Debian & apt-get

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:39 pm

Hmmm, that just doesn't look right to me. Does Mepis have a support forum where you can bring up the issues you are having? Maybe I'll install it this afternoon in VMware and try it out.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:42 pm

Yes there is a support forum.
What exactly doesn't look right to you?
The fact that there are testing and unstable entries?

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:56 pm

Yes, that and the separate repo for mplayer. Isn't MPlayer the package you originally had problems with? Again, I am going to go ahead and install it this afternoon (as long as I don't get tied up with something else). I'll have a better feel for things when I can get my hands on it. But feel free to bring your problems with the distro up on the Forum at the distro's web site. They should have the experts there somewhere.

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:28 pm

Actually, Mepis isn't what I thought it was. I was thinking of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is something that I am interested in and I plan on installing and playing with it first. Been meaning to do that for a while now. It's also a Debian based distro, but totally free. In fact they'll even mail you a CD free of charge if you can't download the disto.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:40 am

Mepis is also totally free.
YOu can make donations of course but you download the live cd and it's installable via a special script placed on the desktop.

I didn't do a dist-upgrade from unstable but I upgraded a lot of stuff from unstable and now I'm running the latest KDE, mplayer, xine, and all kinds of other goodies without other noticeable problem than some screwed up fonts (like the ones in the roght-click menu from xmms, they look plain upgly.

Other than that everything is fine.

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:48 am

I realize you can download it for free, it's just not the one I thought it was. I am more interested in the Ubuntu Linux. Have you ever tried just running Debian (the real thing)?

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:13 am

Yes I have tried quite some time ago (a few years actually) and I've never been able to get X to start with my Ati Rage128 card at the time

I guess I could try again now that I have a little more knowledge about what I do - I know, I know, that's why I said "a little knowledge"!

On the other hand Mepis runs ok now so I think I'm gonna stick with it for a while, and next to that I'll probably give FC3 a try.
The reason I didn't try Debian anymore is that the software it comes with is kinda outdated and I'm not sure I will be able to update the system without completely screwing it up

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:05 am

Well, you don't have to go with the stable version of Debian (woody) which is only about 2 months by the way, released Oct 26th, probably similar versions as Fedora Core 2. I actually prefer to run the latest "unstable" version (sid) but that is really bleading edge and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a very good lower level understanding of Linux. You will run into a broken package every once in a while, but for me I don't mind that and can resolve any issues. There is a middle of the road testing version (sarge) that you can also go with that would probably be similar to running Fedora Core 3 as far as versions. I personally prefer Fedora on my desktop/laptop machines though, just a personal preference. I mainly use Debian on non-x86 platforms (SPARC, ALPHA).

woody:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/

sarge:
http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/

sid:
http://www.debian.org/releases/unstable/

Remember, sid is bleeding edge and may or may not get security updates like the other two.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Hehe, this is great!
I'm on a mixture of testing/unstable at the moment.
Just did a netinstall with the new Debian installer and everything was set up in no time.
Just had a few gripes with the X server, but nothing I couldn't fix pretty easily.

So far Debian is so much more what I was looking for than the last FC versions I tried out.

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 6:13 pm

Great, hopefully you have continued success with it. Debian is an excellent distro!

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:29 am

Now if only I could get my proxy settings for apt to stick

http repositories are ok but not ftp, I can't use ftp repos from within synaptic but I can from the command line if I export ftp_proxy first.
the ftp_proxy export has no influence on synaptic, same for the proxy settings I entered in the preferences/network tab in synaptic.

I've played with this distro for a couple of hours now and for the first time in months it felt like home.
I still have a lot to discover because most of the stuff I did with RH/FC happens in a slightly different way, with config files in different places and stuff like that but I'm quite confident ...

Thanks Void for pointing me towards Debian.

