Surfing the web with Debian

[meallen]

I've just installed Debian on a new box and am working my way through various tutorials.

To start out I put a KVM switch in and am using my Windows box to locate doc, however... I'd much rather be using the Linux box to do this.

Problems:
I don't know where to begin to setup my onboard network card (drivers etc.). It's listed as an Integrated Fast Ethernet (10/100) MAC + PHY (Realtek).

My motherboard: http://www.foxconnchannel.com/produc...e=760GXK8MB-RS

What web browser is recommended? Where can I download it? How do I install it from CD?

Any/all of the terminal commands required would be greatly appreciated.
Links to step-by-step sites also most welcome.

[squirrelplayingtag]

If you are using Sarge are you sure it's not setup already?

ping www.google.com

[ctrl] + [c] to stop.

How is it connected to the internet, through a router?

[drakebasher]

What web browser is recommended? Where can I download it? How do I install it from CD?

My recently installed Debian Sarge came equipped with Mozilla, Epiphany and Konqueror.

Any/all of the terminal commands required would be greatly appreciated.

Do you not have graphics working? Try 'gdm'.

[meallen]

Thanks for the rapid responses!! This is reinforcing the great things I've heard about the linux community.

Yes, it's connected through a router.

Yes it's Sarge, but I have to admit I only used the first CD... (see new question below).

tried the two commands:

ping www.google.com

resulted in the following error message:

"ping: unknown host www.google.com"

gdm

resulted in the following error message:
"bash: gdm: command now found

I've been trying to get all the cd's via BitTorrent, but after two days only have two of them... maybe there's a better way? I think there are about 14 of them, but the first one seems to have given me a working install.

Thanks again for your help so far!

[brother_mick]

Giving us more information will help us help you.

Are you using X ( the graphical user interface ) ?

If so which Desktop environment are you using KDE, Gnome, Windowmaker etc ?

Did the ping command work ?

To see if Your network card is recognised/configured you can try the following.

as root

ifconfig

This will list all configured network interfaces

ifconfig -a

This will list all network interfaces configured or not.

Remeber to sign out of root when your done.

[brother_mick]

I've been trying to get all the cd's via BitTorrent, but after two days only have two of them... maybe there's a better way? I think there are about 14 of them, but the first one seems to have given me a working install.

Now you have a base install apt can download files as needed. You`ll need to configure your network and configure apt.

I haven`t played with routers much so i`ll leave that to some one else but configuring apt is as easy as typing as root

base-config

and following the menus.

[meallen]

base-config brought up the config program as expected, but I'll wait for your response to my ifconfig results before I move forward. Not sure what to do here, perhaps setup PPP?

No I'm not useing X or any other graphical user interface (forcing myself to learn the command driven terminal functionality).

See my previous post on the ping command, it doesn't appear to have worked.

Based on the iconfig commands I think my card is recognized based on the eth0 data, but I'm nost sure if it's configured properly based on the ping reponse.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

output from ifconfig command:

lo Link Encap: Local Loopback
inet addr: 127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0
inet 6 addr: ::1/128 Scope: Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING: MTU: 16436 Metric: 1
RX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame:0
TX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overrruns: 0 frame:01
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
RX bytes: 10888 (10.6 KiB) TX bytes: 10888 (10.6 KiB)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

output from ifconfig -a command:

eth0 ethernet HWaddr: 00:01:6C:BD:2B:99
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU: 1500 METRIC: 1
RX packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame:0
TX packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overrruns: 0 frame:01
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
RX bytes: 0 (0.0 KiB) TX bytes: 0 (0.0 KiB)
Interrupt: 19 Base address:0xe400

lo Link Encap: Local Loopback
inet addr: 127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0
inet 6 addr: ::1/128 Scope: Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING: MTU: 16436 Metric: 1
RX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame:0
TX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overrruns: 0 frame:01
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
RX bytes: 10888 (10.6 KiB) TX bytes: 10888 (10.6 KiB)

sit0 Link encap: IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU: 1480 METRIC: 1
RX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame:0
TX packets: 164 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overrruns: 0 frame:01
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
RX bytes: 0 (0.0 KiB) TX bytes: 0 (0.0 KiB)

[ericrun]

Have you tried running

ifconfig eth0 up

The fact that it doesn't show up in ifconfig, but only after you tack on the -a indicates that it isn't active, although it is recognized as an ethernet device. Once it comes up, I'd hope that it would get an address from your router although you might have to install dhcpd. If that works, you'd just need to get the device to be loaded when you boot.

As for getting the CDs, don't worry about the last 7, they should be almost all source code, so unless you're going to be doing some programming, you won't need them. Most people should be fine with just the first two disks, then you can apt-get the rest from the internet. If you have particular packages you want on disk, I think there is a way to query from the Debian site which packages are on each disk.

[farslayer]

Have you considered using the netinstall ISO ?

it's 100 MB in size, will install the base system, autoconfigure most everything including your network card, then download the packages you want from the net. no reason to download a bunch of CD's full of outdated software.

This is pretty much the only way I install Debian anymore.. and much faster than downloading 7-14 iso's

http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/