[plug] debian installed - where to now?!

[Peter Wright]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 06:24:11AM -0800, Wayne Vovil wrote:
> Hi

Hi Wayne,

> Well Debian 2.2r2 is installed on my DELL Latitude C600 notebook (850
> Mhz, 25kMB RAM, 10GB HDD, DVD). It didn't recognise my Video card, and
> asked if it should make VGA16-X the default (I said no).

You may have an outdated XFree86 3.3.* installed. You'll need to upgrade to
XFree86 4 if so. See below.

> My LILO does not recognise my W2000 partition (I uncommented lilo.conf in
> etc part about other=/dev/hda1 ....).

See below.

> Do I just try to coonect to debian mirror site and do what?

You need to create (or modify) a file

/etc/apt/sources.list

to point to a nearby Debian mirror site. As a suggestion, my sources.list
looks like this (just two lines):

deb ftp://ftp.uwa.edu.au/mirrors/linux/debian sid main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.uwa.edu.au/mirrors/linux/debian-non-US sid non-US/main non-US/contrib non-US/non-free

If you have a fast link or a lot of time or both, you can then type 

  apt-get update
  apt-get -f dist-upgrade

at the prompt...and at the end you will have a magically completely
up-to-date Debian. Wheee. :)

> I need a Debian mentor that is powered by the provision of free beer....

*grin* I'm just imagining a beer-powered Debian install.... :)

Okay Wayne - first of all, in the *counts on fingers* five or six different
laptop Linux installs I've done myself (or helped out with), one online
resource stands out as a truly wondrous source of wisdom:

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

And damn, is that sunglasses penguin animation cool or what? :)

The really cool thing about this site when you're installing on a
name-brand laptop is that you will generally be able to find your _exact_
laptop model and often get very precise solutions to all your hardware
configuration issues. One of my laptop installs was stuck for a looong time
on the XFree86 configuration issue - after searching through the LOL site,
we actually found a link to a specially modified X server and an XF86Config
file to go with it - download, install, problem solved.

Anyway - regarding your machine (Dell Latitude C600), you'll be happy to
know that there appear to be no less than six separate documents describing
successful installations on that model. I'd advise you read all of them
(they tend to be fairly short) and use the one you find easiest to follow :).

The most difficult problem you have will almost certainly be the XFree86
setup. It always is the hardest part of any Linux install, and it's can be
especially tricky on laptops for a variety of reasons. Try to get this
problem solved first, if only because everything else will seem
pathetically easy in comparison *grin*.

You shouldn't have too many problems though, as long as you make sure
you've installed a recent version of XFree86 (4.0.3 or later). On at least
one of the C600 install docs, the guy provides a copy of his (working)
XF86Config file. Once you've got an up-to-date XFree86, you should be able
to just copy that to /etc/X11/XF86Config and you're away!

> Wayne

Regarding the Win2000 partition problem - I don't really know. Have a look
through all the aforementioned docs though, I think one of them mentioned
something about a trick he did to accomplish something with a Windows
partition. It may be completely unrelated to your problem though. :)

Hope that helps,

Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/
THEOREM: VI is perfect.
PROOF: VI in roman numerals is 6.  The natural numbers < 6 which divide 6 are
1, 2, and 3. 1+2+3 = 6.  So 6 is a perfect number.  Therefore, VI is perfect.
QED
						    -- Arthur Tateishi