Kitz Forum
Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: sheddyian on March 29, 2013, 01:00:54 AM
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I've realised that I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to Linux, having floundered a lot trying to set up a web server on a Raspberry Pi. (It's getting there, very slowly).
So, I thought a good plan might be to put Linux on one of my main PCs to use and learn by osmosis. My PCs currently have Windows XP or Windows 7 on, so I could either dual boot one of them, or replace Windows altogether.
Now, because of the preferred/default Raspberry Pi installation of Debian Wheezy, I'm minded to put that on a PC as well, and hopefully it'll be nice and similar across the platforms.
But I'd be interested in anyone else's opinion and/or preference.
What version of Linux do you prefer, and why?
Ian
(I have only just realised that Wheezy is the version release of Debian - I'd imagined that it was a special cut-down version especially for the Raspberry Pi!)
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I run Debian.
SFAICS it largely boils down to the method of package management. It's pretty much a two horse race: Debian (and derivatives like Ubuntu) use apt and Redhat-based distributions use rpm. From my limited experience of running both, Debian's package management seems more reliable, and simpler to begin with, but potentially more powerful in the long run. Debian also port to many more architectures, including arm.
The rest of the differences between distros can be 'tweaked out' to suit - which window manager, and that sort of thing - kind of non-essential issues.
Dunno if you care much for the politics, but Debian are the most puritanical over open source software. I'm definitely with them in spirit, but sometimes you find yourself saying "I just want this hardware working, without a great political debate with the manufacturer! Just gimme the closed source binary driver!" On the flipside, Ubuntu can sometimes seem the opposite: a bit too commercial.. A bit Windowsy, with a dictatorial figurehead like some Linux equivalent of Bill Gates (Mark Shuttleworth).
Go with Debian. My 2c! Although at the end of the day, 99% of the distros are identical!
cheers, a
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I run Red Hat Enterprise Linux and also its clone (CentOS).
asbokid & the b*cat have now been collaborating for a few years and the difference between their Linux-kernel based OSes is irrelevant.
Any Linux-kernel based OS that you decide to use will be an excellent choice . . . purely because it is not BGW! :P
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I largely agree with the above views. I use Debian Testing for my main main machine, and I upgrade it every day (a matter of just a few moments when it's done from the command line). There are distros which are described as more "user friendly", which hold your hands to a greater degree, but the hand holding tends to get in the way of proper understanding of the system.
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I agree with Eric particularly in regard to the way some distros get in the way of understanding. For that reason alone I steer clear of any of the *buntu distros, something about them which annoys me. I have used many different distros over the years and all of them using the KDE desktop, I just dont get on with the other main desktop called Gnome. Yes KDE 'looks' quite similar to Windoze in many respects but that 'look' is as far as it goes, I find KDE a significant improvement over any flavour of Windoze I have used (all of them up to W7).
Currently I use Fedora in KDE mode.
Stuart
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The best "hand holding" distro is probably Mint which is very easy to use. They all come as live versions so you can give any of them a whirl without any hard drive changes. Or you can run in a virtual environment. Lots of options to try before you jump. But you probably know all that anyway!
Tony
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I use PCLinuxOS (PC Linux OS) www.pclinuxos.com join the the Forum there they are very friendly.
Use Eric's Tutorials (1 to 6) above and you will find all the details of how to install it.
I use the KDE desktop,'Minime' version, it's simple to use a bit like windows.
I have tried many of distro's but still use this for my main computers, I can not get on with any ubuntu or there off shoots eg mint, But each to there own.
Most are user-friendly nowadays with a GUI (graphical user interface) :)
Edit... Just remember Ras-Pi uses a different type of possessor (Arm) and you can not just use any distro on it, the above are all for normal computers, laptops etc.
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Thanks for all your replies!
I realise that not all distros will run on the Raspberry Pi's ARM processor, and I've gone with the "standard" Debian Wheezy on that. Which is why I may well put Debian on the PC as well, but I was interested what the differences (or not) of the different distros are.
Although I knew about them, I hadn't thought about which desktop environment I might want.
As regards to hand holding, I do tend to favour installation or setup wizards that get things pretty much how you want so you can get going, but I'm happy to go in and adjust things manually later.
Would I be right in thinking that I'll make an installation DVD (or 3) from a download, and that when I run or boot from that, part of the setup will allow me to configure a dual boot with an existing install of Windows?
At least to start with, I'll probably go with Debian to match what I've got on the Pi.
