Trying Debian Etch Linux

Last Wednesday I downloaded and burned a boot iso 'network install' of Debian Etch Linux. I was bored with computers and needed something new to play around with. As I recall, the download was small, only about 125MB, so that part was quick on the good old broadband connection. When I rebooted the computer the iso did it's thing and after I answered a few logical questions off it went to internet land to fetch the rest of the install. The whole process took about an hour to an hour and a half. Booting into Debian's Gnome desktop for the first time was nothing exciting, probably because I've done this so many times before with so many other distros. I wanted to outline the steps I've taken so far to configure my desktop, so here's what I've done so far, and I might add that all the info I got was from the Debian Users' web forums. Great help over there.

Installed the NVidia driver, done as root

1. apt-get update && apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source module-assistant nvidia-settings
2. Switch to a VT with CTRL+ALT+F1
3. /etc/init.d/gdm stop
4. m-a prepare && m-a a-i nvidia
5. modprobe nvidia && echo nvidia >> /etc/modules
6. apt-get install nvidia-glx
7. Make sure the nvidia driver is in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. If not, change it.
8. etc/init.d/gdm restart (Restart the Gnome Desktop Manager)

At this point, I had a working NVidia driver but Beryl wasn't working even though it was installed (thought that I had already installed NVidia drivers), so I installed it again using directions on the Debian User forum for downloading and running a script. Worked like a champ and Beryl works now.

Installed a printer

Actually, since my server 'Oldendorff' is running Fedora, the printer seemed to be automatically 'discovered' and it basically just worked. I don't think I actually set anything up but it prints. Works 'out of the box'.
Static IP address

I prefer to have static ip addresses for the computers on my home network. Most people probably don't need static ip's. I changed the ip address to static and added all the networked computers' ip addresses to /etc/hosts. Networking works pretty well. The one thing that I notice is that there's an icon in the top tray that says there's no network connection. Funny, internet works as does network browsing. What's up with that?

E-Mail
Yesterday evolution didn't work after I configured my e-mail addresses. I didn't see any way to get mail. The icon at the top of the e-mail client was greyed out. Tonight I found a menu item that said 'work online'. I clicked it and all was well. Now that works and the icon is not greyed out.

USB Thumb Drive
Plugged that baby in, it was automatically mounted and Nautilus opened the folder. Desktop showed icons for the drive and a cdrom, both related to the thumb drive, so that 'just works'.

Playing a music CD
Popped in a Clapton CD. Sound Juicer opened, read the online cddb and got the correct disk info. Did not automatically play the disc, but that's preferential anyway. Works 'out of the box'.

DVD Movie
Popped in a Santana DVD and DVD Menu (totem?) opened but wouldn't play the disc. Error message states: 'An error occured. The source seems encrypted and can't be read. Are you trying to play an encrypted DVD without libdvdcss?' Probably. Maybe I'll see about installing libdvdcss then. Looked like installing Ogle, using Synaptic, would get me libdvdcss, but not true. After installing Ogle Totem still wouldn't play the Santana DVD. Next! Ok, added a source tree to /etc/apt/sources.list. Synaptic didn't like it all. A million warnings. Went through with installing libdvdcss2 anyhow. Opened Totem and sucessfully played the Santana DVD. Overall not too tough to get working.

Streaming Audio
Installing StreamTuner for my favorite streaming audio the Technicolor Web of Sound. Had to log out and back in for StreamTuner to appear in the menus. Ran the prog, found Technicolor Web of Sound and we are now listening using RhythmBox.

Mount Points for ext3, fat32 and ntfs
Gonna start by listing my partitions using /sbin/fdisk -l. Then I'll create the mount points under /media. Don't think I'll mount all the ext3 linux partitions. I don't need them mounted. I created directories /media/winxp1, winxp2, vista, fc6, music, userspace,and morespace for now. As I look at the output of cat /proc/filesystems I see that I don't have support for NTFS yet. I'll do that tomorrow. It's getting late and I'm tired. OK, I have the two vfat parts mounted under winxp1 and 2, the two ext3 partitions mounted under userspace and fc6. Just need to do the NTFS thing.

That's it to this point. More Debian Etch configuration tomorrow or the next day.