Mysql Developing And Programming, Personal Web Hosting Blog

308 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Selecting a Partition Scheme The guided partitioning feature allows you to select one of three templates to use to create your partitions. Use these guidelines to select the template that is correct for you. . All files in one partition Makes a single Linux partition for files. This is the easiest option to manage because you don t have to worry about balancing the sizes of your partitions. This can also be dangerous because users have the capability to fill up the entire disk, which can cause problems for the operating system. Do not use this option unless you are prepared to monitor disk space carefully. . Desktop machine Gives the operating system its own space and gives home directories their own space. This option is a good trade-off between the convenience of a single partition and the increased safety of the multiuser scheme. However, the /tmp/ directory is still part of the operating system partition, meaning that it is still fairly easy for people who habitually use that directory to fill up the operating system partition. . Multi-user system Creates separate partitions for the root file system, /usr/, /var/, /tmp/, and /home/. You can choose this option when you are using this system as a server. It may also be a good choice for systems that will be used by more than just you, your relatives, and your close friends. The trade-off is that you may run out of room on a given partition even though the others have plenty of space, which means that you will need to plan carefully. In some situations, you may need to adjust the partition sizes selected by the multiuser partitioning scheme to put more room where you are likely to need it: . If you are planning to compile a lot of large software packages, you ll need to have plenty of space in the /usr/ partition. . Active servers (especially Web and mail servers) may need extra room in /var/ for log files. Mail servers also use this space for the mail queue, and the default mail system also stores incoming mail here (you may also want to consider making /var/mail/ a separate partition in these cases). . Web browsers such as Mozilla use /tmp/ for storing files while they are downloaded. This file system must be big enough to hold any large files that you want to download through there, plus any other files that may be there at the same time. Note that with the multiuser partitioning scheme, the /home/ partition generally ends up receiving most of the space on larger disks. This usually makes it a good place to borrow space from when you want to make other partitions larger. However, because partman (the partitioning tool used by the Debian installer) has already mapped out the partitions, you actually need to delete /home/ and then re-add it after you increase the size of the other partition. If there are other partitions between /home/ and the one that you are increasing in size, you also need to delete them, and then add them back in an appropriate order.
Check Tomcat Web Hosting services for best quality webspace to host your web application.

Chapter 9 . Running Debian GNU/Linux 307 do not configure at this time Select this option if you do not have an Internet connection, are using a dial-up connection, or have a broadband connection that requires the use of PPPoE. In the latter two cases, you ll want to establish the connection at the point that it is noted during stage 2 of the installation. 4. Provide a hostname (a single-word name that you give to your system, such as debian, littlebeigebox, or yoda) and a domain name. If you do not have your own domain name, you can make one up, such as myhouse.local. 5. You will next be asked to configure your disk partitions for Debian. If you haven t already done so, read Chapter 7 for more information about partitioning. If you already have partitions on your drive and have room for more, you are given the option to use this space for your Debian system. Another option is to erase the entire disk and use the whole thing for Debian. Either of these two options takes you through the guided partitioning, which is covered in this section. A third option, manually editing the partition, enables you to be more exacting about your partition setup, but you should not try this without help or at least without reading Chapter 7. The guided partitioning section presents three partitioning schemes. Each of the options includes a suitable amount of swap space but has different benefits based on your situation. You must select one from the list before you proceed. See the Selecting a Partition Scheme sidebar for more information. When installing to small disk drives (those under a few gigabytes in size), you should use ext2 file systems instead of ext3. The journaling feature in ext3 requires that a portion of the disk be set aside for the journal, but the feature is of limited usefulness on small file systems. You can change file system types by going into the partition properties. To do this, highlight the partition using the arrow keys and press Enter. The next step will modify the contents of your hard disk. Check your partition settings carefully before proceeding. 6. With your partition configuration chosen, select Finish Partitioning and Write Changes to Disk. This is your last chance to cancel changes that could cause damage to any other operating systems you may have on the disk, so check the screen carefully before proceeding! The installer writes the partitions to disk and creates the necessary file systems. After they have been prepared and mounted, the Debian base system is extracted from the CD and installed to the target partitions. 7. The final step is to install GRUB, the boot loader. The default setting is to install to the master boot record (MBR), which is generally the best option. Accept the defaults and continue. The installer ejects the CD and prompts you to proceed with stage 2. 8. Remove the CD and press Enter to continue. Caution Note
Looking for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your business application? Then look no more and go to servlet web hosting services.

