http://www.osnews.com/story/15435/Debian_for_the_Uninitiated Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:17:21 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?150756 http://osnews.com/thread?150756 Lars Wirzenius is a friend of Linus from college, they were the Swedish speaking (I think it was Swedish) Fin's at their University in Helsinki.

The article will be much more interesting later on. The first session is always "oh no, why is this all different?" It's in the later sessions where you say things like "oh I see why this is different, I like it this way" and "this really shouldn't be this way." Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ma_d) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?150762 http://osnews.com/thread?150762 Not too bad, provided that you read apt-howto, you learn about debconf, optionally the Debian way to install Nvidia (with module-assistant, pretty easy)...Edited 2006-08-09 16:25 Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous Penguin) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?150764 http://osnews.com/thread?150764 I've never noticed that I don't torrent outward. Ah well.

Bloody leecher:-) Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?150781 http://osnews.com/thread?150781 >The article will be much more interesting later on.

Hope so, although I'm afraid she might not be able to appreciate the power of the shell after such a short period (took me about a year to find it really useful).

On the surface Windows and Linux are pretty much the same.
She will notice the difference if she goes back to Windows and her computer gets pwned Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RandomGuy) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?150801 http://osnews.com/thread?150801 Yea, I had to get a job administering systems which had no X11 to begin to truly appreciate the shell. It wasn't like I'd never used it, but I was terrible with Vim and couldn't even figure out how to exit emacs, much less write strings of commands with several pipes.

I did immediately notice the configurability difference. Little things, like 3 ways to maximize a window, middle click paste, the ability to theme virtually anything, change colors (for KDE), etc. The first thing I noticed, actually, back in the ol' RH8.0 days when I started was "there are two desktop environments." Of course, there are more, but Gnome and KDE were installed.

I know some people say "confusion, what do I do?" But I said "oh neat, I want to try them both! Are there anymore?" I guess that sort of things depends on how much you enjoy using your PC as a tool/toy and how much you just use it cause you have to. Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ma_d) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?150843 http://osnews.com/thread?150843 1) Networking: Using Kanotix, I set up defaults for the types of connections needed, and activate them with scripts linked to desktop icons. There is also the Kanotix network configuration script. This is called, "using Debian with a bit of help."

2) Bittorrent: You know, I keep coming back to Bittorrent-gui. It works well, and negotiates firewalls well.

3) OpenOffice: Eventually she will learn that you can open any OpenOffice file type from any aspect of the program.

4) Totem: Of all the Gnome apps, Totem is my favorite. I tend to use Kaffeine, because I use KDE more than Gnome.

5) Firefox: I strongly recommend NOT using Debian's version of Firefox, or if you do, that you use the one in Sid. The reason? Security issues. You get your updates sooner if you go through Mozilla, rather than Debian, and here time is important. Sid will get updates faster than Etch, and if a build is broken, Sid will get the fix faster.

I haven't seen the resizing bugs your user encountered, either. Also, it's easy to force Firefox to start maximized (at least, it's easy in KDE). Further, you can play with Firefox's DPI and font settings to get text size to behave itself.

6) Start-up Errors: Your user reported an unconfigured ACPI, based on a start-up error. That's precisely why I like seeing all that text scrolling by.

All in all, I commend your user. She seems resourceful, and able to adapt well to the new system. Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Peter Besenbruch) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?151070 http://osnews.com/thread?151070 Ktorrent is great and I wish they would have a kaffeine Extension for Firefox instead of MediaPlayerConnectivity; which only starts it up Blah. Thu, 10 Aug 2006 11:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bonus) Comments