debian, good for newbie?

[schunn99]

hey all,

Is debian, a good choice for a newbie to linux and is it easy to install?

thanks for any replies

[Hayl]

if you are prepared to read the documentation (before and after you install) then yes it is fine, as is any distribution. no, it is not difficult to install -- if you read the documentation ahead of time.

[soulestream]

read docs, install howtos, google

I havent found any linux os "hard" to install. some reconize hardware better than others, some have prettier gui's, but they are all pretty easy if you follow the instructions.

you can do a debian net install if you have broadband and then apt-get everything else you need. make sure your net card is supported(most are) and you should be good to go.

Good luck and remember if you can't figure something out search the forum, www.google.com/linux, and if you still can't find something then ask.

soule

[mrBen]

Personally I don't recommend Debian for newbies, not because I don't think that they _can_ use it, but because I don't think that it provides as good an experience as some of the other distributions, in particular in terms of desktop integration. These days I prefer to recommend Ubuntu which, IMHO, offers all the benefits of Debian tied to all the benefits of a 'newbie' distribution.

[dr_te_z]

Depends. If YOU are going to install and configure it for a newbie it's perfect. Instruct him/her about apt-get and never use the root-passw for anything else....

[mrBen]

Depends. If YOU are going to install and configure it for a newbie it's perfect. Instruct him/her about apt-get and never use the root-passw for anything else....

Hmmmm - not so sure that it's that simple, given the nature of users today with their many "plug and play" devices. Debian's handling of them, while it works, is not necessarily as slick as it could be.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big Debian user. I just wouldn't recommend it for a Newbie.

<edit>By this I mean that while I think that it is possible, I don't think it is advisable and hence not recommended.</edit>

[soulestream]

I think its important in recommending a distro(cough slackware) that you keep in mind that the term newbie isnt a good term. I have been working on computers for 15 years, have a good working knowledge of DOS and windows. I can build a computer and am working on my second degree in networking. However, I still view myself as a linux "newbie" because I have only been using it for a few years and really have only started using it primarily in the last 2. I still have to look up all kinds of stuff and find out new things all the time. So my "newbie" status might be a little different that someone who has never installed an OS or has no understanding of partioning, etc.

So I think Hayl's recommendation of reading the docs is important. If you can read gentoo's docs and understand them, then gentoo would not be "hard" to install. However if you dont understand anything you are reading, you might wanna look for a distro with a different installer.

soule

[P. N. Guin]

I'd recommend trying one of the Debian-based distro's that are geared more towards new Linux users. I personally use MEPIS, and love it. It is based largely on Debian, and was created specifically to be used by those wanting to 'get their feet wet' in the Debian world, while still having a usable desktop PC right off the bat. Also, it is available as a LiveCD, which means you can put the CD into your drive, reboot, and have a working Linux desktop in about 3 minutes. It's running directly from your CD drive, so there's no danger of altering your hard drive during your test drive.

I have been thoroughly impressed with not only the distro itself, but also the support of the community as well. Check it out! :D

www.mepis.org <----- main site

www.mepislovers.org <--------- great MEPIS-specific user community

[schunn99]

P. N. Guin,

could you send me a link to the torrent of the mepis live cd. I have been to their site but I didn't see it.
thanks,
schunn99

[ehawk]

I second the recommendation to use MEPIS as your first Debian-based system. I had previous experience with it, but recently tried installing Ubuntu for a dual-boot system. I didn't mind the text-based installer, but the partitioning tools didn't seem as intuitive as the graphical Qtparted used by MEPIS. It now uses synaptic by default, which is even nicer than kpackage. I've installed so much, so easily. I still am having a little trouble writing to the windows partition and getting the print drivers for my printer working. Otherwise, quite nice. Ubuntu is supposed to have a nicer system for handling security patches. I haven't figured out which repositories I'm supposed to use with MEPIS. If you do go with MEPIS, make sure to add the debian testing repository (easily done clicking in the synaptic interface, MEPIS has already supplied it as an option).

[schunn99]

I would like to try to mepis live cd, could someone send me a link to the page that has the live cd download

thanks,
schunn99

[serz]

http://www.mepis.org/node/1462

[loopback48]

I too would like to recommend Ubuntu. It uses the same installer as Debian. And while not 100% compatible with Debian, it has more than enough packages to satisfy anyone. Not only that but the 'Starter's Guide' is a font of tips and howtos making adding packages and tweaking your system a breeze.

Having said that, if you have a broadband connection, try Debianpure ( debianpure.com ), the netinstall. It is 100% compatable with the Debian repositories and comes with the basics most folks want right out of the box. Things like Flash, Java, multimedia.

I've also used the original Debian (netinstall). If one goes slowly, a newbie could install it. And of course, this and other forums are there to assist.

Enjoy. Despite the fustration you'll experience, and you will, it will all come together before you know it. And you will enjoy.

[enshum]

You might also want to try kubuntu, which uses KDE.
ed

[blackbelt_jones]

Hell yeah!
I'm not a geek by nature. I have to struggle to read a manual, and I think Debian (Sarge) is STILL the only Linux distro I've managed to get working and maintain in a satisfactory way. Mepis uses the unstable debian repositories, and that's caused me some problems, there were difficulties running some of my favorite applications (RealPlayer, which I figured out, GTK-Gnutella, which I never did) when I tired to run Ubuntu, and don't even get me started on Fedora. To me, Sarge seemed a lot simpler and a lot more straightforward than any other distro, including "Debian-based" distros, especially with a net install. (when you do the net install, apt is already set up for the net! No editing of the sources.list file is required!) It's true that the Sarge desktop install is missing a lot of important packages, but once you know how to apt-get install, that hardly seems like an obstacle. Before I knew how to use apt-cache to search packages to find out what I needed, I simply browsed the package lists at Debian.org.

Here's the apt-get command I always use to supplement a new debian system the way I like it. I keep it online in my yahoo-mail "Notepad". I copy it and paste it into the terminal window (as root) and install everything I need at once:

apt-get install zip unzip grip k3b gthumb festival emacspeak mozilla-firefox alsa-utils apmd alsa-oss emacs21-el emacspeak-ss calc psgml xsltproc k3b-i18n normalize-audio toolame mozilla-firefox-gnome-support latex-xft-fonts tclreadline tkx8.3 tclx8.3-doc vcdimager cdrdao dvd+rw-tools gtk-gnutella xchat discover xapm gnuplot normalize-audio xprint mpg321 debiandoc-sgml linuxdoc-sgml w3c-dtd-xhtml w3-dtd-mathml tkx8.3-doc libnet-google-perl vorbis-tools x-ttcidfont-conf sp opensp xterm gftp audacity rpm alien

This seems to be a minority opinion, so you may want to go ahead and start with Ubuntu, but if you find it as frustrating as I did, I beg you to give Sarge a try before giving up. And if, for some reason. the idea of Sarge attracts you, by all means go for it... you may turn out to be an oddball like me. There are reasons why we have all these distros.

[enshum]

The reason I mentioned Kubuntu was based on my install done 08/29/2005. I downloaded the ISO burned the disk slapped in my 3.2 gig trial hddrive and installed Kubuntu which found my cable modem and and upgraded itself during the install I was impressed.

ed