Updated 26 April 2009

Introduction

I'm grateful to Ubuntu for getting the machine up and running but I do prefer native Debian, partly for "political" reasons but also because it is difficult to upgrade Ubuntu. I had problems initially getting Debian to recognize my hardware, particularly sound and wireless, This was in May 2007; now (September 2007) things are working much better, either because I've now got more experience or because the Debian installation is better.

Debian method

1. I used the Debian net installer CD because I have broadband connection. I just installed the base system and did the rest on line. I used Stable initially because I was worried about problems if I went straight to Testing or Unstable.
   
   Until the wireless connection is up and running you will need to use a wired connection. There is a socket for this on the side of the Z61M or you can use a PCMCIA card, which is what I did.
   
   
2. Sound: I installed ALSA, ALSA-utils, and aumix and sound just worked (after a reboot).
   
   
3. Graphics: I'm now using the radeonhd driver for graphics, not fglrx. This gives me the full resolution (1600x1050). To get 3D you need to install the firmware-linux package. This is also required for iPlayer to run fullscreeen.
   
   
4. Wireless: I have got the new firmware-iwlwifi to work, though for some reason I find it is necessary to bring up wlan0 twice (something to do with DHCP I think). It works best from an X terminal. I do "ifup wlan0"; when this fails to connect, as it usually does, I kill this terminal, bring up another and do "ifdown wlan0" followed by "ifup wlan0". I've succeeded in automating all this with /etc/rc.local.

   You will also need to edit /etc/network/interfaces. There are configuration tools for this but I did it by hand. This configuration brings up the socket on the side of the Z61M so you don't need a PCMCIA card. This is my /etc/network/interfaces:

   ---

   # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
   
   # The loopback network interface
   auto lo
   
   iface lo inet loopback
   
   
   # The primary network interface
   allow-hotplug eth1
   iface eth1 inet dhcp
   
   
   iface wlan0 inet dhcp
   wireless_essid ap

   auto eth3

   ---

5. Notes:
   1. I don't like desktops (KDE, Gnome, or even Xfce), so I installed my favourite window manager, Icewm.
      
      
   2. Suspend to disk with s2disk works perfectly.
      
      

6. Having got everything running I then, somewhat heart in mouth, did a dist-upgrade to Testing. Everything happened flawlessly. More recently (26 July 2008) I've migrated to Unstable (Sid) without problems.

Output of lscpi for this machine