[Lancaster] Linux with dialup?

[andy baxter]

Ken Walton wrote:
> 2009/1/27 llug at lodestar.icom43.net <mailto:llug at lodestar.icom43.net> 
> <llug at lodestar.icom43.net <mailto:llug at lodestar.icom43.net>>
>
>     I would suggest Damn Small Linux, but I couldn't swear as to the modem
>     support - I'll try and check that. DSL is usually thought of as a
>     lightweight distro like Puppy, but when it's installed to disk
>     it's Debian
>     - and it uses Knoppix hardware detection :-)
>
>
> It's an idea, but the trouble with it is that it's Damn Small. Which 
> means that most of the packages he's likely to want for a decent 
> modern desktop aren't included.  Installing OpenOffice.org, for 
> instance, over a dial-up connection, would take hours.
>
> What he really wants is something that has everything he needs on the 
> disk, so that the less installing of stuff via the internet  he has to 
> do, the better.

If DSL is really that close to debian (does mark or anyone else know?) 
you could install from a DSL disk, but download the Debian CDs for 
whatever version of Debian it's built from. Then just use the Debian CDs 
to install extra software as needed. (Warning, Debian comes on 21 Cds, 
and I'm not sure how systematic they are about what goes on which disk. 
The first 5 or so should probably do though.) You would need to know 
about the apt-cdrom command, which is used to add new CDs to the 
repository list.

In principle, this should work OK - the apt-get command automatically 
checks for library dependencies before installing stuff, so if a program 
doesn't have the right library version it should just fail to install 
that program rather than killing the whole system.

Maybe best to ask on the DSL forum first though.

andy