306 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Running the Installer The Debian installation process consists of two stages. The first stage is used to establish the base Debian installation on your hard drive. The second stage boots the newly installed Debian system and performs additional installation and configuration tasks. Before you begin installing Debian to your hard disk, be sure to back up any data that is important to you. A simple mistake during partitioning can result in losing some or all of your data. Refer to Chapter 7 for information on disk partitioning. It can help you decide how to divide up your hard disk or even resize existing disk partitions to make room for the new Debian installation. Stage 1 The first stage boots from the installation medium (generally a CD); configures hardware drivers, disk partitions, and file systems; and then copies a set of essential packages known as the base system. Here s the procedure: 1. Boot the CD that comes with this book and type linux from the boot prompt to begin the Debian installer. 2. After the installer has finished booting, you are presented with the series of menus that make up the installation process. Use the arrow keys to navigate through the menus and select your language, region, and keyboard mapping. 3. The next step is to configure the network connection. This step is skipped automatically if no network card is detected in your system. If a network card is detected in your system, the installer will attempt to automatically detect the network using the DHCP protocol. This involves the computer sending out requests on the network for configuration details from a DHCP server. Most networks and broadband routers support this service. If the DHCP configuration fails, you will be presented with four options: retry Select this option if you suspect that there was a temporary problem that prevented your computer from communicating with the DHCP server. retry with hostname Select this option if your network provider requires you to enter a DHCP hostname. This used to be common on cable modem networks, but is rarely seen anymore. manual configuration Select this option if you have static IP address information that must be entered for your Internet connection. See Chapter 7 for information about IP addresses, network masks, and other material related to setting up a network card connection. Cross- Reference Caution
If you are looking for cheap and quality webhost to host and run your website check Jboss Web Hosting services.

Chapter 9 . Running Debian GNU/Linux 305 low-demand applications. Intel PRO/100 and PRO/1000 adapters are supported in Linux and will work well in high-demand applications, as will cards based on the tulip chipsets and most 3com network cards. Many newer systems include software-based modems that are not supported by the manufacturer under Linux. If you require a dial-up connection for Internet access, see Chapter 5 and check out http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-2.html before you start the installation process. Many other devices, such as sound and video capture cards, can also be used under Linux. For more information about hardware compatibility, see the Hardware Compatibility HOWTO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/. Workstations In most cases, workstation users will want to run the X Window System (X11). The ability to run X11 depends on compatibility with the video chipset on your video card or mainboard. Debian 3.1 includes version 4.3.0 of the XFree86 X11 System. You can find a list of video chipsets supported in this release at http:// xfree86.org/4.3.0/. Servers A Linux server installation generally consists of only the minimum set of packages required to provide the service for which it was designed. In particular, this means that servers do not usually have a graphical interface installed. Server hardware is generally more expensive than workstation hardware, although you can still run smaller servers on less-expensive desktop hardware. If you are planning to store important data on your server, you will want to look into a RAID array for storage. A number of inexpensive ATA RAID controllers work well under Linux. More information about ATA RAID compatibility is available at the following sites: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html and http:// ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/ Hardware-HOWTO.html#IDERAID. Higher-end servers will, of course, require more expensive hardware. In applications such as mail servers where you will have a lot of disk activity, plan on splitting the disk-intensive tasks across multiple arrays. When it comes to CPU and RAM, more of both is good, but most applications benefit more from extra RAM than they do from multiple CPUs. Note
If you are looking for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your business application visit our ftp web hosting services.

304 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution . Mailing lists (www.debian.org/MailingLists) Ways of accessing (and behaving on) Debian mailing list are described on this page. A complete listing of the more than 200 Debian mailing lists is available from http://lists .debian.org/completeindex.html. . Bug tracking (www.debian.org/Bugs) If you are interested in following the bug tracking system for Debian, links from the support page can take you to the Bug Tracking System site. If you are having problems with any Debian software, you can search that site for bug reports and file a bug report, if your bug was not yet reported. . Help (www.debianhelp.org) This site offers connections to a range of information about Debian. In particular, you can find Debian forums from this site, containing literally thousands of posts. The Debian User Forums site (http://forums.debian.net) is another place you can go to post questions about Debian. If you are interested in becoming a Debian developer, start at the Debian Developers Corner (www.debian.org/devel). That site acts as a guide to ways in which you can enter the Debian development community. There are Debian developers all over the world. The largest concentrations of Debian developers are in Europe and the United States, as you can see from the Debian Developer Location map (www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc). Installing Debian GNU/Linux The Debian CD image included with this book contains the most commonly used packages in the Debian system. Additional packages can be downloaded and installed from the Internet after the base system has been installed and an Internet connection established. For information about how to obtain additional Debian packages on CD or DVD, see www.debian.org/distrib/. Hardware Requirements and Installation Planning To run Debian, you need at least a 386 processor and 32MB of RAM. For a server or a graphical workstation (running the X Window System), you should plan on having at least 128MB of memory and a Pentium-class processor. A minimal set of packages requires 250MB of disk space, and a normal installation of desktop applications can require a few gigabytes. Additional space will be needed to store any data files that you want to keep on the system. Most ISA and PCI network cards are supported under Linux, although ISA models are not usually detected automatically by the installer. Inexpensive cards based on RealTek 8139 chipsets can be found at most PC dealers and will work fine for
We would like to recommend you tested and proved virtual web hosting services, which you will surely find to be of great quality.

Chapter 9 . Running Debian GNU/Linux 303 Debian Releases In Debian terms, a distribution is a collection of specific package versions. From time to time, a distribution is declared ready for release and becomes a release. In practice, these two terms are often used interchangeably when referring to Debian distributions that have reached the stable milestone. Debian distributions are given code names (recent ones include potato, woody, and sarge, named for characters in the movie Toy Story) to identify their archive directory on the Debian servers. While a particular distribution release is active, it will be referenced by one of three release tags, each one pointing to one of the three active releases. The tags unstable, testing, and stable identify the state of the release within the release cycle. New packages, and new versions of packages, are uploaded to the Debian archive and are imported into the unstable distribution. This distribution always contains the newest version of every package, which means that changes have not yet been thoroughly tested to verify that installing them will not cause unexpected behavior. Once a package has been assigned to the unstable area for a few days and testing shows that it has not had any significant bugs filed against it, it is imported into the testing distribution. The testing distribution remains open to changes (just as the unstable area was) until it is frozen in preparation for release as the next stable distribution. When testing is in the frozen state, only changes necessary to fix significant bugs are imported. After all release-critical bugs have been fixed in the frozen testing distribution, the release manager declares the release ready and it replaces the stable distribution. The previous stable version becomes obsolete (but remains on the Debian archive for a reasonable period of time), a new testing distribution is created from the changes that went into packages in the unstable area while testing was frozen, and the process begins again. Getting Help with Debian The Debian project has a mature set of resources to support those who use, administer, and develop software for Debian systems. A place to begin learning more about Debian is from the Debian Support page (www.debian.org/support). Here are some of the resources you can connect to from that page: . Documentation (www.debian.org/doc) From this page, you can find links to both Debian-specific and general Linux documentation. For specific Debian information, refer to the Release Notes, Installation Guide Debian GNU/Linux FAQ, and various user, administrator, and programming manuals. General Linux information includes manuals HOWTOs and FAQs.
Note: In case you are looking for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your j2ee application check Vision J2ee Web Hosting services.

302 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution More information about how to determine the state of a package can be found in the Querying the Package Database section of this chapter. As its name suggests, the package state indicates the present state of the package, which is one of the following: . not-installed The package is known but is not installed on the system. . half-installed An attempt was made to install the package, but an error prevented it from finishing. . unpacked The files have been extracted from the package, but any postextract configuration steps have not yet been performed. . half-configured The post-extract configuration was started, but an error prevented it from finishing. . installed The package is fully installed and configured. . config-files The package was removed, but the configuration files still exist on the system. If you have manually removed a configuration file and want to get it back by reinstalling the package, you can do so by passing the –force-confmiss option to dpkg. Doing so will not overwrite the other configuration files for that package. If you want to start over with all of the original configuration files, you can also pass the –force-confnew option. The package selection state indicates what state you want the package to be in. Changes to package status through dpkg happen immediately when using the –install, –remove, and –purge options on a package, but other uses and tools will instead set this flag and then process any pending changes in a batch. The package selection state is one of the following: . install The package should be installed. . deinstall The package files should be removed, with the exception of configuration files. . purge All package files and configuration files should be removed. . hold dpkg should not do anything with the package unless explicitly told to do so with the –force-hold argument. Some packages are designed to enable you to select configuration options as they are being installed. This configuration is managed through the debconf utility. Debconf supports a number of different interfaces, including a command prompt and a menu-based interface. A database of configuration options is also maintained by debconf, allowing it to automatically answer repeated questions, such as those you might encounter while upgrading or reinstalling a package. Examples of how to use these utilities are included in the Managing Your Debian System section later in this chapter. Note Note
Check Tomcat Web Hosting services for best quality webspace to host your web application.

Chapter 9 . Running Debian GNU/Linux 301 . Optional preinst, postinst, prerm, and postrm files can instruct the package management tools to perform functions before or after package installation or removal. For example, most packages containing daemons (such as Apache HTTPD) include a postinst script that starts the daemon automatically after installation. . A conffiles file can designate specific files in the package as configuration files, which are not automatically overwritten during upgrades. By default, all files under the /etc/ directory are configuration files. Two special package types, meta and virtual, also exist. Meta packages are standard binary packages that do not contain any files, but depend on a number of other packages. Installation of a meta package results in the automatic installation of all packages that they depend on. These can be used as a convenient method for installing a set of related packages. Virtual packages do not actually exist as files but can be referenced in the package interrelationship fields. They are most commonly used in cases where more than one package fulfills a specific requirement. Packages with this requirement can reference the virtual package in their Depends field, and packages that satisfy this dependency reference it in their Provides field. Because most programs providing a virtual package are mutually exclusive, they also include the virtual package in their Conflicts field to prevent the installation of conflicting packages. An example of this is the mail-transport-agent virtual package, which is required by most system programs in order to send mail. An easy way to browse the list of available packages is through the Debian Web site at www.debian.org/distrib/packages. Debian Package Management Tools Perhaps the most interesting and well-known part of the Debian package management system is APT, the Advanced Package Tool. APT, through the apt-get utility, maintains a database of packages available in the repositories that it is configured to check and can handle automatically downloading new or upgraded packages. When installing or upgrading packages, APT downloads the necessary files to a local cache directory and then instructs the dpkg tool to take the appropriate actions. Among other things, this allows the user to select programs for addition or removal without having to manually instruct the system to handle any package dependencies. Most basic package management functions are performed by dpkg, although not always at the direct request of the user. This tool handles medium-level package installation and removal and also manages the package status database. That database contains information about every package known to dpkg, including the package meta information and two other important fields: the package state and selection state. Note
We highly recommend you visit web and email hosting services if you need stable and cheap web hosting platform for your web applications.

300 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution users may depend on these programs to make effective use of the system. The bug tracking and support systems will always include mechanisms for handling these programs when they are provided with the Debian system. Debian s commitment to free software distribution and openness has earned it a huge following in the technical community. More than any other Linux system, Debian has been used as the basis for other Linux distributions, including KNOPPIX, Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux and many others. The success of Debian has come despite the lack of large corporate sponsors, formal enterprise initiatives, or official certification and training programs. Debian enthusiasts will tell you that it is the most stable and reliable Linux system. It is thoroughly tested, and new versions aren t released until the Debian leadership believes that software is extraordinarily stable. Inside Debian GNU/Linux Like most modern operating systems, software programs in Debian GNU/Linux are bundled into packages for easy distribution and management. The package format and management tools used in Debian GNU/Linux were created by the Debian Project and are arguably the most sophisticated of their type. Additionally, careful adherence to packaging policies and quality-control measures ensure compatibility and help make upgrades go smoothly. Debian is one of very few operating system distributions in which all components (except the kernel) can be upgraded without rebooting the system. Debian Packages Debian packages come in two forms: binary and source. Binary packages contain files that can be extracted directly onto the system by the package management tools. Source packages contain source code and build instructions that the Debian build tools use to create binary packages. In addition to programs and their associated data files, Debian packages contain control data that enable the package management tools to support advanced features: . A main control file contains version and package interrelationship data. The version can be compared to an installed version of the same package to determine whether an upgrade is needed. The interrelationship data tell the package management tools which packages must or cannot be installed at the same time as the package. Package interrelationship fields include Depends, Conflicts, Replaces, Provides, Recommends, Suggests, and Enhances. For a complete list of control file fields, see http://debian.org/doc/debian-policy/chcontrolfields. html. Note
We would like to recommend you tested and proved virtual web hosting services, which you will surely find to be of great quality.

Running Debian GNU/Linux Debian GNU/Linux is a creation of the Debian Project. Founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock, the Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made a common cause to create a free, coherent, and complete operating system. A single Debian GNU/Linux network install CD image is contained on the CD that comes with this book. You can install Debian directly from that CD as described in this chapter. This installation is suitable or setting up a Web server (LAMP server) and a mail server (see Chapters 24 and 25, respectively). The principles of the Debian Project are defined in the Debian Social Contract. This contract is a commitment to the free software community that basically states: . All software within the Debian system will remain free, as defined in the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). . The Debian Project will contribute to the free software community by licensing any software developed for the Debian system in accordance with the DFSG, developing the best system it can, and by sharing improvements and fixes with the original developers of any programs incorporated into Debian GNU/Linux. . Problems will not be hidden from users, and any bug reports filed against Debian components will be made promptly available to the public through the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS). . The Debian Project will focus on the needs of its users and on the principles of free software. . Provisions will be made for the support of programs that do not meet the standards in the DFSG because some On the CD-ROM C9H A P T E R . . . . In This Chapter Inside Debian Installing Debian Managing your Debian system . . . .
Looking for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your business application? Then look no more and go to servlet web hosting services.