Справочник по Debian
Глава 1 - Preface

This Справочник по Debian is intended to provide a broad overview of the Debian system as a post-installation user's guide. Its target reader is someone who is willing to read shell scripts. I expect the reader to have gained basic skills in Unix-like systems prior to reading this document.

I made a conscious decision not to explain everything in detail if it can be found in a manual page, an info page, or a HOWTO document. Instead of full explanations, I have tried to give more directly practical information by providing exact command sequences in the main text or example scripts under examples/ as a reference. You must understand the content of examples before issuing commands. Your system may require slightly different command sequences.

Much of the information included consists of reminders or pointers to the authoritative references listed in References, раздел 15.1. This is partly because this document originated as a "quick reference".

Keep it short and simple (KISS) is my guiding principle.

For help with emergency system maintenance, proceed to Debian survival commands, раздел 6.3 immediately.

1.1 Official document

The latest official document is in the Debian archives with the package name debian-reference-en and is also available from http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/.

The latest development version is http://qref.sourceforge.net/Debian/. The project is hosted at http://qref.sourceforge.net/, where this document is available for download in plain text, HTML, PDF, SGML and PostScript formats.

1.2 Document conventions

This "Справочник по Debian" document provides information through short Bash shell commands. Here are the conventions used:

     # command in root account
     $ command in user account
     ... description of action

See Bash – GNU standard interactive shell, раздел 13.2.1 for more information on Bash.

Reference to:

• a Unix manual page is given in the form bash(1).
• a GNU TEXINFO page is given in the form info libc.
• a book is given in the form The C Programming Language.
• a URL is given in the form http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/.
• a file on the system is given in the form /usr/share/doc/Debian/reference/.

The following abbreviations are used:

• LDP: Linux Documentation Project (http://www.tldp.org/)
• DDP: Debian Documentation Project (http://www.debian.org/doc/)

In this document only URLs are shown for LDP documents, but they can also be obtained as a package and installed into /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/. See References, раздел 15.1.

1.3 Example scripts

Sample scripts are available in the examples subdirectory installed in /usr/share/doc/Debian/reference/; for hidden files, the preceding "." in the filename is converted to underscore "_". An additional extension has been added when there are several alternative example scripts.

1.4 Basic setup

If the system is installed with the bare minimum of packages, make sure to execute the following commands to install some essential packages and a few key documents:

     # apt-get install info man-db doc-base dhelp apt apt-utils auto-apt \
                       dpkg less mc ssh nano-tiny elvis-tiny vim sash \
                       kernel-package \
                       manpages manpages-dev doc-debian doc-linux-text \
                       debian-policy developers-reference maint-guide \
                       apt-howto harden-doc install-doc \
                       libpam-doc glibc-doc samba-doc exim-doc cvsbook \
                       gnupg-doc
     # apt-get install debian-reference # for Sarge, do this too :)

1.5 Basics of the Debian distributions

Debian comes in 3 release "flavors":

• stable: Good to track on a production server. Boring for the workstation (WS). See Дистрибутив stable, раздел 2.1.3.

• testing: Good to track on the WS. See Дистрибутив testing, раздел 2.1.4.

• unstable: Never track this blindly. See Дистрибутив unstable, раздел 2.1.5.

Read at least the key mailing list debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org for updates on the status of Debian.

In March 2002, these three release versions corresponded to codename versions Potato (production quality), Woody (beta-test, very stable then since release was imminent), and Sid (alpha-test). In August 2002, right after the Woody release, these corresponded to Woody (production quality), Sarge (beta-test, it would be rough around the edges for some time), and Sid (always alpha-test). When packages in unstable have no release-critical (RC) bugs filed against them after the first week or so, they are automatically promoted to testing. See Архивы Debian, раздел 2.1.

There are two approaches that enable you to run the latest versions of software on a system.

• Upgrading a distribution to testing, Глава 5 (mainly for WS purposes)
• Port a package to the stable system, раздел 6.4.10 (mainly for server purposes)

Tracking the testing flavor of Debian has a side effect of providing security fixes very slowly. So be warned.

If you mix flavors of Debian, using parts of testing or unstable in stable, you will be likely to uninentionally pull in many key packages from testing or unstable that may be buggy. So be warned.

Running testing or unstable flavors of Debian involves an increased risk of hitting serious bugs. This risk can be managed by deploying a multibooting scheme with a more stable flavor of Debian, or by deploying the nice trick of using chroot with the more stable one as described in chroot, раздел 8.6.34. The latter will enable running different flavors of Debian simultaneously on different consoles.

After explaining some fundamentals of the Debian distribution in Основы Debian, Глава 2, I will present some basic information to help you live happily with the latest software, taking advantage of the testing and unstable distributions of Debian. The impatient should proceed immediately to Debian survival commands, раздел 6.3. Happy upgrading!

Справочник по Debian