Debian Upgrade

O.K. folks. I tried to do a direct install of Debian Squeeze to my Asus box to no avail. Lots of issues there primarily because my box is so old. What I did to was go back to the Lenny CD that I have.

First thing to do was install Lenny. Once installed I opened Konsole (KDE) and typed:

#aptitude update

#aptitude -f full-upgrade

That made sure I had all the latest for Lenny. Next I typed the following:

#nano /etc/apt/sources.list

In nano I changed everything that said "lenny" to "squeeze" and saved the file.

Next, I typed:

#aptitude update

#aptitude -f full-upgrade

It is now updating everything to Squeeze. It should be that simple. We'll find out. Meanwhile, I'll just watch the Konsole do its thing.

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Debian vs. Fedora...the saga continues

O.K.  To be fare, I am currently downloading a live image of Debian Sqeeze.  It is the "standard" iso meaning I think I'll choose my "spin" upon installation.  I like KDE, but the KDE spin was 1.0 g and I only have a CD player on my Debian box.  I guess I could have put it on a USB stick.

Which brings me to another point.  Debian has a super large amount of choice for downloading.  It is so huge that an end user might become overwhelmed and not know what to do.  I chose the "standard" ISO because I wanted to install using the CD player.

A little about my Debian box...oh the download is complete...pause while I get this thing going....I'm burning the ISO using K3b on my Fedora 14 box.  The download took about 5 minutes compared to the Fedora download I did yesterday.  The Fedora one is different as I have a more modern computer to use.

Oh, the Debian box is...wait, the CD is done. Let's start installing this on my Debian box which is an old Asus box with a Pentium 3 or 4 processor at just under 800 mhz and 500 mb of ram.  It has an Nvidia 256 mg dedicated video card, a CD player and an extra USB card.  It is connected to the Internet, of course.


So, let's get started on the installation.  So, the live CD is running and we are on our way.  It is currently about 10 minutes to 3.  I'll let you know how long it takes.  It is now 5 to 3 and I found the "standard" is not what I want.  I'm going to try the USB ISO.  Hang on there, I'll get back to ya.


So, I went back to the "Standard" ISO and chose "text install" from the main menu.  Everything is running smoothly and it is now 3:15.  It is now 3:40 and it says installation is complete.  We'll see.
 
So, what was installed with the "Standard" was Debian with no desktop or anything.  So, I just entered, as root, "aptitude install kde" to see what I get.  And now it is downloading all the necessary files for the KDE-Desktop experience for Squeeze.  It is now 3:50.  I might watch a movie while I'm waiting.

Debian vs. Fedora 4?

Yes! It is here. Fedora 15 is here. So, in this hour I am changing the oil in my commuter car, downloading Fedora 15 KDE-64 bit and blogging about it at the same time. I have not decided whether to simply upgrade from 14 or do a full install. For the sake of the Debain vs. Fedora arguement, I think I will do the upgrade.

Remember, in a previous post, I downloaded Debian Squeeze and attempted to install this. Oh, but before that, I attempted to upgrade from the previous version, Lenny. The upgrade was difficult for the end user and even for the intermediate user. The upgraded failed only because I did not have the right knowledge to accomplish the task. I'm sure, with a few tries, that I will be able to do it. Right now, I am simply searching for the uncorrupted Live CD that will install on my devoted Debian box. I will try that again as I do like Debian, but right now, Fedora seems to be more geared to the end user than Debian.

With that, to upgrade to Fedora 15, first, one does:

#yum install preupgrade

When that is complete:

#yum -y update

#reboot

Then when your system is up and running do:

#yum -y preupgrade

Then simply let the OS do its work. Stick around to answer a few questions and maybe push a few buttons. Oh, I should also mention, whenever you do an upgrade, make sure you have backed up you precious files. I've never lost a file during a Fedora upgrade, but no promises here. You can back-up using an external hard-drive, CDs, or DVDs, or large thumb-drives. You can also use off-site services like Dropbox, ZumoDrive, ADrive, and more. Check the list.

Oh, Fedora just finish downloading. That was just about 30 minutes. I'm not ready to do the upgrade as I personally need to do some backing up and I need to get out and finish changing the oil. Tomorrow, I'll do my backup and let you know how I do it.

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Linux Applications: KSnapshot (KDE)

One of my favorite applications under KDE is called KSnapshot. This is a pretty fun little tool. Not only can you jpeg your current desktop, you can also grab pics or portions of pics from the web, save as jpeg and then make wallpapers out of them. For example:

Once it is captured then you can add it to your desktop. But before I show you that one, you should also know that you can free-hand a pic from the web, save it and add it to your desktop: 

And I'll show you the desktop. I'm using dual screens. It can capture both screens or just one at a time or a freehand capture of what is on your screen. This is pretty nice and a really fun toy:

So, as you can see, this is a pretty fun application only available on KDE on your flavor of Linux. As you know, I'm using Fedora. Don't miss the new release of Fedora 15 in less than 10 days from now. 

Internet Browser Stats

Hey, I'm just looking at my stats for this blog. Pretty small numbers, but what I'm noticing is Internet Explorer and Firefox are #1 and #2 respectively. Chrome takes 3rd and Konqueror is 4th. Then we have the others that folks have barely heard of unless they are using them.

Most people know about the top two, but Konqueror is usually only known to Linux users running the KDE environment. So, this is interesting. And what do you personally use? I use Firefox mostly and then I use Konqueror on rare occasion. At one time I was using Chrome. Firefox tends to have the best security features with the most add-ons and extensions available.

The nice thing is Firefox comes in the Fedora packaging so there is no need to download from the Firefox site. Just install straight from the Fedora repositories using "#yum install firefox". Then install Flash and all your media codecs and then your browser experience will be awesome.

Don't forget to mark your calendars for the new Fedora 15 release date. Have a good weekend.

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