Debain

[acraigon]

I do not know whether others would agree but I think debian is a very difficult operating system to set up. I recently purchased the new sarge distribution from the debian shop and have spent about 8 hours trying to set things up. I still have no sound and I will have to recompile the kernel to get the drivers for my card.

[M-Saunders]

Debian is more challenging than many distros, yes. But if you want to get some of the benefits of Debian without the hassles, it's worth going with Ubuntu (or another user-friendly Debian derivative).

M

[nelz]

At least you only have to worry about this every three to four years with Debian's current release cycle

[fingers99]

Another alternative is a HD install of Kanotix. You get Debian Sid, possibly the best autodetection known to Linuxkind and you get to use the official Debian repositories.

[RDP]

Did you install with the 2.6 kernel (i.e. type kernel26 when starting install)? As I found sound very easy to set up with this, I just got the alsa packages and typed 'alsaconf' and this set up my sound card.

[Erin]

Debian isn't hard to set up. It just requires a little previous knowledge. Which drivers/card do you need/have?

Erin

[StewartT]

Last week I tried Debian ( from a cover disk ). After four complete installs it just would not accept config settings for the monitor / graphics card. I have a CTX monitor with matrox millenium G400 graphics card. The only difference to normal is that I pass the monitor through a KVM switch. On this system I have run Win98SE , Suse 8.0 , Smoothwall and Ubuntu. I tried Fedora Core 4 but it insisted that the Mobo did not support the larger size of hd I was using, 6 GB by the way. I tried using each of the 3 levels offered during the install but when it finally started all that was on offer was 800x600 and 600x460. I'm no linux newbie but whatever I tried Debian overrode it and reverted to 800x600. I tried Ubuntu after failing with FC4 and it installed first time with NO problems at all. I only took it off as I found it too simplistic in its ways. Out of interest I'm only looking for a change as at present I run SusSE 9.1 & 8.0 but I don't like the way SuSE is going since the takeover by Novell.

Stewart

[towy71]

I have dreamed of having Gnu/Linux as the default operating system, and now, because of the improved installer and the knowledge gained from 6 or 7 years of faffing around ineffectually, I have a Debian install that was not done by my fellow luggers but only this dullard 'isself
Seriously once the base system is installed it is a synch to upgrade the kernel, from 2.4 to 2.6> and to get my Nvidia card to work.

Nelz has left a hard furrow to plough, as far as compiling CD's and DVD's, for M-Saunders esq

Thanks to all you guys

Dick

[hairymunky]

After about 8 years of using redhat/fedora, I fancied a wee change....
Had tried Debian once before, but couldn't get X configured properly (funnily enough using a CTX monitor).
Tried Debian from this months DVD, and well its .... perfect!
No install difficulties, no turning back now, Im hooked!!!
(Will see how long, as I go to configure my soundcard....)

[jjmac]

Those last two posts are encouraging , Iv'e heard mention of the new installer for so long now (grin), any improvement on woodys' installer has to be good



jm