Debian is a community driven GNU/Linux distribution first announced 1993. It is well known for its package management system APT and large number of packages. Many other distributions are influenced or originate from it, like Ubuntu or Knoppix.
15
votes
2answers
5k views
How do I run 32-bit programs on a 64-bit Ubuntu?
I have a 64-bit (amd64 a.k.a. x86_64) Debian or Ubuntu installation. I need to run 32-bit (i386/i686) programs occasionally, or to compile programs for a 32-bit system. How can I do this with a ...
6
votes
4answers
8k views
How to make a machine accessible from the LAN using its hostname
Here are details of the machine I want to access using its hostname:
$ hostname
hostname
$ cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 hostname.company.local hostname
It's a default Debian 6 ...
6
votes
4answers
3k views
What should I do before dual-booting Windows 7 and Debian on EFI?
I'm about to purchase an Asus motherboard with EFI firmware and wanted to prepare myself for installing Windows and Debian once the hardware arrives. I was hoping that someone who has gone down this ...
9
votes
3answers
4k views
How to find out which (not installed) package a file belongs to?
In the Debian family of OSes, dpkg --search /bin/ls gives:
coreutils: /bin/ls
That is, the file "/bin/ls" belongs to the Debian package named coreutils.
But this only works if the package is ...
6
votes
2answers
17k views
Can I resize the root partition without uninstalling and reinstalling Linux (or losing data)?
I have started using a machine that has both Debian and Windows 7 installed. However, after installing some programs I started getting a message that there is not enough space. I knew that the system ...
4
votes
3answers
1k views
Automount USB drives with no GUI requirement (halevt replacement)
For minimal installations of Debian, I have been using halevt to enable automounting of USB drives. Halevt is reliable and requires no configuration aside from installing the package. Now, halevt has ...
66
votes
8answers
18k views
What is the real difference between “apt-get” and “aptitude”? (How about “wajig”?)
I know that both apt-get and aptitude are command line package management interfaces on Debian derived Linux, with different options, but I'm still somewhat confused. Under the hood, aren't they ...
5
votes
3answers
274 views
Access to original contents of mount point
On my headless NAS I have sdf1 (a flash-card) mounted as / while /home is mounted from lv00 (an LVM volume backed by a software RAID). To be able to access the machine when the RAID fails, I have a ...
24
votes
5answers
9k views
Convince apt-get *not* to use IPv6 method
The ISP I work at is setting up an internal IPv6 network in preparation for eventually connecting to the IPv6 internet. As a result, several of the servers in this network now try to connect to ...
22
votes
1answer
6k views
What is $debian_chroot in .bashrc?
What is the debian_chroot variable in my bashrc file? and what is it doing here?
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
5
votes
5answers
3k views
How to create a DEB file manually?
I want to create a DEB file manually. I would like to just provide a folder which contains data to install, and a script to be executed after installation.
Is this possible?
3
votes
2answers
5k views
Get newest gcc for debian?
I can't build my apps on gcc since I use various c++0x features. I'm on Debian 6 (Lenny) and after upgrade/updating I have gcc version 4.4.5-8. I'm unsure which version is required but mingw 4.6.2 ...
11
votes
6answers
2k views
Is there a difference of stability between Linux distros?
I've using Debian since 2010 for some home purposes and it has been stable. Is Debian still a good option if I need a server for heavy network, cpu, disk and memory usage?
Last month I listened to ...
8
votes
2answers
2k views
Debian based system, only one gui program, nothing else
I would like to make a debian system where you can only open one GUI program at boot, no other graphical interface, no minimize, or any X apart from that program, is there a way to do it on debian if ...
6
votes
3answers
4k views
Installing a .deb package in home directory
Is it possible to install a .deb package completely under my home directory at debian?