I tried to install Debian, but it seemed like once I got it installed I was having to fix things it screwed up. It installed KDE instead of Gnome and never asked me which I wanted (except maybe when it showed that MASSIVE list of packages and said "Which ones???") so I decided to try SuSE. Installing it via FTP was like pulling my own teeth, but I''ve got it going! The only real problem I''m having with it is it never saw my Windows partition. So it''s not showing up in the boot loader or in /mnt like it did in Mandrake. So I figured I oughta get that working so I can have access to Windows again. How should I do that? It''s using Grub, btw. Mandraked used Lilo, but it seems like SuSE wanted to use Grub, so I let it.

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Original post by BradDaBug
I tried to install Debian, but it seemed like once I got it installed I was having to fix things it screwed up. It installed KDE instead of Gnome and never asked me which I wanted (except maybe when it showed that MASSIVE list of packages and said "Which ones???")...

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Debian installs neither KDE nor Gnome by default last time I installed it (yes, I use an kind-of old boot CD and then install over HTTP or FTP, so I could be out-of-date or you could be using a special Debian installation CD or something). I personally just wait until the minimal Debian installation is over, then manually apt-get a list of packages that I have memorized (easier than using dselect).

I''ve never used GRUB (simply because Debian uses LILO as default and it''s simple enough for my needs) but Google turned up these results that look good enough. I''d take a look through the menu to see if SuSE has anything to do it automatically though (can''t hurt to look).

Hey! It works! I just switched to Geic, er, Lilo! Then I added two simple lines to the config file and poof! Works. Now I just gotta get my Windows partition mounted. When I use YaST to try to mount it it says it can''t mount it, but doesn''t give me much of a reason.

OH NO! Evolution is downloading the same messages over and over again whenever I click Send / Recieve! I wanna leave my messages on the folder so I can see my email when I get into Windows, but it''s started doing THIS! Even back in Mandrake 9.1! Now I gotta fix that. Blah, Evolution has always given me trouble. I may just stick with Mozilla Mail, even with it''s inferior feature set.

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Original post by BradDaBug
I tried to install Debian, but it seemed like once I got it installed I was having to fix things it screwed up. It installed KDE instead of Gnome and never asked me which I wanted (except maybe when it showed that MASSIVE list of packages and said "Which ones???") so I decided to try SuSE. Installing it via FTP was like pulling my own teeth, but I''ve got it going!

The only real problem I''m having with it is it never saw my Windows partition. So it''s not showing up in the boot loader or in /mnt like it did in Mandrake. So I figured I oughta get that working so I can have access to Windows again. How should I do that? It''s using Grub, btw. Mandraked used Lilo, but it seems like SuSE wanted to use Grub, so I let it.

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Oh man, you installed SuSE just because it didn''t install Gnome? That one was so easy to solve:

apt-get install gnome

Victor.

It wasn''t just that I couldn''t get it to install Gnome. It kept setting the display to 1200 X 1000 X 8 (or something like that) which I couldn''t figure out how to change. Messing with the X config file didn''t do anything. Lots of stuff like that.

I''m not a complete idiot, ya know. I mananged to get my USB optical mouse working all by myself (well, google helped some too).

Yes, Debian can be hard to install. But after you install it, trust me, it''s *beautiful*.

Victor.

vic is right.

once you go debian you never back to anything else.

it just has a slightly steeper learning curve than say red hat/mandrake/suse.

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Original post by earl3982
vic is right.

once you go debian you never back to anything else.

it just has a slightly steeper learning curve than say red hat/mandrake/suse.

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I actually don''t think it''s harder than RedHat/Mandrake, etc. I mean, i don''t think it''s harder to *use* it. To install it, it is harder, yet...

Victor.

So far I'm not having much luck with SuSE either. I tried to install the NVidia drivers, but since SuSE says I have an Athlon flavored kernel it confuses the nVidia install program, so it gets the source rpm thingy and tries to build it (same as when I do it by hand) and it builds it but then when it tries to install the driver it sees that it was built for a 2.4.x SuSE kernel, and I have a 2.4.x SuSE Athlon kernel, so it won't work. It looks like it's completely aware of the Athlon part of it all when its getting built, but it won't install the driver. (the insmod or whatever part fails).

Arg. I've been using Linux for nearly 2 years now, and I can't even install some video card drivers.

EDIT: Oh yeah, another quirk I had with Debian was it wouldn't let me choose what kind of filesystem to use. It forced ext2.

[edited by - BradDaBug on June 25, 2003 12:21:02 AM]

actually, i switched FROM debian to slackware, but maybe im just wierd