newbie wanting debian...

moggy wrote:
>
> i recently purchessed a debian disk "sarge" i think its called, it
> also came with a live disk, that i thought i would have a look at
> first to see how it works and how well i get on with it, however,
> after restarting my pc and booting from the dvd rom and it does its
> little thing, the screen goes black, and it has a little white box
> telling me to change the screen settings/resolution to 1280X1024 60hz,
> which i can do in windows, and which is also the manufactuers
> recommandation, the problum is i dont know how to adjust the monitor
> or weather i really need to do this as there maybe another way around
> the problum, i have been really looking forward to getting a linux
> system but know little or nothing about how it works, hence my trying
> the live disk first...

I'm not familiar with a Sarge LiveCD, although there are lots of
LiveCDs, many based on Debian, such as Knoppix.

I believe with Knoppix, at a very early stage of booting, you're
presented with a "knoppix:" prompt, at which time you can press Fn keys
to get help about different options; one of those options will probably
let you start the LiveCD with a lower resolution.

Alternatively, you can try pressing Ctrl-Alt-Plus-on-the-numberpad to
move to the next available resolution setting. Continued pressing of
that key sequence should cycle through all the possibilities. Of course,
this depends on the LiveCD being configured the way I expect it to be.

--
Kent West
Westing Peacefully

--

moggy wrote:
>
> i recently purchessed a debian disk "sarge" i think its called, it
> also came with a live disk, that i thought i would have a look at
> first to see how it works and how well i get on with it, however,
> after restarting my pc and booting from the dvd rom and it does its
> little thing, the screen goes black, and it has a little white box
> telling me to change the screen settings/resolution to 1280X1024 60hz,
> which i can do in windows, and which is also the manufactuers
> recommandation, the problum is i dont know how to adjust the monitor
> or weather i really need to do this as there maybe another way around
> the problum, i have been really looking forward to getting a linux
> system but know little or nothing about how it works, hence my trying
> the live disk first... any help would be greatly recieved.
> thanks for your time...
> looking forward to becoming a fully fledged and dedicated debian user.
> moggy.
>
>

If you want a live CD, go for Knoppix. Is the Sarge disc called
something like "Official i386 Binary1"? If so, you can install Debian
onto an empty partition of your hard drive. You may find these useful:

Partitions, filesystems, etc:
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/Debian_basic_features
Installing Sarge (on any size partition):
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/Installing_Debian_on_a_small_partition
Debian Installation Guide:
http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#install-sarge
Debian Reference: http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#install-sarge

You can download the official Debian CD/DVD: http://www.debian.org/CD/
You can download the Knoppix CD/DVD:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

--
Chris.

--

On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 04:50:46AM +0100, moggy wrote:
>
> i recently purchessed a debian disk "sarge" i think its called, it also
> came with a live disk, that i thought i would have a look at first to see
> how it works and how well i get on with it, however, after restarting my pc
> and booting from the dvd rom and it does its little thing, the screen goes
> black, and it has a little white box telling me to change the screen
> settings/resolution to 1280X1024 60hz, which i can do in windows, and which
> is also the manufactuers recommandation, the problum is i dont know how to
> adjust the monitor or weather i really need to do this as there maybe
> another way around the problum, i have been really looking forward to
> getting a linux system but know little or nothing about how it works, hence
> my trying the live disk first... any help would be greatly recieved.
> thanks for your time...
> looking forward to becoming a fully fledged and dedicated debian user.
> moggy.

keep on pluggin' moggy, your efforts will be worth it.

Kent's advice is probably best for getting X working on the live-cd
ctrl-alt-keypad+ will change the resolution that x is putting out.

you can also try ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X altogether which may be
helpful in that it should drop you to a command line interface. If
that doesn't work, try ctrl-alt-f1 (or f2, f3, f4, f5, f6) which will
just switch you over to a command line (called a virtual terminal)
from which you can do various things to fix up the live-cd to work for
you.

finally, check the boot options when the live-cd comes up. there are
various options to help it detect and set up the graphical interface
properly.

and really finally.... if you spend enough time messing around with
getting the live-cd going, you could have already installed a full
system (it doesn't take long...) so you might just go for it.

keep asking questions, we're happy to help.

A