Change Video Driver in Debian 1

[awreneau]

How do I change the video driver in Debian. I have 3.0r1 (woody) I'm new to debian (migrating from RH)

Thanks

Which one of me are you talking to?
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[Mellegem]

Hi there, glad you've seen the light
The xserver can be configured by running
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
If you've had to configure any drivers they can be found and installed by running modconf.

Cheers

 

[awreneau]

Thanks so much! By the way, do you know of a good site that has FAQ's along these lines. I know RH pretty well used them since 7.0. I like RH but their stance on reselling "Redhat CD's" and their artwork (shadowman) kinda stinks.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any sites you might offer. I've been to debian.org but I know often times there are sites that have a section dedicated to a flavor of linux. debian.org is the obvious choice but it has alot of over head I want to bypass.

THanks

Wes

Which one of me are you talking to?
My very own LUG!

http://www.lugot.org

 

[wmg]

Hello Wes,

This is kind of off topic but I'd really like to hear from you regarding your decision to go to Debian from Redhat.

I have been using Mdk9 then Mdk9.1 then Rh9 as my main day-to-day desktop at home for around 3 months now. Recent events have prompted my investigation of the idea myself but I'm having difficulty deciding between gentoo and debian. I'm leaning towards debian at this stage mainly because of the apt packaging system (using this in Rh9 has been a God-send to say the least).

What were your reasons for choosing debian? Did you look any others? What would be the main difficulties you've experienced with switching so far?

I'll be sure to check out your website soon too (at lunch time!) as I'm guessing I might find some information there!

Regards
wmg

can be contacted - removing instances of '_REMOVETHIS_' at:
wmg_REMOVETHIS_@_REMOVETHIS_earthling.net

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. [Robert Wilensky, 1997]

 

[awreneau]

I'm glad you asked, what I'll do is post a topic on my site as to why and I'll copy it here for other readers as well.

Dont be too shocked by my site. All the "fizz" has left that coke bottle and only a few die hards even visit the site anymore.

However to keep up to date I'm moving the site to another hosting company that has the updated version of PHP that will allow me to run XOOPS 2.0 whereas now I'm running XOOPS 1.3. Enuff of that. I'll post as soon as I have a chance. Maybe late tonight or tomorrow morning as time permitts.

Wes

Which one of me are you talking to?
My very own LUG!

http://www.lugot.org

 

[awreneau]

The option to migrate/change to debian has always interested me, I've heard alot of praise from other users for Debian, however the install was never as user friendly as the "other" distros such as RH and Mandrake.

I've pretty much tried most of the distros, at least the most popular ones. RH of course, cut my teeth on it, Mandrake, FreeBSD, SuSE, Turbo, College Linux just to name a few. I never really decided to stop flopping around untill a few weeks ago and determined it would be Red Hat 8.0 !mistake!. I installed it on my laptop and viola, I was configuring the machine to my personal specs and I've been very pleased with it. Got my wireless card running, cant get my hard wire card loaded D-Link dfe690-tx but thats no biggie.

Anyway, I've always wanted to try the "peoples" distro as I've dubbed it. I come to this conclusion based on the fact that RH and similar distros are driven by a corporation for the most part and the bottom line is the engine, rather than a group of folks who just want to make a distro work. Now my opinion may be biased and to some degree, even askew. However based on items I've read and posts to other forums I've read, even a letter from RH lawyers located here asking for logos to be removed and buy links to be removed. You cant even resell a downloaded cd from RH and call it RH. Not that I'd resell one but if this is the case I couldnt download a copy and burn it for a friend and call it RH? "Here ya go buddy this is a no name brand linux. We cant say the name of where we got it from, might get a call from some lawyer."

That kinda raised my eyebrow a bit...... this whole thing got started off w/o the "whats mine is mine" theory and now it's turning into a ownership thing. And to do so thru a lawyer is a little harsh. But hey I'm a mere mortal what do I know.

