Great Meeting - Still humble.

JJ Neff jjneff at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 24 09:03:08 EDT 2002


The RPM based and the DEB based distributions can all use the rpm s or debs
packaged by another distro.  I often use RPM's on Debian using "alien"  which
install rpms in deb format.

(Don't worry about debian not having the "stuff" on disk.  I never install all
the OS from CD. I alwasy do a minimal install, then upgrade then install
software I want - check out 'linuks.mine.nu/linux' to see how to make a
Workstation with all kinds of apps from scratch.

You should however try to stick with the format that is particular to your
distro.  Each of the large graphical or packages are normally a "task".  In
debian you can use apt-get install task"****" to get a whoele related group of
applications.  (think of the original setup that asked if you want to run a
game or devel box etc)

If you use Mandrake, hang out on irc.openprojects.net #mandrake and for debian
#debian.  Read Mandrakeuser.org and/or debianplanet.org.

Suggested reading - every MAN page you can! 

Suggested tutorials: vimtutor <- try just typing this and see if something
starts, if not grab "vim" (urpmi vim - apt-get install vim)

Read (on Debian and others may use same) /usr/share/doc/* <-  every app has a
Debian Specific info file in its own directory.

Keep reading and trying.  Dont be afraid to make a mistake, just start again
and remember what you messed up.  I would reccomend you keep good notes but
then I'd be prety hypocritical because I never do.  HOWEVER the one set of
notes I kept was on using NFS and NIS and autofs to mount my home drives and
guess what the one task is I dont have to re-research every time I want to do
it on a new machine! :-)

JJN

--- Joseph Lukasiewicz <jlukasiewicz at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Just wanted to drop a quick note to say thank you to Peter and Bob (& JJ?),
> you guys have the skills and I don't know if you could tell but we are in
> awe....
> 
> The 8.2 Mandrake was pretty detailed...It's easy to see how you could survive
> "on the outside" of the Microsoft world with Linux. It's not your grandpa's
> character based OS anymore! 
> 
> One question (OK I lied there are a few in here) - If you start loading a
> distribution (Mandrake, RH, Debian...) are you "stuck" continuing down that
> path?  What I mean to say is, after messing around for several weeks with my
> Alpha I finally have it to a # prompt - How do I get it to the fancy/sexy GUI
> you guys were showing? (and all the other tools).  The RH I have has tools
> etc. but I can't get it to load, the Debian loaded but since I burned the
> disks froma download I'm sure I'm missing something...Is it possible to mix
> and match packages and "add on's" from distribution to distribution - kind of
> a roll your own approach?
> 
> Several of us are ultra newbies so we will need a "by the numbers cook book"
> approach until we can at least trot with the big dogs.
> 
> Joe Lukasiewicz
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------
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