Ian
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Most distros come in at least two flavours. A bootable ready to run iso to burn to a CD or DVD which allows you to play with the system first before committing to an install but is then installable to your hard disk, these will usually give you a full working desktop system which you can then add to later or customise as you wish/need. Then they usually have a full DVD only iso which is bootable but to a standard installer which allows (if you want) customisation and package selection, plus whether you want a desktop system or a server (without a gui perhaps). All should install to a dual boot system, however I believe that W8 and in some cases W7 might have problems getting it to dual boot OK, XP in my experience works like a charm in most cases to dual boot.
Stuart
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Have a look at http://distrowatch.com/index.php?language=EN
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Would I be right in thinking that I'll make an installation DVD (or 3) from a download, and that when I run or boot from that, part of the setup will allow me to configure a dual boot with an existing install of Windows?
Most if not all distros will enable you to set up a dual (or more) boot. There will be a stage during the installation when you get to choose which partitions to use, and what to use them for. Later on, it will detect any systems installed on the other partitions and set up a boot menu.
Comprehensive Debian installation instructions here: http://wiki.debian.org/QuickInstall
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WEll, the install went OK, I've now got a dual boot :)
BUT...
It's slower than Windows XP on the same machine, particularly the web browser (tried Ice Weasel and one other).
If I run the system monitor and nothing else, CPU1 is at 100% constantly, CPU2 bobs up and down 0 - 7%. CPU fan seems to be running quite fast too, suggesting it's getting a bit hot. No disk activity though.
Is this normal?
Ian
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BUT...
It's slower than Windows XP on the same machine, particularly the web browser (tried Ice Weasel and one other).
If I run the system monitor and nothing else, CPU1 is at 100% constantly, CPU2 bobs up and down 0 - 7%. CPU fan seems to be running quite fast too, suggesting it's getting a bit hot. No disk activity though.
Is this normal?
No, nein, non, nay and thrice times nay!
You now need some help from Eric or Asbokid, the Debian specialists, to resolve your obvious configuration problem (which may be graphics related).
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Ian it might help if you tell us what graphics card (Intel, ATI or Nvidia) you have and a bit about the spec of the rest of the hardware. My quad core AMD which dual boots with XP is pretty fast running Linux. Also if you are running KDE there should be a system Monitor (also known as KSysGuard) which will show what is using both memory and CPU, this may lead us somewhere.
Stuart
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Oh dear, I don't know what to suggest. How are you measuring the performance of Windows and Linux? Speed of retrieval and rendering of web pages by the browser?
cheers, a
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Does Debian use the concept of a runlevel?
If it was RHEL or an equivalent, I would recommend switching from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3 (from graphical mode to textual mode) and checking to see if the activity of CPU0 abates.
Stuart (Broadstairs) has expressed to what I had alluded.
Also, does Debian have a cpubalance or irqbalance or some other such service available?
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There's certainly something amiss if one of the CPU cores is at 100%. If you chose KDE as your desktop, then you can hit Ctrl+Esc to get a graphical display of processes, to see what one is misbehaving. Or in a terminal, type top to see the most active processes in text form.
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Does Debian use the concept of a runlevel?
If it was RHEL or an equivalent, I would recommend switching from runlevel 5 to runlevel 3 (from graphical mode to textual mode) and checking to see if the activity of CPU0 abates.
Stuart (Broadstairs) has expressed to what I had alluded.
Also, does Debian have a cpubalance or irqbalance or some other such service available?
Debian doesn't use runlevels except in a minimal way. To shut down the X server you can type (as root):
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
or
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
depending on which desktop has been installed (kdm if it's KDE, gdm if it's Gnome or most other desktops).
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I'm back on XP at the moment, but to answer a couple of questions :
It *feels* slower. Less responsive. Rendering of web pages seems sluggish compared with Chrome on XP on the same machine.
Opening a window, clicking on things.. just seems a bit sluggish.
The hardware spec is hardly top end, but it's surely capable enough :
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2Ghz)
2Gb RAM
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200
(Under XP it will do full screen video OK, but struggles a bit with HD fullscreen)
Under Linux, dragging a window quickly around the screen seemed very smooth. I mention this because, in Windows, if you've only got a generic video driver loaded, window dragging will be sluggish and jerky - this wasn't.
I'll boot back to Linux in a bit and have a look at some of the things you've suggested.
I think it's running Gnome - I wasn't asked what I wanted, and that's what I ended up with :)
Ian
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Your hardware is capable enough. I imagine that the sluggishness is the result of a misbehaving process saturating one CPU core.
