with a DOTHIS than a
HOWTO approach would help getting more people into
Zion.

That's it, thanks for reading

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• Previous message: Micha Feigin: "finding directory of referensed file (through link)"
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