[tavilach]

I bought a Dell PowerEdge Server for $300, and want to install Debian on it, with Gnome 2.

I'm a very fast learner, and very good at technology...

...but I'm a total Linux newbie, and I have never even installed an OS on a computer without one...

Can anyone give me some advice...like where to start? How to go about doing all this?

I don't know what to do first!

[mikesgroovin]

Thread moved

[ByTeDeMoN]

ok tavilach, so you are saying you have a new Hard drive and want to do a clean Install of Debian ? or is this drive partioned in any way ? give me info I'll get you started.

[tavilach]

No, I have a new computer.

I'm assuming the drive isn't partitioned yet, as it comes with No OS.

I want to do a clean install.

[ESmandrake]

Since you've never installed an OS before I'd suggest you get hold of either Morphix - the Gnome version - or GNOPPIX. Both are Debian based live CD distributions using the Gnome desktop, so you can begin to get a feel for both Debian and Gnome without having to install anything. I've played with Morphix a little and it's very nice, it includes the ability to install to your hard drive and has to be one of the easiest ways to get Debian installed. Plain Debian doesn't have the most new-user friendly installer going, something like Morphix or GNOPPIX is much easier.

http://morphix.sourceforge.net/

http://www.gnoppix.org/

~~~
Steve

[tavilach]

I appreciate what you are saying, ESmandrake, but I'm trying to set up a server...which I bought specifically to run Linux.

So I'm totally going for the real deal.

I think I have the intellect required, seeing as how I'm an MIT applicant .

So...help!

[ESmandrake]

Hmmm, can I ask why you want to run Gnome on a server? Gnome is a desktop environment.

Anywayyyyy, if you want to install plain Debian you'll need all your machine's hardware details. Chipset, network card, scsi controller if it has one, video and audio if you'll be using them, all the hardware it has. This is one of the advantages of using Morphix and GNOPPIX to install Debian: they have hardware detection. So making sure you have all that info is your first step.

Step two depends on how you want to install, do you have Debian CDs already? If you don't, and you're on a fat pipe, a net install CD is probably the way to go.

A lot will depend on what you actually want to use the machine for. What services are you going to be running, for how many users, will it be an internal server or publicly accessible?

Some more info on what you want to do with the machine would help.

~~~
Steve

[tavilach]

Yes, heh, I realize that Gnome is a desktop environment.

I will use the machine as a personal server to experiment with (publicly accessible, though, to host my site), as well as just something to play around with (hence the desktop environment).

I am planning on doing a net install.

[ESmandrake]

OK, now it makes a bit more sense

How big is the hard drive? You can just dump everything in one partition but there are advantages to separate partitions, depending how much room you have available. I'd recommend having /boot /usr and /home on their own partitions.

If you're going to be using Debian/testing it includes Gnome2 (2.4 to be precise), but for stable you'll need one of the backports. I wouldn't bother with stable for what you're going to be doing. If you tell me how big your drive is I can give you my thoughts on partitioning and installation, though other people will probably have other ideas.

~~~
Steve

[tavilach]

Oops! I forgot about this post!

Anyway, my hard drive is 40 GB.

At the moment, I am not too unfamiliar with Linux--that's the main reason I want to use it.

So I really don't know what /boot, /usr, and /home are...even though I can guess...

It includes Gnome 2.4? Someone told me it would be **** to install Gnome 2.4 on top of it, but I guess they were wrong?