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Perhaps posting the output, produced by executing the following, will let us have an overview of the hardware --
lspci -nn
lsusb
My suspicion is directed towards the nVidia graphics card being (currently) misconfigured . . . :-\
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OK, I'm now back with Debian Linux and Gnome desktop.
The 100% CPU problem went a way with a reboot :)
However, it still feels very sluggish. Closing or opening windows, you can watch it redrawing stuff, yet I just played a full scren MPEG video and that was very smooth and took no more than 40% CPU (a bit more than under XP, I think, but way short of 100%).
I tried Iceweasel browser, and scrolling through pages in that was painful. I'm now using Epiphany Web Browser (which also says it's just "Web Browser 2.30.6" and that's a bit better, but not by much. The animated smiley gifs above this compose message box are flickering madly, and CPU usage is around 40% on both cores with just this one window open.
Something doesn't seem right!
Just gonna get the output of that command...
Ian
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lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:0282]
00:00.1 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:1282]
00:00.2 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:2282]
00:00.3 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:3282]
00:00.4 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:4282]
00:00.7 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8T800Pro Host Bridge [1106:7282]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South] [1106:b188]
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [1106:3119] (rev 11)
00:0f.0 IDE interface [0101]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller [1106:3149] (rev 80)
00:0f.1 IDE interface [0101]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE [1106:0571] (rev 06)
00:10.0 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 81)
00:10.1 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 81)
00:10.2 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 81)
00:10.3 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 81)
00:10.4 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 [1106:3104] (rev 86)
00:11.0 ISA bridge [0601]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South] [1106:3227]
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller [1106:3059] (rev 60)
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration [1022:1100]
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map [1022:1101]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller [1022:1102]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control [1022:1103]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] [10de:0322] (rev a1)
Hmm "VGA compatible controller"? is that using a generic video driver?
lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04b3:310c IBM Corp. Wheel Mouse
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 058f:6254 Alcor Micro Corp. USB Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Not much to see there.
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Having thrashed about in both provided browsers, and not worked out how to open a new tab, found scrolling to be painfully slow, I thought I'd see if I can install Google Chrome. Turns out I can - there's a 64 bit version for Debian. Hoorah!
At least when I'm comparing performance, I'm comparing more similar things.. in fact, it ought to be better, because my XP install is all 32 bit, this is 64 bit on the same hardware.
Downloaded and (eventually) worked out how to install it, that all seemed to go ok. But where is it? Can't find anywhere to run it, it's not on the menus anywhere.
I CAN set Google Chrome as my default browser now. but I've no way of starting it!
The logical place would be applications..internet, but it's not there, nor under other menus. Do I have to put it there myself? It self-installed itself from a .deb package, I imagined it'd do all that for me.
EDIT : just redownloaded Google Chrome for Debian 64 bit, reinstalled it (installer recognised that I already had it, asked if I wanted to reinstall, I said YES.) Still can't find how to run it when it's installed!
Ian
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It's Chromium isn't it? Although for sure you'd have spotted it under [Applications | Internet ].
Can you run it from a shell? chr <tab completion>
cheers, a
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Hi Asbokid :)
I knew I should have been clearer in my post - it's definately Google Chrome, and not Chromium (though I think they're related?).
Got it by going tohttp://www.google.com/chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome) which after a few redirects, gave me a download button "For Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE)", after which I could select 32 or 64 bit.
Just gonna try command line thing
Ian
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Well, chr <tab> gives me "chrt - manipulate real-time attributes of a process."
and typing chrome gives me bash : chome : command not found
and it's still not under any menu I can see. Yet, if I go to System, preferences, preferred applications, I can set the web browser to "Google Chrome" and it's got the Google Chrome logo there.
I'm floundering because almost all of this is very new, and so far isn't very discoverable - partly why I thought if I put on a web browser I'm familiar with, I'd be able to open new tabs and feel a bit more at home :)
In this browser, I can right click a link and open in new tab. And I can reuse an open tab by typing a new address in, but I see no button or menu option to open a new blank tab. What gives? /rant
Ian
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The Debian community generally frowns upon installation from non-official sources or repositories, the Google monster included! That's probably why it won't appear in the menus, etc, and is somehow installed outside the system path.
Maybe try installing Chromium with:
$ sudo apt-get install chromium
cheers, a
EDIT:... ahh.. I think I get it.. You downloaded the Chrome package for debian using the web browser, but didn't explicitly install it.
