I needed to add the EPEL repository (command above) to get the rrd-tool package. If you want to do Cacti + Spine (recommended) you need this line:

sudo yum install httpd php php-mysql php-snmp php-xml mysql mysql-server net-snmp net-snmp-utils rrdtool gcc mysql-devel net-snmp-devel

[root@testme cacti-spine-0.8.7g]# cat /etc/spine.conf
# +————————————————————————-+
# | Copyright (C) 2005-2010 The Cacti Group |
# | |
# | This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or |
# | modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License |
# | as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 |
# | of the License, or (at your option) any later version. |
# | |
# | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
# | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
# | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the |
# | GNU General Public License for more details. |
# +————————————————————————-+
# | spine: a backend data gatherer for Cacti |
# +————————————————————————-+
# | This poller would not have been possible without: |
# | – Larry Adams (current development and enhancements) |
# | – Rivo Nurges (rrd support, mysql poller cache, misc functions) |
# | – RTG (core poller code, pthreads, snmp, autoconf examples) |
# | – Brady Alleman/Doug Warner (threading ideas, implimentation details) |
# +————————————————————————-+
# | Settings |
# +————————————————————————-+
# | DB_Host ‘localhost’ or socket file for UNIX/Linux |
# | IP Address for Windows |
# | DB_Database Database name, typically ‘cacti’ |
# | DB_Port The database port to use |
# | DB_User The user to access the database, typically ‘cactiuser’ |
# | DB_Pass The password for the Cacti user |
# | SNMP_Clientaddr Bind SNMP to a specific address for sites that use |
# | higher security levels |
# | DB_PreG Set to 1 if you wish to work with older versions of |
# | cacti 0.8.7. |
# +————————————————————————-+
DB_Host 127.0.0.1
DB_Database cacti
DB_User cacti
DB_Pass password
DB_Port 3306
DB_PreG 0
[root@testme cacti-spine-0.8.7g]# /usr/local/spine/bin/spine –conf=/etc/spine.conf –verbosity=3
SPINE: Using spine config file [/etc/spine.conf]
SPINE: Version 0.8.7g starting
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] NOTE: Spine did not detect multithreaded device polling.
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] NOTE: Spine is behaving in a 0.8.7g manner
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] NOTE: There are ’5′ Polling Items for this Host
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] DS[3] SCRIPT: perl /var/www/html/cacti-0.8.7g/scripts/linux_memory.pl MemFree:, output: 24312
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] DS[4] SCRIPT: perl /var/www/html/cacti-0.8.7g/scripts/linux_memory.pl SwapFree:, output: 497208
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] DS[5] SCRIPT: perl /var/www/html/cacti-0.8.7g/scripts/loadavg_multi.pl, output: 1min:0.05 5min:0.04 10min:0.01
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] DS[6] SCRIPT: perl /var/www/html/cacti-0.8.7g/scripts/unix_users.pl , output: 1
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Host[1] TH[1] DS[7] SCRIPT: perl /var/www/html/cacti-0.8.7g/scripts/unix_processes.pl, output: 67
08/10/2010 05:12:14 PM – SPINE: Poller[0] Time: 0.1568 s, Threads: 1, Hosts: 2

Minus switching up some commands, is this as straight forward on a Debian system?