Re: [Nolug] Distro suggestions

Thanks for the recipe. I want to say the machine has 256MB RAM, because
we like RAM in our lab, and it *did* run XP. I'm going to go with
Mozilla, the person who will be usign it is a Mac user, not a Linux
user, and it'll run with that config, as well as KDE2. It's got a
damaged-from-upgrading Mandrake 9 on it right now

I know I like xfce and fluxbox, but they're a little daunting for a convert.

Ah, the other great thing about text based tools is that I can sit at my
desk, ssh into the minimal install, and finish it up from there. Or,
set it to run at night, when there is bandwidth. Yes, the University
network is so bad I'll probably download *from home* and bring in a CD.

Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 14:51, Alex McKenzie wrote:
>
>><quote who="Ron Johnson">
>>
>>>There is *no* dependency hell in the "stable" version of Debian.
>>>There are times, occasionally, where packages get moved into "test-
>>>ing" or "unstable" before a subsidiary package gets moved, or there
>>>may be a packaging bug, where the maintainer forgot to update the
>>>dependencies. Wait a few days, and it'll get fixed.
>>>
>>>
>>>>I've had bad experiences with Mandrake and simple hardware, like a
>>>>mouse.
>>>>And 8.0 (2.4.3 based) paniced a lot, but that was probably the
>>>>instability
>>>>of that kernel.
>>>
>>>How geeky are you?
>>>
>>>If so, install a minimal Debian Woody (i.e., stable). Then imme-
>>>diately upgrade to "testing", and then make a combined "testing/
>>>unstable" system. By keeping up with it on a weekly basis, you'll
>>>be very happy with it.
>>
>>What I need to do is setup a Linux workstation in the lab I work in. I
>>want to set it up and forget about it, I've got plenty of work and several
>>2K/XP machines to worry about. I won't even be the one usign it, it's for
>>a grad student in the lab.
>>
>>All it's going to do is run Mathematica and some fortran code, and I'll
>>want samba. Possibly OOo, if it proves useful, and websurfing. I don't
>>forsee any problem setting any of this up, in a minimal fashion. The
>>machine is an old P2, no exotic hardware support needed. Although hooking
>>it up to a DAQ board might be an interesting future project...
>
>
> Then Debian will suit you fine. Note, though, that modern UIs
> assume modern h/w, and a P2 isn't.... How much RAM?
>
> Since it's slow h/w, I'd stay away from Gnome & KDE, and go
> for XFCe4, which is different, but still simple to use.
>
> I'd install a *minimal* text-only Debian 3.0, immediately upgrade
> to "testing" and kernel 2.4.22, then:
>
> # apt-get -u install xserver-xfree86 discover mdetect read-edid \
> xbase-clients xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base \
> xfonts-scalable msttcorefonts xfce4 xfce4-iconbox menu \
> xfce4-mixer xfce4-systray xfprint4 sylpheed dillo \
> cupsys cupsys-client smbclient cupsys-bsd cupsomatic-ppd \
> cupsys-driver-gimpprint samba g77-3.3 g77-doc gdb \
> vim jed jed-extra cooledit fte fte-xwindows nedit \
> nano emelfm
>
> That should provide you with
> XFree86 + fonts
> XFCe4, a user-friendly, medium-weight desktop
> Sylpheed, a light-weight GUI mail reader
> Dillo, a light-weight GUI web browser
> CUPS, for printing
> SAMBA
> A bunch of text editors
> emelfm, a file manager
>
>
>>The reason I'm looking at Debian is because of apt, I'd like to be able to
>>tune it so that all I get are security updates, and they are applied
>>automagically, as needed. Alternately, I'll apply them manually as they
>>come out.
>
>
>

-- 
Alex McKenzie     alex@boxchain.com     http://www.boxchain.com
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