So the package is sitting there helpless, somewhere in a browser "Downloads" directory! If so, once you've found that directory, install Chrome with:
$ sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
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I definately installed it - twice :)
It downloaded, and I was disappointed I wasn't asked if I wanted to run/open/install the file I'd downloaded, but I found it in the "downloads" folder, double clicked it.. which opened it in a package viewer, which wasn't what I wanted either.
But right clicking the .deb package for Chrome, one of the options was "install" and that's what I did.
And later that's what I repeated, and it promted me that I'd already installed it, did I want to reinstall.
And the fact that I can now choose "google chrome" as my default browser strongly implies it's installed, just that I can't see it on any menu or find an obvious way of opening it :(
But lets try Chromium...
Ian
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$ sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
I've just tried that first - in a terminal window as "ian", it failed,
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.
[sudo] password for ian:
ian is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
But opening a root terminal and repeating the command, it installed ok, and I am now using Chrome!
So maybe I didn't have the right permissions/privileges earlier when I installed it via the desktop?
Anyway, it's defaintely faster than the other two supplied browsers, but I'd say it's still slower than Windows XP. The animated gifs are still flickering badly. Even closing a window seems to take a moments thought before the window disappears.
It's frustrating because this is the 3rd time I've tried to use Linux on a PC. First time, in late 1990's, I couldn't get it to work at all with my graphics card (s3 based, can't remember what now). Windows was more than happy with it.
2nd time, more recently, I just couldn't get it to boot after it had installed - again, Windows ran fine.
Still, I'm making progress - at least it boots, even if's slower than Windows :lol:
Ian
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Chrome is a lot faster than the built in browsers, so that's a bonus - it doesn't flicker, and the scrolling is much better.
I think it's even faster than Windows on the same machine :)
What browser would you (that's you, anyone!) install on Debian, if global monolith Google is out of favour?
Anyway, that's enough change for one day. I'm off back to Windows, because that's where all my bookmarks and emails still reside!
Ian
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[sudo] password for ian:
ian is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
That's an important early task, to add yourself, as a non-privileged user to the list of sudoers.
There's a special tool to do it!
From a root shell:
# visudo
Anyway, it's defaintely faster than the other two supplied browsers, but I'd say it's still slower than Windows XP. The animated gifs are still flickering badly. Even closing a window seems to take a moments thought before the window disappears.
Maybe there's a video driver issue? Is it running at the same resolution, refresh rate, and all that, as it was in Windows?
It's frustrating because this is the 3rd time I've tried to use Linux on a PC. First time, in late 1990's, I couldn't get it to work at all with my graphics card (s3 based, can't remember what now). Windows was more than happy with it.
Hmm.. that's down to the poor faith of S3, now part of VIA Tech, who won't release critical hardware data needed to build a better driver. I'm of the mind now, to buy hardware only once it's assuredly 100% compatible with Linux!
I'm making progress - at least it boots, even if's slower than Windows :lol:
Could it be a networking issue slowing it down as well? Or is it just slow screen rendering? Credit where it's due though. it's amazing it's up and running so quickly. I wouldn't look back, even if the performance hit can't be immediately remedied!
cheers, a
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Iceweasel is Firefox by another name (the puritans at Debian won't use the name Firefox because it's a protected trademark). There's Konqueror from the KDE camp, that quite nice. Epiphany is more for local browsing of directories. Never intended as an everyday browser, although expect to be corrected! Chromium is basically Chrome, but fully open source and packaged by Debian maintainers.
The trouble with picking up binaries from the internet, and installing them, even from people like Google, is that they won't be routinely updated. By just issuing the following command, all packages in a Debian system with available updates are retrieved and installed, but only if you installed them in the first place through apt. Software installed by downloading packages or even raw binaries won't be updated.
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Chrome has probably got some spyware in it that will secretly phone home periodically. Ostensibly to check for updates, but in the process apparently telling Google about your browsing, etc! So far as I understand it, that was largely the point of Chromium, to seize back control of the Chrome browser.
There are probably loads more browsers to choose. I'm happy with Iceweasel (Firefox). It handles everything I throw at it, and rarely crashes, but then I'm no power user.
Did you try out the email clients? The Evolution client has come on leaps and bounds. It even works with Microsoft email servers these days!
cheers, a
EDIT: It looks like Google does add itself to the source.list of apt, so updates to Chrome should be retrieved along with other installed packages.
