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The Debian system itself is a moving target, making documentation difficult to be always correct. Although the current unstable version of Debian system was used as the basis for writing this, some contents may be already outdated by the time you read this. The Debian system itself is a moving target. This makes its documentation difficult to be current and correct. Although the current unstable version of Debian system was used as the basis for writing this, some contents may be already outdated by the time you read this.
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This document provides information through short {{{bash}}}(1) shell command examples. I will use the following simplified shell prompt for the sake of readability of the examples: This document provides information through the following simplified presentation style with {{{bash}}}(1) shell  command examples and bullets:
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# <command_in_root_account>
$ <command_in_user_account>
# <command in root account>
$ <command in user account>
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 * description_of_action  * <description of action>
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These shell prompts correspond to {{{PS1='\$'}}} and {{{PS2=' '}}} environment variables. These shell prompts distinguish account used and correspond to {{{PS1='\$'}}} and {{{PS2=' '}}} environment variables.  These values are chosen for the sake of readability of this document and are not typical on actual installed system.
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(!) See the meaning of the {{{PS1}}} and {{{PS2}}} environment variables in the manpage of {{{bash}}} command. (!) See the meaning of the {{{PS1}}} and {{{PS2}}} environment variables in the manpage of {{{bash}}}(1) command.
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(!) The popcon figures should not be considered as absolute measures of the importance of packages. There are many factors which can skew statistics. For example, some system participating popcon may have mounted directories such as {{{/bin}}} with "noatime" option for system performance improvement and effectivily disabled "vote" from such system.
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Please file bug reports on debian-reference package (once released, before then write me: osamu at debian.org) if you find any issues. You may alternatively edit the source text available as Debian Reference wiki page at [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianReference/] and tell me to update the document. Please file bug reports on "debian-reference" package using {{{reportbug}}}(1) if you find any issues. For simple spell errors and grammar corrections, you may alternatively edit the source text available as Debian Reference wiki page at [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianReference/] and tell me to update the document.

Do not use Edit(GUI) button.

?TableOfContents(4)

Copyright 2007, 2008 Osamu Aoki GPL, (Please agree to GPL, GPL2, and any version of GPL which is compatible with DSFG if you update any part of wiki page)

I welcome your contributions to update the wiki pages. You must follow these rules:

  • Do not use Edit(GUI) button of MoinMoin.

  • You can update anytime for:
    • grammar errors
    • spelling errors
    • moved URL location
    • package name transition adjustment (emacs23 etc.)
    • clearly broken script.
  • Before updating real contents:

Preface

This [http://people.debian.org/~osamu/pub/getwiki/html/index.en.html Debian Reference (version 2)] (@@@build-date@@@) is intended to provide a broad overview of Debian system administration as a post-installation user guide.

The target reader is someone who is willing to learn shell scripts but who is not ready to read all the C sources to figure out how the GNU/Linux system works.

Disclaimer

All warranties are disclaimed. All trademarks are property of their respective trademark owners.

The Debian system itself is a moving target. This makes its documentation difficult to be current and correct. Although the current unstable version of Debian system was used as the basis for writing this, some contents may be already outdated by the time you read this.

Please treat this document as the secondary reference. This document does not replace any authoritative guides. The author and contributors do not take responsibility for consequences of errors, omissions or ambiguity in this document.

What is Debian

The [http://www.debian.org Debian Project] is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. It's distribution is characterized by:

  • Commitment to the software freedom: [http://www.debian.org/social_contract Debian Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)].

  • Internet based distributed volunteer effort: http://www.debian.org

  • Large number of pre-compiled high quality softwares.
  • Focus on stability and security with easy access to the security updates.
  • Focus on smooth upgrade to latest softwares with unstable and testing archives.
  • Large number of supported hardware architectures.

Free Software pieces in Debian come from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU GNU], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux Linux], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution BSD], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System X], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_DB Berkeley DB], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Systems_Consortium ISC], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Software_Foundation Apache], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostscript Ghostscript], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Unix_Printing_System Common Unix Printing System ], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software) Samba], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME GNOME], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE KDE], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla Mozilla], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor) Vim], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX TeX], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX LaTeX], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook DocBook], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl Perl], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Python], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tcl Tcl], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) Java], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language) Ruby], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP PHP], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL MySQL] and many more independent free software projects. Debian integrates this diversity of Free Software into one system.

About this document

Guiding rules

Following guiding rules were followed while compiling this document:

  • don't explain in details what is well documented elsewhere (in the judgment of the author)
  • Provide overview and skip corner cases (Big Picture)

  • Keep It Short and Simple. (KISS)

  • Focus on non-GUI tools and consoles. (Use shell examples)

  • Do not reinvent the wheel. (Use pointers to the existing references)

  • Be objective. (Use [http://popcon.debian.org/ popcon] etc.)

I tried to elucidate hierarchical aspects and lower levels of the system.

Prerequisites

You are required to seek help from (in approximate order of importance, starting with the most important sources):

(!) For detailed documentation, you may need to install the corresponding documentation package named with "-doc" as its suffix.

Conventions

This document refers to some command names followed by the number in parenthesis , such as bash(1). This means that you are encouraged to obtain information from the manpage by typing the following on the shell command prompt:

$ man 1 bash 

This document provides information through the following simplified presentation style with bash(1) shell command examples and bullets:

# <command in root account>
$ <command in user account>
  • <description of action>

These shell prompts distinguish account used and correspond to PS1='\$' and PS2=' ' environment variables. These values are chosen for the sake of readability of this document and are not typical on actual installed system.

(!) See the meaning of the PS1 and PS2 environment variables in the manpage of bash(1) command.

The popcon

The [http://popcon.debian.org/ popcon] data was presented as the objective measure for the popularity of each package. It was downloaded on @@@pop-date@@@ and contains the total submission of @@@pop-submissions@@@ reports over @@@pop-packages@@@ binary packages and @@@pop-architectures@@@ architectures.

(!) Please note that the @@@arch@@@ unstable archive contains only @@@all-packages@@@ packages currently. The popcon data contains reports from many old system installations.

The popcon number preceded with "V:" for "votes" is calculated by 100 * (the popcon submissions for the package executed recently on the PC)/(the total popcon submissions).

The popcon number preceded with "I:" for "installs" is calculated by 100 * (the popcon submissions for the package installed on the PC)/(the total popcon submissions).

(!) The popcon figures should not be considered as absolute measures of the importance of packages. There are many factors which can skew statistics. For example, some system participating popcon may have mounted directories such as /bin with "noatime" option for system performance improvement and effectivily disabled "vote" from such system.

The package size

The package size data was also presented as the objective measure for each package. It is based on the "Installed-Size:" reported by "apt-cache show " command (currently on @@@arch@@@ architecture for the unstable release). The reported size is in KB (unit for 1024 bytes).

(!) A package with a small numerical package size may indicate that the package in the unstable release has a dummy package which installs other packages with significant contents by the dependency. The dummy package enables a smooth transition or split of the package.

Bug reports

Please file bug reports on "debian-reference" package using reportbug(1) if you find any issues. For simple spell errors and grammar corrections, you may alternatively edit the source text available as Debian Reference wiki page at [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianReference/] and tell me to update the document.

Some quotes for new users

Here are some interesting quotes from the Debian mailing list which may help enlighten new users:

  • "This is Unix. It gives you enough rope to hang yourself." --- Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels at cistron.nl>

  • "Unix IS user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are." --- Tollef Fog Heen <tollef at add.no>