Getting to know Debian

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

I've just finished getting CheapBytes' 'Official Debian 2.1' set up on my
home PC.  For those of you who haven't messed with this particular distro,
my impression of the install is that, while it wasn't as grueling as say,
the first time I tried to install Slackware (back in '94, I think...), it
definitely isn't for those of us who have become accustomed to such niceties
as hardware detection or automatic dual-boot configuration.  The package
selection utility was *nice*, though, and I liked having the options of
which modules to install in the kernel during setup.  In total it took me a
little under three hours to get the thing to a working level of operation
(most of that spent trying to get XFree86 updated and running).

But, I'm stuck with a few questions.

First and foremost, I seem to recall there being some way to have Debian
automatically update itself from the net with the latest set of packages.
If someone can clue me in on how to do this, I'd appreciate it.  the manpage
for dpkg didn't seem to mention anything about this.

Second, if anybody has recommendations for websites or books to help me get
up to speed on the system, I'd love to hear 'em.  I'm not looking for
something that explains how to login or use "ls" here, I want something with
some power tips for system operation, optimization and customization.

Audio is just plain not working, and my mouse works under XFree86 but not
gpm or svgalib.  I can probably figure these out with enough time and
bloodshed, but thought I'd ask if anybody had tips regarding the SB128 or MS
IntelliEye PS/2.

--
Eric Hillman
UNIX Sysadmin
City & County Credit Union
ehillman@cccu.com