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I did try Iceweasel, and it was that seemed very slow, but I'll give it another go tomorrow.
I'll probably also try Chromium, though while I'm getting used to it all I can see I'll be using Chrome for a bit longer :)
(Though when I started Chrome, it told me it was no longer supported on my o/s, even though the help page says Debian 6 is fine!)
Hey ho
Ian
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01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] [10de:0322] (rev a1)
I strongly suspect that your nVidia graphics card is currently operating in legacy VGA mode, hence your disappointment with a lot of the visual aspects. You will need to download the relevant closed source nVidia driver from their site and then install it. More reading, more understanding, more . . . etc.
(Now if you had installed RHEL or one of its clones, you would not have so much of a task ahead of you because one of my colleagues at the ELRepo Project maintains the whole series of nVidia graphics card drivers in rpm format packages. ;) )
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I strongly suspect that your nVidia graphics card is currently operating in legacy VGA mode, hence your disappointment with a lot of the visual aspects. You will need to download the relevant closed source nVidia driver from their site and then install it. More reading, more understanding, more . . . etc.
The default graphics driver for nVidia GPUs is nouveau, and the version in Debian Testing is a perfectly reasonable driver. But what might have happened is that the installer got a bit mixed up and installed the very basic vesa driver. That would certainly account for the symptoms. To nail this down, open a terminal and type these commands:
lsmod | grep nouveau
lsmod | grep vesa
lsmod | grep nv
These commands will tell you what graphics driver is loaded. If it's vesa, then that's what needs to be addressed. There's a third-party suite of scripts called smxi which will automate the installation of the proprietary nVidia driver (or the nouveau driver if you prefer) and that's probably the easiest way to proceed.
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Maybe I'm a bit late to the party, however, I do believe that our resident feline & indeed Roseway are definitely on the right track.
That guy that B*cat mentioned deserves a pat on the back. He does a wonderful job with the nVidia rpm package.
I used to have to compile the nVidia driver into the kernel before the rpm came along. I alos had the same graphics board as yourself Ian and ran it with the proprietary driver with little or no problems.
So I can only echo, echo ,echo by what ever means get yourself the nVidia driver installed.
Of course if you decide to try a different flavour of Linux I can highly recommend Mageia. It is of the rpm variety. It is a fork of Mandriva which itself started out as Mandrake a number of years ago. I have settled with it and use all the issues from Mandrake 9.0.
I did start out with Deborah & Ian's version of Linux way back when. That was the time when everything came as source packages which was compiled into the kernel. Oh what fun. You don't know how pampered you are these days.
Anyway get yourself the nVidia driver for your card and you will enjoy the experience I am sure.
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Thanks for all your help here.
I had briefly looked at the Nividia Linux drivers, but as I wasn't sure which one to download, I'd left them alone.
Had another look yesterday, and I believe I've now got the right one, will try it later and see what happens.
It's odd though that basic screen activity seems particularly slow at times, yet MPEG playback is very good with the current driver.
Ian
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I recently had to install Linux Mint Debian to a Friends Ageing Shuttle box. This is after trying lots of newer 'Distros' that just either hung or would run at a snails pace!
LMDE is based on Wheezy but contains Gnome 2 updated to 'Mate' which is much faster and lighter on graphics cards.
The main problem is updating Nouveau to Nvidia drivers.
I found this site to be most helpful.
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/717
Robin
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I had briefly looked at the Nividia Linux drivers, but as I wasn't sure which one to download, I'd left them alone.
Had another look yesterday, and I believe I've now got the right one, will try it later and see what happens.
Ian, as others have already commented, it seems that your installation does not include the proprietary NVidia drivers, which your card needs to run smoothly, especially if you are running a desktop with 3D graphics effects. Some cards run fine with the Nouvau drivers too, so using them may be worth a try.
As a 1st step I can't recommend strongly enough to familiarise yourself with your distro's package manager, formal and alternative software repositories and then use these for all your software installation/uninstallation and updates. Unlike MSWindows where you have to download and update one application at a time, with Linux you should be able to udpate your whole OS and installed applications with a couple of lines on the CLI (like 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get autoclean'). There are GUI fronts for updating your system too, like Synaptic, Aptitude, et al.
So for starters find which repos have the desired drivers/applications, configure your machine to use them and install what you need. I have only used Debian once so I'm not the one to offer guidance here, but besides all worthy contributors in these forums, Google is your friend in these matters. Someone is bound to have your hardware and have already resolved and published solutions to most of your problems.
Good luck! :)