basics

[theguy0000]

I really need to understand the very basics of debian.
I have it installed, and I have the promt:

theguy0000@debian:~$

[Unforgiven]

This may prove useful.

[St. Joe]

For Debian fundamentals read the Debian Reference Manual.
From where you are I'd advise looking at Installing Debian Software.

[socrazy143]

Congrats on choosing the best Linux distro (in my highly unesteemed opinion).

One of the great things about Debian is stability and modularity (is that a word?). But you first need to decide how you want to use your Debian system. Are you planning to use it as a desktop system for everyday use? If so, straight Debian can do that but I would suggest Ubuntu Linux (derived from Debian) for this. If you are looking for a server charge on! The apt-get system is easy to work with and puts most packages at your fingertips.

I have assumed that you already have networking up and running. If not, we can start there. You need an Internet connection for the apt-get system. If you are able to get a response from:

# ping yahoo.com

Then you should be fine. If not try the following:

# ifconfig

You should see your ethernet card listed as eth0 or eth1. You should also see an IP address. If you see the card but no address, no worries. Do this:

# ifdown eth0
# ifup eth0

Most likely it will go looking for dhcp and get you an address. If so scroll a bit to the heading for "apt-get".

If it doesn't you may need to inspect that your interfaces are configured properly. By default they are setup for dhcp but you never know and knowing where to find this configuration can be very helpful, especially if you want to setup a static IP address. Do the following:

# vi /etc/network/interfaces

vi is a text editor and not the only one out there. There are others but I use vi and for this tutorial you will too. vi is NOT a word processor and here are some commands to help you not screw things up.

i = insert - Press the letter i to begin typing something into the file. If you fail to press i, you may get some funky stuff showing up or nothing at all.

x= delete - Press the letter x to erase text. If you have already pressed i to insert you will need to first press the ESC button and then use x to delete.

ESC - Escape must be pressed before saving a file. Once you have pressed Escape you are free to save the file.

Shift ZZ = Save and exit file.

Now you are inside of the /etc/network/interfaces file and you see the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

lo is the loopback interface don't worry about it. eth0 is your primary network interface and in this instance is configured properly for dhcp. If you need to configure it for static change it to the following:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 62.121.222.14
netmask 255.255.255.192
gateway 62.121.222.13

Save and exit and come back to the prompt and try ifup eth0 again.

APT-GET ROCKS
apt-get is an awesome set of command you will use to add and delete packages from your system. When I say package I am referring to things like Apache, PHP, libs and anything else needed to make the software run on your box. The very first thing you should do is the following:

# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade

What is nice is apt-get will install dependencies as well. For instance if you install a program that requires a web server like apache to go with it then it will install apache as well. It will also tell you when you already have a package installed and you can delete packages using apt-get as well.

Here are some of the basic apt-get commands:

apt-get install package #package refers to whatever you want to install
apt-get remove package
apt-get --purge package #add --purge to get rid of everything associated with the package including config files and other droppings.

Run apt-get --help for the list of commands.

From there you should be on your way. Debian is like other Linux systems in that you will need to deal with individual packages as you need them. If you are aiming for a web server installing apache php4 mysql-server mysql-client php4-mysql gets you where you need to be but if configuring apache is an apache problem and not Debian problem.

Hope this helps!

[dhughes]

To look to see if a package is availalbe:

apt-cache search package name

For example:

apt-cache search mozilla-firefox

By the way a package is just another name for a program or an application.

You should also have a look at /etc/apt/sources.list That's what apt-get uses to find the files, it's a text file with a bunch of website addresses (urls).

You need to be root to modify it, that is to add a new source to the list. You can use the text editor nano to modify it and type in a new url. Open up the Terminal program type:

 su -
 root password
 nano /etc/apt/sources.list

...then modify it, add a comment preceded by a # if you want to make a comment about the change you made. Use CTRL+x to exit, select 'Y' to overwrite the name (keeping the same file name sources.list) and the changes you made, ENTER to continue and you're back to the command prompt.

You're ok leaving it as is for now, but having a look doesn't hurt.

apt-get is good but for a new Debian user like you (and myself) I would suggest using Synaptic Package Manage it's under System on the K menu (if you're using KDE, I'm not sure where it is in Gnome, probably similar).