In answer to your first question, I would seriously recomend building a custom kernel; if you want, you can build it into a deb package with the "kernel-package" deb. You can just use the stuff from linux-speakup.org;it's universal as far as I know. As to newer distros, you can replace "stable" in your /etc/apt/sources.list with "testing" or "unstable", depending on what you want; unstable is always newer than testing, but buggier too. As far as net goes, you can build a new kernel and use it to debootstrap a system; I know that if you install pump, it'll automatically dhcp your system at startup for you. Ameer ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 8:42 PM Subject: a few debian questions > Hi all. > > Well, I got that 8gb drive working in my old box that had its previous > drive go bad. > It's become my spair "play" box, and is currently running debian. When > I get familiar enough with debian, I plan to play with redhat, and > maybe with freebsd if I can install and use that over ssh or telnet or > a serial console. That's all in the future though. > > I do have a few debian questions. I will admit that I didn't bother > reading that long debian book on the debian site, and am just flying > with my experience with slackware and some debian hints I picked up > from this list here and there. > My questions are as follows. > > 1. I want to build my own kernel. Can I just grab the standard sources > from kernel.org, or do I need some dep package. If so, which one? > > 2. Somebody had said here that there was a speakup source package for > debian. If this is correct, and if I need to get a dep package from > question 1 above, then do I also need to get this speakup source > package, or can I just patch the kernel tree with the standard speakup > 1.5 tarball? If I need to get this speakup source package, then again, > what package name am I looking for? > > 3. I installed using the woody floppies on linux-speakup.org, and the > internet for the rest. I understand that there are newer distros since > woody. Is there a way for me to upgrade my current install to the > newest stable distro? If so, then how? > > 4. Since the woody disks seemed to have no dhcp client, I had to > install the module for my network card, and to assign it a static > ip. These changes seemed to have carried over into the actual distro > install on the hd. > When I build my own kernel, I plan to build the network card support > right into the kernel, and to use dhcpcd. I don't have a problem with > looking around in /etc/init.d, and changing whatever I want > manually. However, coming from slackware, which doesn't have such a > strict package management system, I am afraid to do this, since I > might break something in the package management system somewhere. > How safe am I messing with things manually, and how do I know if/when > it's time for the system to take care of things? I'm not asking this > question in the way I'd like, but I'm hoping someone here who might > have moved from slackware to debian will understand what I'm trying to > ask. > > I would very much appreciate any answers/advise. > > Thanks in advance. > > Greg > > > -- > Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager at EU.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
