Questions for more experienced Debian users...

[afropick]

I've installed Debian from a bare-bones Testing CD, with no software packages. I changed the sources.lst to unstable and did a apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.

I've installed x-window-system, gnome, and some other stuff, but it's still pretty basic.

Here are my questions...

1) When I run apt-get install <package> it often lists sets of suggested and recommened packages. Do you all normally go back and install these as well?

2) Building on the previous question... I've used the Synaptic GUI tool a couple of times, but I prefer apt-get from the command line. I've noticed though that the Synaptic tool lists suggested and recommended packages when you show the properties of a package you have, or want to, install. This comes in handy if you want to go back and intall the extra packages. Is there a way to list the additional packages from the command line aside from the initial install?

3) I've upgraded my kernel from a 2.4 version to 2.6.10 by downloading the kernel-source and a 1-686 kernel-image via apt-get and following a how-to on installing/upgrading a kernel the Debian way. Everything seems to run fine, but when the machine is booting there are a lot of error messages from what appear to be modules that are removed before it finishes loading everything up. I've surmised that maybe the kernel-image has all sorts of modules built into it that my machine doesn't need and so it removes them at boot. Am I correct in my assumption?

4) Is there a mail app that can read my Outlook 2003 .pst file? I can live with switching to over to Windows to play games, but i'm not sure about email.

5) What are some good apps that everyone should have in linux? There are so many open-source applications out there. What do you guys recommend for cd/dvd burner, irc, ftp, etc. apps?

6) Can someone please walk me through the appropriate way to setup my ATI Radeon 9600XT (256 MB Diamond Viper version)? The searches I've done suggest that newer Radeon's are difficult to setup in linux, but I know some of you guru's have the fix!

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: afropick
1) When I run apt-get install package it often lists sets of suggested and recommened packages. Do you all normally go back and install these as well?

If I don't know what it is and why I need it, then I don't install it. Very rarely has that turned out to be a problem.

2) Building on the previous question... I've used the Synaptic GUI tool a couple of times, but I prefer apt-get from the command line. I've noticed though that the Synaptic tool lists suggested and recommended packages when you show the properties of a package you have, or want to, install. This comes in handy if you want to go back and intall the extra packages. Is there a way to list the additional packages from the command line aside from the initial install?

Try apt-cache show packagename. Also, you might try out dselect rather than using apt-get or synaptic - it's pretty irritating to learn, but once you understand it it provides the best control of all the package-managing options, IMO.

3) I've upgraded my kernel from a 2.4 version to 2.6.10 by downloading the kernel-source and a 1-686 kernel-image via apt-get and following a how-to on installing/upgrading a kernel the Debian way. Everything seems to run fine, but when the machine is booting there are a lot of error messages from what appear to be modules that are removed before it finishes loading everything up. I've surmised that maybe the kernel-image has all sorts of modules built into it that my machine doesn't need and so it removes them at boot. Am I correct in my assumption?

Hard to say without seeing the messages. My first guess would be that there are stale entries in /etc/modules from the old kernel. Also, why did you get both a kernel-source and a kernel-image? You should really only need one or the other - image for a pre-compiled kernel, or source for roll-your-own.

4) Is there a mail app that can read my Outlook 2003 .pst file? I can live with switching to over to Windows to play games, but i'm not sure about email.

I don't really know, but I'd guess that you could export the Outlook messages somehow and then import them in a Linux mail client. If there's any app that could read the .pst directly, I'd guess it would be Evolution. But again, I've never played around with this.

5) What are some good apps that everyone should have in linux? There are so many open-source applications out there. What do you guys recommend for cd/dvd burner, irc, ftp, etc. apps?

XCDRoast or command-line works for my burning needs, but I don't do anything too complicated. The other stuff I don't spend much time with.

6) Can someone please walk me through the appropriate way to setup my ATI Radeon 9600XT (256 MB Diamond Viper version)?

No idea, sorry...

 

[Nothinman]

1) When I run apt-get install <package> it often lists sets of suggested and recommened packages. Do you all normally go back and install these as well?

Depends on what they are. But I also use dselect, which presents me with the suggested/recommended packages as I select packages for installation.

Is there a way to list the additional packages from the command line aside from the initial install?

You can use apt-cache show or showpkg.

I've surmised that maybe the kernel-image has all sorts of modules built into it that my machine doesn't need and so it removes them at boot. Am I correct in my assumption?

Without seeing the error messages it's hard to say, but check /etc/modules and see if there's anything in there that you don't want. A lot of modules changed names in 2.6.

Is there a mail app that can read my Outlook 2003 .pst file? I can live with switching to over to Windows to play games, but i'm not sure about email.

Not that I know of. There is a package called readpst that will extract the mail from it so you could import it into your new client.

What are some good apps that everyone should have in linux? There are so many open-source applications out there. What do you guys recommend for cd/dvd burner, irc, ftp, etc. apps?

Most are personal preference. Generally I use Galeon for webbrowsing, irssi for irc, straight cdrecord/cdrdao for burning, ncftp for FTP, enlightenment for my window manager and gkrellm.

Can someone please walk me through the appropriate way to setup my ATI Radeon 9600XT (256 MB Diamond Viper version)? The searches I've done suggest that newer Radeon's are difficult to setup in linux, but I know some of you guru's have the fix!

I buy nVidia cards specifically so I can avoid ATI's crap.