[Debian-eeepc-devel] Newbie experience

[Ben Armstrong]

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 17:20:52 +0000 (GMT)
david cuthbertson <scienceinthegreen at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Nice one. I have been looking for a fast minimal
> console terminal based system with full access to
> Debian packages to help GTD my life. Debian-eeepc is
> exactly what I am looking for.

Interesting.  This is one thing I had in mind when I purchased my Eee
as well.  I have been using vim-vimoutliner for this purpose.

> My install at present is asking whether I wish to
> abort or install an initrd kernel image. I've never
> been asked this question before; it is a little
> worrying. Rtfm-ing for it; nothing in the list
> archives. However I do find in the wiki; quote:
> if you're reading this, you almost certainly already
> know how to install Debian. :)

Hm.  I'll have to give the install a walk through in qemu to see what's
up.  If there is unnecessary and confusing dialog, we ought to silence
it.

> ...I carried on regardless and luckily I can now boot
> into a shiny new console terminal that appears to
> work.

Glad to hear it.

> I almost nearly know what I'm doing;)

Welcome to the club.  You know, Debian is so huge and multifaceted that
even after over a decade with it, I probably can say the same for most
of it.  Fortunately, the freeness of it means that I only remain
ignorant so long as I don't care to investigate any further.

> But a huge
> number of new EeePc users know even less than I do.  A
> few more words of help on the wiki install page may be
> useful.

Fair enough.  It is a wiki, so why don't you pitch in?  If you see
specific places that need fixing but you don't know the answer, leave a
comment, e.g. 

----
 . [BenArmstrong] I tried foo and expected bar.  I got baz instead.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
----

> For example swap size? The debian installer
> proposes 230MB; DamyanIvanov has used 256MB in his
> hibernate contribution. Yes, I know there are no hard
> and fast rules, but is the 26MB difference a
> significant one?

This is likely not clear because unless you're doing hibernate (which
in my opinion is a frill that most people can do without) you don't
need swap at all.  Feel free to leave a note in the wiki about this.

> Where is the best place to post issues/problems
> if/when I get any? Do I fill in a debian bug-report

Sometimes, where there is sufficient information to do so.

> or
> post here,

Always a good choice, whatever the situation.

> or EeeUser.com,

Only if you're seeking non-Debian-specific help from the broader
community (e.g. Eee hardware hacks, etc.)

> or Debian.org?

That's overly broad.  But yes, sometimes you'll seek help for
non-eee-specific Debian issues from elsewhere within Debian.

> Is this the right place to tell you what a great job
> you are doing - or would you rather traffic here was
> minimal and exclusively technical developer stuff; not
> for noobs like me? ;)

Definitely!

> Cheers,
> David
> p.s. You really are doing great stuff!

Thanks.  :)  And you're doing a great thing by using it and telling us
so.  Continue to keep us informed.

Ben