Guide

DO NOT USE THIS CODE, KDE 4.2 HAS BEEN MOVED TO DEBIAN TESTING AND UNSTABLE, SO THIS IS NO LONGER NECCESARY.

KDE 4.2 is the new release for KDE that has been code names “the answer”(that will shut up most whiny babies who doubted KDE4 would ever be any good)

I managed to install KDE 4.2 in my recently installed Debian Lenny. I couldn’t wait until Lenny released since 4.2 seemed to be just ripe for the picking.

It was a simple process of apt-pinning

I added the following repositories to my /etc/apt/sources.list

#SID(needed because several dependencies are here)
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid main

#Experimental(the KDE4 repo)
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ experimental main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ experimental main

and then added this to /etc/apt/preferences , (create it if you don’t have it)

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=testing
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=lenny
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=sid
Pin-Priority: 300

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 250

MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE NO SPACES BEFORE THE “P”’s in Package, Pin, and Pin-Priority!! Gedit added them when i wrote it and i’t took me a while before i figured out what was wrong.

What this does is make sure that when you do an update, the Sid or experimental repos aren’t used. They will only be used when u call on them specifically.

To install KDE 4 run

aptitude -t experimental install kde4

To update KDE 4.2, simply do what the KDE 4.2 on Debian website says, aptitude (or apt-get) dist-upgrade

This is KDE 4.2 only a few minutes after installation, already working fast, no extra configuration needed!

(note, this should work on most debian based systems, etch, lenny,  ubuntu,etc)

Well, thanks to Fedora 10 i recently learned that if I wanted to install the (recently released for linux) driver for my Debian Lenny computer. I would need a better kernel. Unfortunately, Lenny is on a freeze right now, and neither Debian testing nor unstable have a newer kernel on stock other than 2.6.26

I decided to install the 2.6.28 kernel from source, and decided to do it the debian way, since i run debian so it makes sense, and also because word on the street is that the debian way is easier on most distros. It involves making a .deb package from the source code and then installing it, and it works wonders :).

After googling around for a little bit, I found a guide to compile a kernel the debian way (http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_debian_etch), but it was a little bit out off date and i had to tweak some things here and there to optimize it for my needs

First of all,

Install these packages

apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot wget bzip2 build-essential

this is the directory we will compile our kernel in

cd /usr/src

i went over to http://www.kernel.org/ to download the latest stable kernel, which at the moment is 2.6.28. Find the kernel and get it into /usr/src. I used wget to download it, but you could just download it by clicking on the link and then just moving it into /usr/src if you are unable to use wget.  If you can, just copy the link for the kernel and paste it after wget.

wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.28.2.tar.bz2

then we unpack the downloaded file.

tar xjf linux-2.6.28.2.tar.bz2
ln -s linux-2.6.28.2 linux
cd /usr/src/linux

Now we can configure our new kernel. I liked the idea the guy in the “howtoforge” link above had, to use the configuration file from your previous kernel in your new kernel. This insures that any options or settings that your old kernel had still apply in your new kernel. Of course we can also edit this configuration file to personalize it to our needs

make clean && make mrproper
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` ./.config

this will create a menu to config your kernel

make menuconfig

Go down the list to  “Load an Alternate Configuration File” and choose .config. After you do that you can edit and tweak this file to personalize it better, but unless you dramatically change it, it should work fine with your distribution; unless, you are trying to install a new kernel in a hopelessly out of date system, of course.

Make sure you save your work, or it wont use your settings (i’ve heard of some people do this, how?      i dont know)

We are almost done with the hard part, now its time to build the kernel!

make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg –initrd –append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

(note: wordpress is condensing the two minus signs before the initrd and append into one giant one, making it so that if you just copy and paste this code it won’t work, if this happens to you just delete the giant minus sign before initrd and append and type two minus signs, now it should work)

After –append-to-version= you can write any string that helps you identify the kernel, but it must begin with a minus (-) and must not contain whitespace( i just kept custom kernel_image because it fit right, i had made several tweaks to my kernel.)

you’ll find two .deb packages in /usr/src. Now this is a tip for everyone out there who is like me and likes to reinstall their computers a lot: that took some time so far right? especially the building right? you wouldn’t want to go trought that again now would ya? Well the good news is that these .deb packages can be copied and pasted into other Debian based systems and install them there just by double clicking on them, saves you some time huh? i got copies on my FAT32 partition is use to save things i think i may reuse if i reinstall.)

