Linux Users

[Cyn]

So, who here shares the love for the Penguin....... Or the Daemon?

I'm currently using windows only. Yea, I know. I do need it for a few things such as Reason, GuitarRig, Acid, and some games. My problem is that I'm looking for a good 64bit desktop that's gonna have plenty of software. I could go ahead and install Vlos 32bit but I know that as soon as I get everything just the way I like it again I'm gonna find a trouble free 64bit install. I did the VlosAMD64 thing and had trouble installing sources and drivers from the start. Now, I've been toying with the idea of doing a stage1 Gentoo install. I'm just too damn lazy for that though. I'll do it one day I suppose but as long as there's good Gentoo based distros like Vlos then I'll probably just keep putting it off.


BTW I just got a new CPU and Mobo. That should clarify my reasons for no linux at the moment.

 

[Jung]

Why waste your time with Gentoo when Debian and FreeBSD both offer mature x64 installs? Seriously, Gentoo is mostly pointless, unless you just need to brag about your "optimizations." But, if you enjoy the laborous and tedious task of building everything from source, Debians' apt and BSD's ports can both be configured to do so.

 

[Cyn]

Why waste your time with Gentoo when Debian and FreeBSD both offer mature x64 installs? Seriously, Gentoo is mostly pointless, unless you just need to brag about your "optimizations." But, if you enjoy the laborous and tedious task of building everything from source, Debians' apt and BSD's ports can both be configured to do so.

I've never used Debian. I've used Knoppix and other deb based distro's though, of course. I was looking at the site the other day. I thought about ordering the 14 cd set I think it was but the only reason I've been sticking with Gentoo, or Vlos actually, is because of portage. I've never used apt-get so I'm just not sure of how well it works or if it is as good as portage. But I'll tell you what. I'll go ahead and download a few isos from the site and give it a try before I go back to Vlos. I'll post back in a few and let you know how it goes. Also if you could give me a few pointers with apt that'd be great.

As far as BSD goes, I've got the three iso's right here but I had too much trouble with the install so I gave up. After looking deeper into it I decided it probably wouldn't be worth it anyway.

 

[Jung]

If you're wanting to try Debian, but you're fairly new to Linux, I'd suggest Ubuntu. It's a Debian/GNOME based distro that comes highly recommended. I haven't used it myself, but it looks pretty decent. After all, it is Debian.


Apt is pretty straight forward, so I won't go into great detail. Basically you just use apt-get install package name to install an application, and apt will recursively resolve dependencies. For example, if you wanted to install Firefox, you'd use apt-get install mozilla-firefox.

You can use apt-cache to search for packages, and dependencies, as well. For example, apt-cache search python would search for packages with "python" in the name or description. Similarly, apt-cache show python would return package information about the given package name. It will display things such as the package dependencies, the long description, the version, the installed size, etc.

For more information you can read the man pages for apt. There's always the Debian documents as well.


FreeBSD's package management is reasonably robust as well; you navigate to its collection in the ports tree and make install to build it from source, or you pkg_add -r packagename to install a binary, both of which recursively resolve dependencies. portaudit informs you which of your package versions are out of date and contain security vulnerabilities. pkg_info lists installed packages.

 

[Cyn]

Well, I downloaded the Isos, but guess what? I downloaded the wrong ones. >duhhh<

Yea, being the idiot that I am, I downloaded the 7 ia64 Isos, and on top of that I downloaded the two update Isos also. Upon completion of the downloads I started looking for some installation tips. That's when I noticed that my Isos will only run on Itanium cpus. So I sucked it up and went in search for the Amd64 (also known as x86_64) Isos. It appears that there is not an official Debian release of this yet. Also, It appears that the "beta" x86_64 version has to be installed from source because there are no Isos as of yet.

The good news is that I got the x86_64 version of Vlos installed and working. >YIPPIE!!< I just couldn't handle it anymore. I've been using Winblows as my desktop for about 3 weeks now. What's worse is that I had to see my wife having fun with her Gnome desktop everyday. It was like being the only kid at school with a bologna sandwich and bannana on pizza day.

I'm posting this with Epiphany withen my new 64bit Gnome environment and I feel goooooood!!!!

I do appreciate your help and advice.(It's one of the things that love so much about the Linux community) I'm definitely going to give Debian a shot as soon as there is an official x86_64 release, which will be really soon

 

[Jung]

It appears that there is not an official Debian release of this yet. Also, It appears that the "beta" x86_64 version has to be installed from source because there are no Isos as of yet.

Right, sorry I didn't mention that. As far as I know, Debian sid (unstable) has had x64 in it's tree for a while now. I'm assuming there is an iso for the net install at the very least. (I could be wrong, I'm still running x32 for everything.) Debian Sarge probably won't be getting x64 for a while though. Sarge isn't the most up kept distro out there, it's sad too, Debian is a great distro. I've just succumb to running sid, and I've had no problems as of yet. It's a lot better than Slackware, which is what I came from.

 

[Cyn]

I don't mind running an "unstable" distro at all I just want a fairly quick and easy install. That's why "testing" is out of the question. As time goes by I'll learn more and won't be so confused by some of the installs. I'd say Vector was probably the most difficult install I've done to-date and it took me two tries and about 5 hours to get up and running. Needless to say something like Gentoo, stage1 and 2, or any "testing" distro that requires I install all pkgs indvidually would be a major job for me(I think). I'd have to take a few days off of work just to get it done.

Of course, I could just buy a Mac and be done with it.........nah, that'd be no fun.