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Hey! I've tried the #debian channel on IRC, but with not so much luck. People tend to send you off to google.com when you ask questions. So I hoped that this could be a place where people who knows Debian can answer in a better way.
I was just wondering where there is a good Debian how-to/tips & tricks site? Not one for setting up servers or creating users, but for adding extra repositories, enable mp3 support and other "dirty" formats, nVidia support, update to latest Gnome and so on.
Been searching around the net, and it was not so easy to find anything like this.
I hope you can answer my questions without mentioning a search tab or a search engine!
Well, I've said it before (in another thread, I admit) but if you're after the latest and greatest in applicationland, Debian might not be the distro for you. The emphasis in Debian is on stability and security. Besides, using those "dirty" formats you've mentioned is against the Free and Open Source Software principles Debian committed itself to. But, this is Linux, so you are free to choose wether or not you use the "conflicting" software on Debian or don't use Debian at all. There is a multi-media repo for Debian from a French guy (Marilat or similar) online somewhere. Like Rickh said: use Google a lot and learn how it works, 'cause everything is out there, you just need to find it!
I was just wondering where there is a good Debian how-to/tips & tricks site?
http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/
... I have not seen anything like the unnofficial ubuntu guide for any other distribution. It is one of the reasons ubuntu is so popular.
3.1r4 is the nearly ancient Sarge install, which you absolutely don't want for a desktop. You want the netinstall for testing (Etch currently), and from that you can stay at testing (most software 4-8 weeks old), or go to unstable (hot off the presses software, usually in deb apts a few days after it is released. You can get the testing netinstall here:
Go down almost to the bottom, where you see the line that says "netinst CD image (100-150 MB)", and select the right architecture for your machine. You can also use that disk to install, then change your /etc/apt/sources.list to unstable/sid, and apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade and you'll have debian unstable system, which is all I run.
If you are running a desktop or laptop system, yes, I suggest unstable/sid. If you fall for letting the name scare you, then go for testing/etch. The ancient sarge/stable is so old it is painful.
It is easy to do, just open /etc/apt/sources.list as root, and change anywhere you see sarge or stable to unstable. Then you run apt-get update, and apt-get dist-upgrade and you'll have a good new kernel and modern software. You'll also see much more software available to install, as unstable is where developers work.
You can comment out (with the # symbol) the security updates, as sucurity only makes changes to stable and some testing. Unstable is not looked at by the securoty team.
I'm doing the dist-upgrade, but the sources I am connected to is often giving error messages, and I am down in BYTES/second not KILO BYTES/second, and it tell's me it can days, and weeks before it's done. I am on a 2 mb/s line, so my internet connection should not be the problem.
Where can I find the unstable source list? Is it possible that there is a ftp in Norway I can download it from?
There are plenty of mirrors. I didn't see Norway, but there are several in Northern Europe. A partial list of the mirrors can be found at this page - http://www.us.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/
As rickh said, make sure you do update first. The update usually comes in super slow, like 1 kb or in the B/s, but then I get close to 1 Mb download speed for the actual packages.
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