[clue-tech] Presentation on Ubunto/Debian?

[Nate Duehr]

Collins Richey wrote:
> I would really appreciated it if one or more of you gurus would put
> together a presentation about maintaining a Debian system, Ubuntu
> flavor as a preference, but I'm sure it's not wildly different than
> POD (plain olde debian). Where do you find configuration files (well
> doh, it's probably /etc, but how to know), how the init files work,
> where you find updates, how to know what type of updates you want, how
> to setup to get updates that are not too wild and wooly,etc., etc. All
> those things I know how to do in my sleep with Gentoo or RedHat
> <grin>.

How did you get to the point where you could do them in your sleep on
Gentoo or RedHat?  Repeat that process, it apparently works!  :-)

> I've just put up Kubuntu 5.04, and it seems to be OK, or at least it's
> better than dealing with GNOME. As an experiment, I'm just using
> KDE-centric stuff for a while. I'm not fond of bloat, but it seems
> that everyone else (or at least those who are not very geeky) is, so
> it's always helpful to know what the other half is seeing.
> 
> If your IQ is room temperature or above, you can install Kubuntu, but
> what do you do after you've got it?

I've been "doing Debian" for a long time, but I have no particular need
for the latest fancy spin-offs like Kubuntu or even Ubuntu itself,
although it's tempting for the laptop which is currently on Gentoo.
Nothing earth-shattering seems to be coming out of Linux at all on any
front these days, really... KDE and GNOME are hopelessly mired in their
battle and usability isn't really getting any better with any release,
stuff still takes too much effort after a decade or so of development to
get various things working (fonts, anyone?), and I'm kinda kicking back
and not very actively pursuing any major projects right now...

But as far as Debian maintenance goes... I was a dyed-in-the-wool
dselect and apt-get fan for a long time... apt-get update && apt-get
upgrade seemed to take care of most needs for patching and updating...

But I learned about aptitude and started using it.  It calculates
dependencies to a finer level and will automatically remove unused ones
if asked, which leaves less overall cruft on the system.

aptitude update && aptitude upgrade -- seems to "work a treat" as my
Aussie friends from ham radio would say.

I hear this site is gaining massively in popularity also, and might
produce some jewels of documentation --
http://www.debian-administration.org.  It got some press recently in the
Debian Weekly News.  DWN is probably another thing I would highly
recommend... no one in their right mind can keep up with all the Debian
mailing lists, but DWN usually has enough useful information in it
hidden in all the political and ever-raging debates over licenses and
elections and goodness knows what else that I'll read it... sometimes a
few weeks late and a few at a time.  It's nice they have lists of new
packages and stuff in there.

I have no idea if Kubuntu or Ubuntu really follow their Debian parent
very well after spinning off, though... most spin-offs usually don't and
have their own support structures and ways to do things.  MEPIS being
another fairly high-quality example that's further down that mophic
path... it's got it's own support structure and forums and file servers,
and really isn't very "Debian" anymore.  Trying to track what's going on
in Debian from a spin-off is virtually impossible.

I just use Debian on the servers nowadays... it's stable, rarely if ever
jacks up a configuration file without warning during an upgrade, doesn't
leave crap like ".rpmnew" and ".rpmold" lying around for me to sort out
during upgrades either (that would break Debian policy - the package
maintainer is supposed to help you get through major changes with more
intelligence than just dropping you at a new version with your old
config, a new broken one, and a document with no details... like
RedHat-type distros do), and in general it's just kinda "there"... it
works.  No frills, no fuss.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu and the like add the frills and fuss and complexity
back in to some degree, making some things like configuration of a nice
desktop/laptop machine "easier" at first, but I wonder how they'll hold
up to upgrades and the test of time.  Ubuntu shows a lot of promise in
that regard.

Nate