Howdy from the Radio Ranch,

I think my brain has slipped several cogs and I can't remember if I've asked this question here.

I have a Dell 2400 with XPee Home on it. I also have a 4 gig, thumb drive. What I'd LIKE to do is to download Debian Squeeze on to the thumb drive, then install the whole thing on the a second, blank 120 gig hard drive that has nothing on it. I don't want to just run the Debian with a "live" drive and not install it.

Once squeeze is on the second (slave) drive I may need help in setting it up. I know I'll need Apache, Open Office, MYSQL and some other programs. I've gotten some great advice here and that means a lot to me,

Well, It's 11pm (0400 Zulu) and it way past my bed time. I'm gonna sleep-in in the morning, LOL! tomorrow is July the 4th, Our Independance Day. Please say a prayer for our fighting men
and women everywhere in this World, their families, the families who lost their loved ones and for those who gave the Ultimate Sacrifice so we might have a safe and better LIFE. This is NOT a violation of the No Religion or Politics Rule. This is just one PROUD AMERICAN to other Proud Americans.

Respectfully submitted,
Regards,

Buck

Debian 'squeeze' is the current stable version. But debian has an interesting way of making a 'stable' release. Long story short, debian 'wheezy' has just been 'frozen' (no new programs added to the repos, or updating versions of programs already in the repos).

Wheezy will, after a few months of testing, be the new stable version of debian. While it is _technically_ not the stable version now, I'd still install wheezy. Its not going to change much, if at all, over the next few months.

You are aware the standard debian images dont run as a live CD/DVD/USB? If you wanted a version that you can use 'live' (buit still install) you need to get a different image.
What method of downlaoding debian were you going to use (http/ftp or torrent)?
You were considering the Xfce vesion, right?

1 members found this post helpful.

Do you not have an optical drive on that Dell? I've successfully used unetbootin many times to put an .iso onto a usb flash drive. But I generally prefer to use an optical disk when that's an option. Installing will merely be a matter of selecting the empty 120G drive and choosing 'use whole disk' (for the easiest way to install) Then using the bootorder selector to choose which drive to boot from. (xp or debian)

Not needed for Debian Squeeze and above. You can just use dd or cat (if Linux is available) or Image Writer for Windows to copy the ISO to USB.

Thanks, Ididn't know that!

Hi All!

No, I wasn't aware that Debian ran on a different format. I know nothing about Torrent and I'm unsure about http/ftp as
well. I'm most grateful for the advice. I'm 'terminally stupid'
when it comes to Linux. I'd need some 'suggestions' or "help"
in getting me going. I had planned to put Debian on a 4kB
thumb drive and then load it onto a 8 gig Western Digital HDD.
That along with "Open Office" not Open Orafice would allow
me to try and put the M$ Excel spreadsheets on and convert them to a readable Linux/M$ document that could be downloaded by my ham radio buddies as 'Free Clients'. Only they would be able to download and "see" the information, all
others would be "blocked" from even seeing the website. <evil
grin>

I hope this explains it a little better.

Respectfully submitted,
Regards,
"Buck"

Running a web server connected to the public Internet requires you to register a domain name. Do you really want to go to all that hassle?
If all you want to do is host a few files then there are many file hosting sites that provide various degrees of security.
Alternatively, The Opera browser provides a file hosting option called Opera Unite. (requires that you register a My Opera account)

As for using Open Office, there is an MS Windows binary available for that.

I'm not trying to discourage you here, and we will gladly help you set-up Debian and Apache. I just don't think that will be the right approach for what you seem to want.

Note: I use Crunchbang, which is Debian but with the Openbox Window Manager instead of a normal desktop. It might be suitable for your needs and it includes a helper script that will help you install Libre Office and Apache. (Libre Office is developed by the team that formally developed Open Office.)

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, so I'll try to cover all the possibilities....

Debian will run on different architectures (different types of computers) to most other linux distros. That wont matter to you, you would have (and be getting if you got a new computer) the same X86 (IBM-PC) architecture as almost everyone runs.

Debian images are downloaded in the same .iso (disk image) format as other distros.

Standard debian doesnt run as a liveCD/liveUSB like a lot of distros. The standard debian image is an installer only. If you wanted to make a liveCD or liveUSB, you need a different image to the normal debian images.

I was asking because if we knew you were after a particular desktop (eg Xfce), and which version ('normal' debian or the liveCD version), and which downloading method (http/ftp or torrent) you could be given a link to exactly what you want.