Anway back on task . I have enjoyed linux from the time I got my first cd out of the Linux Bible some 4 versions back and I've learned alot. No longer do I spend hours on installs tweaking this and that but run thru the process in a matter of minutes. Not including of course the packages being loaded. But to qualify the migration to RH and not SuSE or Mandrake. I've tried them both, I just dont like Mandrakes look. It seems a little weak on the artwork, I dont like the goofy looking penquin and I dont like the star and I sure as heck didnt like the screen savers. Weak points I know but this is my post ok? :-D SuSE I like, it was very nice clean install, when you get the right ftp site, and pretty much what it is, a RH spin off, However I didnt like YaST so that shot that distro in the foot.

So I had a spare box, by no means a work horse but I figured I'd load debian and see what all this fuss was about.

Gotta be honest it loaded the fastest than any other distro I've ever done, and it had pretty much everything that the other distros had with a few exceptions. One great thing I like about it is the &quot;lean&quot; way it runs. RH is kinda fat when you do a basic install, with lots of dameons running that arent neccessary and debian didnt do that to me. That alone was a <big>BIG</big> plus. Also, I havent timed it but the reboot seems quicker.

Oh yeah...APT is everything it says it is. I wont even begin to speak of the problems I had with depends in RH
:-x .

Thats pretty much it, I have not mastered debians quirks like I have RH but the light is much brighter this far into the process than at the same point with RH when I first installed it. Chalk it up to experience or just a better distro...you better go determine that for yourself.

Wes

Which one of me are you talking to?
My very own LUG!

http://www.lugot.org

 

[wmg]

Awesome - thanks for that Wes!

Did you look at Gentoo at all? I'm still trying to decide between that and debian and have not really found any information that would make me go either way.

I must say I like the look of the Gentoo website better - but that would be a *very* shallow reason for choosing it above debian! ;-)

Somehow, debian seems more established or something - that's just be noob perception though and I could be completely wrong!

Regards
wmg

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. [Robert Wilensky, 1997]

 

[danielhozac]

I tried Debian not too long ago, but it didn't really impress me. The installation is horrible compared to other distros I've tried. I never got LDAP authentication to work. I also don't like how you have to choose between almost cutting-edge versions of software and quite old software. It does have it's strong points though, like how you do the crucial configuration of packages when you install them.
I haven't tried Gentoo yet, but I intend on trying it some time soon.
Until then, RedHat forever!

//Daniel

 

[Mellegem]

Hi, I'm tempted to try Gentoo soon. From what I hear it is Debian based but everything is compiled for you're machine, not a 386.
I assume the difference in speed is quite huge. As for the Debian info that was requested, heres some good docs.

http://www.debian.org/doc/

...especially:

The FAQ:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/index.en.html

The Install Manual:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install

The APT Howto (describes the packaging system):

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/index.en.html

Knowing that the Policy Manual exists is a good thing as well.:

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

Policy is what determines what is or isn't allowed, for Debian
developers, to do within the Debian GNU/Linux distirbution. It
makes your role as a system administrator _far_ simpler than that
for any other GNU/Linux distribution.

Cheers
Wayne

 

[jwenting]

The main reason I first tried Debian (1.2 at the time) were the problems I had with other distributions.
Some wouldn't even install, others were very unstable.
Debian just worked (after I got the installation figured out).

Plus unlike other distributions you can actually still choose what to install and what not.
I prefer to start with a minimal system and add components as I want them, not have an installer decide I need X, KDE, Gnome, 20 windowmanagers, 30 text editors, 5 office application, etc. etc. etc..
And of course on some machines I use graphical installers don't work because of the obscure hardware in them. The main hurdle I usually have is getting X to work (on my laptop that required installing a new kernel, overriding the default videodriver for X with another one, installing a new network card (because that new kernel without which X would not work had support for my old card severely broken) and then manually editing lilo.conf to add some options.
Previous attempts using other distributions had left me with a system that was inaccessible (no network AND no display so I could neither log in locally nor using SSH or Telnet).

 

[awreneau]

I'm gonna fire up Gentoo on another machine here shortly. I have the joyus responsibility of helping a Not For Profit family center make use of machines donated to them and some work and others dont bone yard!

I'll let you know what I make of Gentoo.

Thanks

Wes

My very own LUG!

http://www.lugot.org