Debian Questions

[Titan386]

Alright so I've 'graduated' from Red Hat so to speak, and I'm trying Debian. Naturally, I have a lot of problems but most of 'em of I've fixed. Here are some that I can't figure out, maybe some one could help:

I compiled a custom kernel and got the NVidia drivers working correctly (this was suprisingly, easier in debian that red hat). But then when I tried to get online, I discovered the network wasn't working. I did compile my NIC driver into the kernel, as well as networking support. I've double checked everything, and it seems like it ought to work. Here's some output from /var/log/messages that seemed like it had something to do with networking:
8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.25
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xe08000000, 00:40:95:30:e6:30, IRQ 10
NET4: Linux TCI/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protcols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing tables cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 32768
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0
eth0: Setting 100mbps full-duplex base on auto-negotiated parter ability 45e1.

Note that the net was working on the kernel that came with debian (2.4.18). The new one is 2.4.19. The machine can't ping anything, whether inside or outside my LAN. While running red hat 7.3 or XP, everything's fine, so its not a hardware issue. I guess I'll just switch back to the old kernel if all else fails, although I'd like to figure it out.

My other problem involves apt-get. Its really an amazing tool and saves a lot of time, but during the install a few packages didn't install properly. Considering that the system has been working fine (with the exception of the network problem), I don' think I need these packages, and would like to get rid of them. Everytime I run apt-get it tries to configure these packages, and always fails. How can I just remove them so I don't have to deal with them everytime I do apt-get?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tiger]

I have been playing with Debian for a few weeks and I am definitely a noobie but can offer some advice.
With regards to the network you'll probably have to install Samba. I have been battling a bit with it but I am a network rookie. I'll talk about installation of Samba along with the use of dselect now.
To remove partially installed or failed installs use dselect. Use the command dselect in your terminal mode and select 3rd option (Select) and find the modules that have been causing probs and use "-" to remove them from install. With regard to Samba go down the list to items marked available but not installed and select the 3 Samba packages with "+" and return. It should take you through the install routines. Hope this helps.

 

[David]

Alright so I've 'graduated' from Red Hat so to speak, and I'm trying Debian. Naturally, I have a lot of problems but most of 'em of I've fixed. Here are some that I can't figure out, maybe some one could help:

I compiled a custom kernel and got the NVidia drivers working correctly (this was suprisingly, easier in debian that red hat). But then when I tried to get online, I discovered the network wasn't working. I did compile my NIC driver into the kernel, as well as networking support. I've double checked everything, and it seems like it ought to work. Here's some output from /var/log/messages that seemed like it had something to do with networking:
8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.25
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xe08000000, 00:40:95:30:e6:30, IRQ 10
NET4: Linux TCI/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protcols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing tables cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 32768
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0
eth0: Setting 100mbps full-duplex base on auto-negotiated parter ability 45e1.

Note that the net was working on the kernel that came with debian (2.4.18). The new one is 2.4.19. The machine can't ping anything, whether inside or outside my LAN. While running red hat 7.3 or XP, everything's fine, so its not a hardware issue. I guess I'll just switch back to the old kernel if all else fails, although I'd like to figure it out.

Are you on DHCP? if so, try:
ifconfig eth0 up
dhcpcd eth0

If the latter one fails try:
dhclient eth0

David

 

[Richard]

Try reconfiguring etherconf.

dpkg-reconfigure etherconf

As for misconfigured packages. Usually, apt-get install upgrade run repeatedly will install "most" packages.

Some useful apt commands.

apt-cache search ... try apt-cache search gnome
apt-cache show ... try apt-cahe show xmms
apt-get install -d ... will download packages and not install them, /var/cache/apt/archives/

apt-get remove ... will remove installed packages

dpkg -i ... installs a deb
dpkg-reconfigure ... reconfigures packages
dpkg -P ... removes package and all configuration files

Give the man pages a look and read up.

 

[Titan386]

Alright I've tried everything, and the best I could was being able to ping the machines on my LAN. Considering I wasn't very satisfied with what I had installed the first time (it felt rather bloated, took up almost 2 gigs), I decided to reinstall. I compiled a new kernel, and then the network stopped working, just like before. I am on DCHP, but I guess it wasn't working correctly somehow, because when I ran etherconf and specified all the IPs manually, it worked fine, although configuring via DCHP always failed.

Now I have a working install, complete with GUI and such, using just above 500 megs. So I'm happy

Thanks to everyone who replied, and the apt-get commands were invaluable for finding the packages I wanted after installation.

 

[KraziKid]

Make sure you have the dhcpd client support compiled into the kernel, or compiled as a module. If you forget about the dhcpd client, then the computer cannot talk to the dhcp server.

 

[XWRed1]

There is no dhcp support in the kernel I don't think, its all just done with user tools.

 

[Titan386]

Well I think I would have seen it if was in kernel. I was forced to use 'make config', the mode in which it askes you about every option rather than displaying a menu. There was no mention of DHCP. Besides, it working well now and I don't feel like recompiling again.