[Sussex] Which distro?

[Steve Dobson]

Niall

On 04 July 2003 at 11:06 AG wrote:
> At 05:11 04/07/03 -0400, you wrote:
> >As others on this list have complained about Debian doesn't have
> >a graphical installer.  Here that would be an advantage.  As a
> >Debian user I therefore claim: Use Debian.
> >
> >Steve
> 
> I don't mind text only installs, it's just things like BSD that I find
> *extremely* frustrating (not to say competely impenetrable) and I infer
> from the general enthusiasm over Debian that it's installer is more
> "occassionally challenging" rather than "what psychotic nutter thought up
> this mental-assault-course-thinly-disguised-as-an-installer".

It's been a while since I installed a FreeBSD system, but I know what you
mean.  These days the questions asked are the ones that I would expect any
Linux System admin to be able to answer.  If you can partition the disk and
know how mail it to be routed about your network then you should be able to
get through the install.
 
> Can Debian cope with only 64Mb RAM in this scenario though? I *could* get
a
> 128Mb EDO buffered stick from Kingston, but paying £70+ for outdated RAM
> seems perverse, to say nothing of the fact that there are several other
> things I'd happily spend that on.

The answer is "Yes".  I have a very small (postcard sized) Intel based PC
motherboard running a striped down version of Debian which has only 32MB of
memory, no swap and 32MB of flash as it's disk.

Debian ships with a number of the standard Linux kernels (no patches) you
can choose which one to install.  From then on you're into a smallish set
of "base" packages that are required:  cron, exim (the MTA), an editor,
and so forth.  After that you're free to add what ever packages you want,
and there are thousands.  Some of these conflict.  sendmail is available
as a package if you want sendmail to be your MTA and installing it will
remove exim.

The best way to install Debian is from their minimal install CD [1] getting
the packages you want from the network (I assume you have a link to the
Internet).  Also check the mail list archives, I've posted instructions
there several times about apt and the package installs I do, and I don't
want to repeat myself again.

Have fun

Steve

[1]
http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst