Should I get Debian Stable or Unstable?
The first choice you have when installing Debian/PPC is between Potato (stable) and Woody (unstable). Stable has been extermely well tested, however it tends to be out of date. Unstable on the other hand is very up-to-date, including new packages not yet found in other distros.
If you are running a server, you will most likely want to go with Potato. Desktop users who don't mind a rare glitch from time to time, may prefer Woody, as it gives them the latest and greatest technology.
Adding Sources to Debian
A "source" in Debian is a place to get software from. There are a variety of sources avalible on the Internet today, including dozens of Debian mirrors. If you don't live in the US, try using the local mirror such as ftp.uk.debian.org.
You add sources to the sources list found at /etc/apt/sources.list. You can add them using any text editor or cat "deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.
The sources.list line below gives you software from Debian/PPC unstable -- software that is main (totally free to use under the GPL or similar license), contrib (software that it's self is totally free but it relies on a non free piece of software) and non-free (has a special license that limits your rights using it -- make sure to read the license carefully before using this software!!)
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
How does that line work? The first part of the line (deb) tells apt-get what format of software to expect -- in this case .deb binary package, sometimes you'll want to have some deb-src lines so you can get debian source code packages.
The second part of the line gives the address where to find software. In the USA you'll probably want http://http.us.debian.org/debian, for other countries visit for details. You can also replace this line with other sites that contain debian pacakges, such as the unoffical KDE Debian site I show below.
The third part of a sources.list line is the distro-name line. Most likely with Debian/PPC at this time you'll want potato, however in the future you may want to change it to stable (when Debian 2.2/Potato is released will be called stable). If you want to stay on the development side of things, keep that line as unstable.
The final parts of that line tell it what parts of the distro do you want -- in the offical debian distro, this means any combination of main, contrib or non-free. Other distrobution sites will likely have different names for different parts.
Installing Software
To install software, you can either select it's listing using the dselect tool, or get it using this command:
apt-get install someprogram
Note: Running this command will download the program, find any required libaries (it will prompt you yes or no if it requires any special libraries -- apt-get usually knows best -- say yes in most cases), download them, install the program and any required libs, and run any required configuration programs.
Keeping Debian's Software Database Up to Date
Over time your local copy of Debian's software database comes out of date compared to the current version on the internet. To sync it type (or put in cron):
apt-get update
Upgrading Software
You can upgrade a program by using:
apt-get install someprogram
If you want to upgrade your entire system to the latest versions of software in your version of Debian (for security updates, fixes (and new software if using unstable) type in:
apt-get upgrade
Note: You can have as many source lines as your want. However be careful what sources lines you add, only use ones you trust. Any site added to list will give you access to install any package on thier list -- installing a package from somebody you don't trust or know could lead your system into getting a virus or a trojan horse!! Also, any software installed on you system will automatically be upgraded from the source you got it from when you run apt-get upgrade.
Going from Stable to Unstable
Stable too old, boring for your tastes? You can upgrade to unstable by replacing stable with unstable in /etc/apt/sources.list and running:
apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade
K Desktop Enviroment on Debian/PPC
Many users want the K Desktop Enviroment after installing Debian/PPC. Unforently due to problems with the GPL and QPL license conflict, KDE can not be part of the offical Debian distro. To get KDE for the PowerPC, you will need a to add a line similar to this:
deb http://kde.tdyc.com/ potato kde contrib kde2 rkrusty
Once you have that line, to get KDE use this command (you don't have to get all of the modules listed, just qt, kdelibs and kdebase):
apt-get install qt kdelibs kdebase kdeutils kdegames kdenetwork kdegraphics kdemultimedia kdeadmin
Using apt-get to Build and Install Software
Unforently many excellent KDE programs are not compiled and ready to be used on the PowerPC. You can use apt-get's source deb mode for this (add this line to your sources.list):
deb-src http://kde.tdyc.com/ potato kde kde2 contrib rkrusty
Now to get a KDE program not avalible in the standard KDE Debian/PPC packages you can use a command like this (aktion used as an example):
apt-get source -b aktion
apt-get source tells apt-get to get your source code of the package. -b flag tells apt-get you want to download the package, compile it, then install it on your system (as a reguluar debian package). Seems pretty easy compared to RedHat Linux, requiring you to rebuild the SRPMS then installing them one at a time.
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