September 17, 2006...1:00 am
Installing Debian: A noob’s viewpoint
Yey, so I managed to get back my old Toshiba laptop (the one where the Ubuntu fiasco occurred) and install Debian on it. It has the advantage of not being used so if anything goes wrong I can just wipe the entire system and install Windows over it (sadly it is a rather reassuring thought).
Here is what I have done in preparation: Download a .iso file of the Debian 3.1 ’sarge’ installation disc. I believe it contains only the basic system. I also have a copy of the printout from Windows Device manager. I did not bother backing up my files cos there aren’t any. In hindsight, I should really have read up more on partitioning and actually bothered to find out more information about my hardware (at least enough to satisfy the list stated in the previous post). Perhaps I should have defragmented the disc too.
Everything went smoothly initially (selecting language, country etc.) and the installer has useful information for noobs like me when I’m supposed to make a decision (eg. “If you are unsure you should choose this choice. You can always change it later in this file.” But then I was too lazy to copy down the filenames).
Choosing the hostname for the system was pretty easy. The domainname was more confusing. Does it actually matter what domain name I choose? Since I am on a cable connection, my IP will change every time I connect..I am not too sure on what to do. Anyway, just in case, I just used the name suggested (which is probably part of the hostnames of computers on my ISP).
The biggest problem was with partitioning, actually. The original partition was: the harddrive was split into two, one was the Windows files (primary partition) and the other was data files (logical partition). If I wanted to use a partition, I should have selected the area of the disc labelled ‘free space’ and not anything else. However, that specific area was only 8MB large. I was rather stumped at what to do and so I made use of the data partition to install Debian on. Perhaps defragmenting the disc should have helped? I’m not too sure about what to do to create a partition on an existing partition without wiping it out. Cos there’s no free space to work with.
Feeling insecure, I aborted the installation and booted into Windows to check it out on the Debian Installation Manual. The system seemed okay, despite the warning that aborting the installation would leave the system in an unstable state.
Anyway I took about 256Mb for my swap partition, and the rest of the partition was split into half each for the root and home directories.
The rest of the installation went fine, and it was really exciting seeing all the words scroll by….
I have to admit, having prior experience (however little and however much hand-holding there was) is a definite advantage in understanding what was going on, but I guess a complete noob should still be able to do it based on the notes given in the installer. Most of the stuff was automatically done, after all (thank goodness!).
After choosing the repository I wanted, the files were downloaded and installed to beef up the system abit more. However, I noticed that some files were unable to be downloaded–I don’t actually know what happens next, does the program just skip those files, or get them from someplace else?
Then this screen appeared asking me to choose what the system would be used for–desktop environment, mail server/ftp server etc. After selecting ‘desktop environment’, the program proceeded to download the relevant files and install them. However, it seems I goofed up and selected ‘mail server’ instead and configured it weirdly, so now it seems I can send mail to myself internally. Or something. I distinctly remember choosing ‘desktop environment’ though… now I must find out how to remove those files.
Anyway I found out that one can run the program ‘tasksel’ to perform the actions described above. Just type ‘tasksel’ at the bash shell and the nice screen will appear. The files for ‘desktop environment’ are so many, I gave up waiting for them to download over my sucky connection (I gave up at transfer no. 428), and left it to run overnight.
When I got back in the morning, there were more interesting decisions to make (which I still do not understand but the notes given were quite reassuring), and there was this thing regarding xfree86.
I regret not finding out more about my system cos I was rather at a loss at which refresh rate to choose. The warnings about destroying your display were rather scary. Or did they just apply to CRT displays? Anyway I chose the highest rate from among the lot, 75Hz.
When everything was finished and the dust cleared, I logged in and saw my first shell prompt on the black screen and was terribly at a loss for what to do next.
Ok this post is getting too long so I will write about my experiences in the shell in the next post.
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