Anyways, run these commands

cd /usr/src
ls -l

now to install the kernel, you can either opt to do this the easy but geeky looking way

dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.28.2-custom_2.6.28.2-custom-10.00.Custom_amd64.deb
dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.28.2-custom_2.6.28.2-custom-10.00.Custom_amd64.deb

or do it the less cool looking, simple way, just double clicking the .deb packages and installing them with something like gdeb.

now just reboot the pc

grub should automatically add your kernel and make it the default kernel

Compiz-fusion is a very popular 3d compositioning system for linux that makes it possible to do a lot of school stuff with your computer. Compiz-fusion is so popular that getting the chance to play with it is oftentimes a large reason why people switch. This is how i installed compiz fusion on my Debian Lenny, but i imagine that the basic idea for this should work on most linux setups, with a few tweaks here and there. You will need a video card with 3d graphic acceleration with its driver installed.

$ su root

#apt-get install compiz

if you need the gnome backend run

# apt-get install compizconfig-backend-gconf

if you need the kde backend run

# apt-get install compizconfig-backend-kconf

for the settings manager

# apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

and for extra plugins(if you want them) i run

# apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-main

# apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra

Then go to System-> Preferences-> Sessions

under start-up programs choose new, name it compiz and put compiz in command.

click ok, close, restart and it should be running

if its not then press Alt + F2 and type compiz

if you are going to need to switch easily from compiz to metacity or window decorators then i recommend installing the fusion icon

# apt-get install fusion-icon

Someone gave me a good tip to use with the fusion icon somewhere on the internet, i dont remember where but it basically just lets me have the fusion icon ready to go in my panel without having to go to applications and start it and then having to run it from the panel. This is for gnome

go to System-> Preferences-> Sessions

under start-up programs choose new, name it fusion-icon and put fusion-icon in command.

click ok, close, restart

Even if you have ubuntu, and a propietary driver for your computer was automatically installed for you, its usually a good idea to install one yourself. The reason being that the drivers automatically dowloaded by ubuntu’s “hardware drivers” feature are oftentimes close, but not the perfect match for your video card. For example, i used to have to disable mip-maps on compiz with the driver that was automatically downloaded, otherwise i would see a white cube or window everytime i used compiz. To download the ATI driver you need to know what video card you have, once you know, head to the download site:

Drivers & Software

Be sure to choose your processor architecture. After you download the file it will have this at the end.

ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run

I had never heard of a “.run” file, and after some research i learned that it was a shell script. So to run this program i would execute the following command as root in the terminal

sh ‘/home/francisco/Desktop/ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run’

replace the part in quotes with the link to your download location

After you execute the command you should see this window

Choose to install the driver and press Continue. Then accept the license agreement.
\

Then choose automatic installation

Press Continue

Then Continue again

The driver installs, then follow the directions on the page

reboot

if after reboot the driver fails to install, run this from the terminal as root

aticonfig –initial -f

reboot

All right, there are several different ways to find and download a distro, if you can’t figure out how to download a file, then you probably are not going to be a good match with linux. However there is a common error that many new users do that can be avoided so you can save yourself from having to burn one or two corrupt cds.

After you have saved the cd to a file in your computer, you will need to find a cd burning program, if you are running a Windows, i recommend using ImgBurn

Install it, and follow the directions
Here’s the important part, burn it at the lowest or second to lowest setting. The higher the burn speed the higher the chance for error, and the wrong file being corrupt can cause the installation to fail or not work correctly.

If you choose to burn at a high speed, your installation may work but some files may become corrupt, so make sure you turn down the heat.