I have just started using the Debian 7.0 distribution after installing it today on my laptop and it is an extremely good Linux distribution that has codecs already installed allowing the user to play Xvid and MP3 formats straight out of the box. The installation was quite painless; I had used up all of the other partitions on my laptop with Windows stuff; so I used the recovery partition instead. I just needed to resize a partition to make way for the swap partition and I was all set. The Gnome 3 desktop is very fast and usable; I had a look at a Red Hat Enterprise Linux desktop today and it was the old Gnome 2.32.2 desktop. That was a very nostalgic moment. But despite the dumbed down interface; it is very fast and usable when you are on a laptop. The Debian 7.0 distribution is easy to setup after installation. I only needed to enable the HTTP repositories and then run apt-get update to update the repositories information.
This is what my /etc/apt/sources.list file looks like now.
# # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44]/ wheezy contrib main deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44]/ wheezy contrib main # wheezy-updates, previously known as 'volatile' # A network mirror was not selected during install. The following entries # are provided as examples, but you should amend them as appropriate # for your mirror of choice. # deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy contrib main deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib |
And this is how to update the apt repository information on Debian based distributions.
root@neo:/home/homer/Documents# apt-get update Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy Release.gpg Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy Release Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy/contrib amd64 Packages/DiffIndex Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy/contrib Translation-en_AU Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 7.0.0 _Wheezy_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20130504-14:44] wheezy/main Translation-en_AU Get:1 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg [1,672 B] Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates Release.gpg Get:2 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy Release [159 kB] Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates Release Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/main Sources Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/contrib Sources Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/main amd64 Packages Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/contrib amd64 Packages Get:3 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy/contrib amd64 Packages [42.0 kB] Get:4 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy/main amd64 Packages [5,846 kB] Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/contrib Translation-en Hit http://ftp.debian.org wheezy-updates/main Translation-en Get:5 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy/contrib Translation-en [34.8 kB] Get:6 http://http.us.debian.org wheezy/main Translation-en [3,851 kB] Fetched 9,935 kB in 58s (170 kB/s) Reading package lists... Done |
Once this is done you will be able to install any software that you wish to add. I am in Australia; so this should be using Australian repositories; but it really does not matter. The only other thing that I needed to do was set the time and then mount my Windows partition to access my music.
Setting up the Gnome desktop is very easy; but there are other desktops available. I could not find the E17 desktop; but Xfce4 and Lxde are alternatives that would make any desktop user happy.