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:04 am

Did you set your proxy in /etc/apt/apt.conf? This is where you need to set it for command line apt. You should see an example line in that conf file and you would set it to something like:

Proxy "http://user:password@yourserver.yourdomain.com:port/";

Also, Synaptic has it's own proxy settings (I don't know why it doesn't just get the proxy settings from apt.conf but it doesn't). You can set the proxy under the "Settings->Preferences->Network" menu in Synaptic.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 5:41 am

Void Main wrote:

Did you set your proxy in /etc/apt/apt.conf? This is where you need to set it for command line apt. You should see an example line in that conf file and you would set it to something like:

Proxy "http://user:password@yourserver.yourdomain.com:port/";

This is exactly what I talked about when I said that the configs were slightly different, my apt.conf doesn't look anything like the one I had with FC, there's only one line in this one with a http proxy mention and its format is totally different than the format that was used under FC.
I tried to add an ftp line but it didn't help much.

Also, Synaptic has it's own proxy settings (I don't know why it doesn't just get the proxy settings from apt.conf but it doesn't). You can set the proxy under the "Settings->Preferences->Network" menu in Synaptic.

I did that, but it doens't help at all, ftp repos fail, at least as follows if I remember correctly (hard to say for sure when you're sitting in front of a Windoze box at work):
deb http://ftp.... works
deb ftp://ftp.... doesn't work

Edit: just read something about adding

Code: Select all

export http_proxy=proxy.details:8080
export ftp_proxy=proxy.details:8080

in /etc/profile
I'll try that tonight and see if it fixes my having to export my proxy settings before every apt-get.
Afraid it won't fix the ftp&synaptic issue though

Void Main · Post by **Void Main** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:30 am

I also use a proxy under Debian and this is the only line I have in my /etc/apt/apt.conf:

Code: Select all

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://username:password@yourproxy.yourdomain.com:port/";

Of course you have to replace the details with your own. Sorry I didn't give you the other important bits in the previous post.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:24 pm

Void Main wrote

Of course you have to replace the details with your own. Sorry I didn't give you the other important bits in the previous po

Yeah, that part was easy to figure out

In fact that line was already in my apt.conf so I didn't have to add it, I tried to copy the line and replace http::Proxy with ftp::Proxy but apparently that doesn't make any difference, as the code below shows:

Code: Select all

Icebox:/home/yc# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.belnet.be testing/main Packages [3184kB]
Hit http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main Packages
Get:2 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main Release [111B]
Hit http://www.planet-moll.de sarge/main Packages
Hit http://www.planet-moll.de sarge/main Release
Get:3 http://ftp.belnet.be testing/main Release [81B]
Err ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Packages
  Server closed the connection [IP: xxx.xxx.xx.xx 8080]
Err ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Release
  Server closed the connection [IP: xxx.xxx.xx.xx 8080]
Fetched 3184kB in 20s (157kB/s)
Failed to fetch ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz  Server closed the connection [IP: xxx.xxx.xx.xx 8080]
Failed to fetch ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/Release  Server closed the connection [IP: xxx.xxx.xx.xx 8080]
Reading Package Lists... Done
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
Icebox:/home/yc# export ftp_proxy=http://proxy.telenet.be:8080
Icebox:/home/yc# apt-get update
Hit http://www.planet-moll.de sarge/main Packages
Hit http://www.planet-moll.de sarge/main Release
Hit http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main Release
Hit http://ftp.belnet.be testing/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.belnet.be testing/main Release
Get:1 ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Packages
Get:2 ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Release
Fetched 17.5kB in 0s (18.4kB/s)
Reading Package Lists... Done

And this is what apt.conf looks like

Code: Select all

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://proxy.telenet.be:8080";
Acquire::ftp::Proxy "http://proxy.telenet.be:8080";

Edit:
I added these lines

Code: Select all

export http_proxy=http://proxy.telenet.be:8080
export ftp_proxy=http://proxy.telenet.be:8080

to /etc/profile and still the same error, all http repos work and the one ftp repository fails.