Moving to Debian...[MOVED]

[barriehie]

Hello All,
Ubuntu has lost my confidence after the last 'upgrade', 8.04.1 >> 8.04.3, and everything I can find on the web says Debian is the way to go for stability.. I don't need the latest/greatest packages; I need the ones installed to work, reliably. I'm seeing a common issue, maybe, and that is with ATI cards. I recall spending way to long getting the resolution to 'stay' in Ubuntu and I'ld like to avoid redoing all of that again with this install. I'll be installing the 64 bit version of Lenny. I've got AMD Athlon 64x2 CPU so it's not some off the wall brand. So, question is, does Debian have a favored more than others videa card that I won't have to mess with??? I won't mind buying a new one if I can avoid spending all day making an old one work!

TIA,
Barrie

[Bro.Tiag]

Welcome to debian & the forums.

Hello All,
Ubuntu has lost my confidence after the last 'upgrade', 8.04.1 >> 8.04.3, and everything I can find on the web says Debian is the way to go for stability.. I don't need the latest/greatest packages; I need the ones installed to work, reliably. I'm seeing a common issue, maybe, and that is with ATI cards. I recall spending way to long getting the resolution to 'stay' in Ubuntu and I'ld like to avoid redoing all of that again with this install. I'll be installing the 64 bit version of Lenny. I've got AMD Athlon 64x2 CPU so it's not some off the wall brand. So, question is, does Debian have a favored more than others videa card that I won't have to mess with??? I won't mind buying a new one if I can avoid spending all day making an old one work!

TIA,
Barrie

Well, I don't know 'bout a favoured video card, but I use nVIDIA and aside form kernel updates (something a stable user wont need doing) once configured it's a treat. That said you will have to configure it for starters.

I'd suggest a few things, first have a read through the forums looking for other users using a similar card. Second, wait for other to offer suggestions before running off half cocked and trying something different. Third, since you might not have a new card to hand and have to wait to install it, you might just as well try your corrent card. That said, make a copy of the last good xorg.conf file you have and use it as a starting point for the new install.

Cheers

[barriehie]

Welcome to debian & the forums.
...muted...
Well, I don't know 'bout a favoured video card, but I use nVIDIA and aside form kernel updates (something a stable user wont need doing) once configured it's a treat. That said you will have to configure it for starters.

I'd suggest a few things, first have a read through the forums looking for other users using a similar card. Second, wait for other to offer suggestions before running off half cocked and trying something different. Third, since you might not have a new card to hand and have to wait to install it, you might just as well try your corrent card. That said, make a copy of the last good xorg.conf file you have and use it as a starting point for the new install.

Cheers

Thank you for the prompt reply and no I'm not running into this half cocked! I've been making this machine work like I want for the last 2 years so a bit of planning is in order. $HOME is on a seperate drive and so is a backup which is also mirrored out to a USB stick, redoing config files is NOT happening! This transition will take place next weekend after I've got a checklist completed.

Barrie

[aj123]

Ubuntu used to be really great about setting up ATI graphics but things just started to break during any upgrade. That is the main reason I switched to pure debian a while back. Three lines of commands in Debian fixed hours of frustration in Ubuntu.

You have to make sure you are using the correct driver for your ATI card.

ATI:
http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo#SupportedCards

fglrx --This release does not support anymore any chips below the r600 series.

The radeon driver supports R100/R200 (Radeon 7000 – Radeon 9250) and R300/R400/R500 (Radeon 9500 – Radeon X1950) class chips.

The radeonhd driver is for R500 and newer cards.

fglrx
Following this exactly (debian repos) should be successful:
http://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary

From ati.com/more (ati-installer) bleeding edge: [begin at line "(add contrib non-free in repositories)"]
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Debian ... tion_Guide

The above just uses the ati installer to build packages vs retrieving them from the repos. DO NOT combine the repo and ati-installer methods or things will break; use one or the other. I recommend the repo version.

radeon
It should install everything for you automatically but install either
xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
or
xserver-xorg-video-radeon

Kill gdm/kdm/xdm/etc
Generate /etc/X11/xorg.conf if it is not there (as root: Xorg -reconfigure)
add radeon or radeonhd in the Device -> Driver section
restart gdm/kdm/xdm

[barriehie]

Thank you aj123, I'll give the repos a shot here in a bit. I sort of broke something while putting the LivdCD on an HD so I could use it for a week or so before installing...

Barrie

[barriehie]

The ATI procedure worked, now on to a few other things...

Barrie

[barriehie]

Almost have it usable now! Of course I had to break it before I got to far along, on to the sound issue...

[barriehie]

Almost have it usable now! Of course I had to break it before I got to far along, on to the sound issue...

Too easy! turn the volume up. Now I'm set, I can edit menu.lst and let it rip.

[Absent Minded]

I sounds like you are getting along well

[barriehie]

I sounds like you are getting along well

Yes I am thank you! Lenny is now the default boot OS. I'm pleased with this so far, it looks good, it's fast, and I hope it's reliable.

Barrie

[barriehie]

All done, except for the mail server and I only use that locally for notification of script completion. LAMP is in and works! Now is only appearance and if I had a magic button to move the whole thing from hda4 to hda1...

Barrie

[nadir]

booting into debian
mount /dev/hda1 /media/disk
rm -r /media/disk/*
rsync -auv / /media/disk # perhaps excluding some stuff, but a fresh install shouldn't be that big anyway.
editing /media/disk/fstab and menu.lst should * work. *i did it several times in vbox.
perhaps chrooting into /media/disk and installing grub is necessary, in case you delete the /dev/hda4 install afterwards. not sure.
its just an idea. clonezilla is said to be more easy.

[barriehie]

booting into debian
mount /dev/hda1 /media/disk
rm -r /media/disk/*
rsync -auv / /media/disk # perhaps excluding some stuff, but a fresh install shouldn't be that big anyway.
editing /media/disk/fstab and menu.lst should * work. *i did it several times in vbox.
perhaps chrooting into /media/disk and installing grub is necessary, in case you delete the /dev/hda4 install afterwards. not sure.
its just an idea. clonezilla is said to be more easy.

Good Idea!!! I'll first have to see why $HOME is so large, about 7 gigs... Only pita I had was my $HOME is on another partition and Debian didn't have the option to import since the media wasn't mounted.

Barrie

[Bro.Tiag]

All done, except for the mail server and I only use that locally for notification of script completion. LAMP is in and works! Now is only appearance and if I had a magic button to move the whole thing from hda4 to hda1...

Barrie

Good on ya, glad you are all sorted out.

As to your large $HOME, I too had a similar issue. Besides keeping way to many emails, I also found that my .xserver-error file was like 10 gig's. Xdiskusage (it's in the repos) is a nice tool for hunting down such elusive files.

Cheers
ps - nice to have new forum users who don't go off half cocked.

[barriehie]

...muted...
ps - nice to have new forum users who don't go off half cocked.

Half cocked == hair pulling / stuck on stupid. I can do that without the computer...

Edit: Cool, I just got a newer version of squid to work. That would've been a deal breaker because I've got a script that dl's 3 different blacklists and it updates once a week. To much effort in there to not have it, besides, that script introduced me to gawk.