Http/ftp (Hypertext Transfer Protocol/File Transfer Protocol) is what you are using if you click a link and download from within a web browser. Its a single point transfer (transfers the data from server 'A' to your computer)

Torrents are a different way of getting the file. You have to install a torrent client, then download a .torrent file, and open it with your torrent client. Torrents split the file into many parts, and are a multipoint transfer.

With http/ftp, you download a single file from a single server. With torrents, you download many different parts of a file, from many different servers. When all the parts are downloaded, the torrent client combines the parts back into a single file, and checks the data tomake sure its 100% corrent.

Torrents are harder to setup, because you have extra stages (download the torrent client, install it, download and open the .torrent file with the torrent client). However, they can save you time long term- you dont have to download the whole file in one go (torrents can be shut down and restarted whenever you want), and you can check the data intregrity (if you have problems with installing, etc., one of the 1st suggestings you will get is 'download the checksum file for your image and make sure the data is corrent'. Its a _lot_ easier to check data with a torrent client than with checksums)

I think you've got the wrong sizes there. 4GB flash drive would be more likely.

Hopefully 8GB is wrong as well. Debian would install on a 8GB drive, just, you wouldnt have much room to play with.

Libre Office (a fork of open office) and open office should be able to open most excel spreadsheets. So you probably wont need to convert anything.

I'd agree with qlue, running a website from your home machine is a hassle, and its more risky than just using the system normally.

File hosting sites might be a good idea. You could possibly even use torrents to share your spreadsheets.

1 members found this post helpful.

Howdy All,

Ok, here are the facts about what I'm looking to do with my Debian 6 machine. Hopefully I do all of this on a 120 gig HD. I don't want the LIVE edition but rather one I can download from a site directly into the drive. Yes, I want XFE.

The ham digital programs and an external program, Digipan
will let me send Morse Code typed on my computer. Some
will control my ham radio (Icom 706 MarkII-G) and the
others will allow me to use Phase-Shift Keying (PSK) messages like PSK-64, BPSK, J-65, and Olivia a form of RTTY (radio Teletype). It will "log" and "store" my contacts and give me a waterfall screen, with the most current station at the top of the 'waterfall'.

I also want space for pictures of Nature: mountains, valleys, rock outcrops, forest, old barns without showing cell 'phone or electric high lines; Space: planets, moons, galaxies, gas clouds, distant stars, etc. I had some pictures on another old computer (486) but the hard drive crashed and I lost everything, including 16 megs of MP3's.

As I just mentioned, space for quite a few MP3's. I collect all kinds of music from Opera, to Country & Western. The ONLY thing I don't collect is Jazz, Rap,or heavy Metal. I'd like to try and go back and download them again. I put the music (Classical) with a series of photos, depending on the length of the music and make a musical screen saver and just by themselves, make them like a juke box, LOL!

In the ham radio programs, I'd like a section for contacts and the weather at the other location to see if the weather: rain, Sun, barometric pressure, heat index, cloud formations, etc. has a bearing on recieveing that station. I already know about a cold front mixing with a warm front to give you a duct-like propogation that can bring in VHF & UHF signals 500 miles away.

Well, that's about it. The advice so far I've received has all been good and informative. The new mb will be a quad-processor with one CPU that has 4 processors in it. The RAM slots should be 3 to 4 slots for maximum RAM capacity. I've dropped the RAID idea and will go with one, 2TB hard drive for now, another one later, maybe as an external one. What I didn't mention was a suitable tower case, all metal with a power supply that can handle anything. I like the Cooler Master Storm Trooper(SGC5000-KKN) & the Thermaltake (VN300M1W2N) with a Hanns-G (HL272HPB) 27" flat screen monitor. If you know of a better 27" (or larger) monitor, let me know, here. I'm trying to keep my stuff in one forum as a moderator suggested. So I guess we can call this "Buck's Forumn", LOL! j/k. I didn't know about this '₧' System. If you win, do you get anything?

Does Linux have an easy to learn and configure relationalship database? If I type in a "duplicate", will it let me know, then give me the option to go ahead or delete? For instance, Shreveport Fire Department had several frequencies in talking to the engine companies: Call sign: KKR-877 freq 1: 153.77 freq 2: 154.310,
freq 3: 154.400. If I typed in the call sign and freq 1 <enter> then, callsign & freq2, would it stop and ask me: Dupe? or "Go Ahead?" and depending on what I chose do that. In that case, "Go Ahead" and type in freq2. IF it was a "dupe" then it would clear that line and let me type in another call sign and frequency. If not, I have an old, DOS shareware Data Base that would work, MOST of the time.

Well, I've yakked long enuff <==Chat room spelling, LOL!

Respectfully submitted,
Regards,

"Buck"/KA5LQJ