[Cbsupport] Which Distro?

[Peter Gossner]

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 06:30:10 +0930  from a terminal far far away
<Romana/>  wrote:
>On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 10:42:43PM +1000, David Robb imparted:
>> On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 02:26 pm, Roland Bernett wrote:
>> I think you underestimate the hardware support in Debian. Based on my
>> experiences, it's mainly new hardware you have to worry about. I know
>I've > never owned a computer that has hardware Debian can't deal with.
>
Hi all...
That's a big call however generally I would agree with it :)
Mostly it's because discover is um "extensible" and because debian is
deliberately lower level at config time. Also the testing of the
installers is truely a huge undertaking...At least five different
architectures with Hurd  (on some) and Linux on all.  The new installer
is even better, though at this stage perhaps still a"little"[lot]
fragile..(not the released iso's just the cvs (now subversion) versions)

>having just set up my shiny brand new athlon 2600 acer laptop, let me
>assure you that debian has NO issues with new hardware that i've
>noticed.
>
Hey cool. Nice to know.

>i havent had debian let me down with the older hardware we get here, or
>newer stuff ive had a chance to play with.
>


>we use fedora here currently. tried mandrake. easy to install, sure,
>but the bloat of both, given the small amount of hdd space (the std
>install takes up AT LEAST 2gb) we have to play with often is migrating
>us back to debian - the flexibility, the ease of configuration, the
>ability to create a neat customised install is everything. pete gossner
>is working on it here.
>

STILL working on it. If anybody is interested in the gritty stuff I will
post a report. I have hit a snag that is probably in my head, but have
some udeb dependency probs. (or something)

(I have "trashed " a machine here bending stuff, now coming back to
speed as we speak.)

I figure I am 80% done but this last lap seems like a biggy.

>> 
>> Due to the non-free status of Lindows, as well as various other
>issues > including security, I'd personally recommend against that.

Funny you should mention that.
I just freed a Lindows box from it's chains (twice this week :) see
above.. I broke my installers so put in Lindows3 (nvidia card) and beat
the crap out of it untill it would run Enlightenement and Gnome2.6..
Lots of interesting stuff in there and some of it is good. The KDE
interface is well tuned up for example, but the rest is just debian with
some important scripts written or (sneaky) moved ...
I initially thought the installer was slick but its really just a tar
ball unpack (with some good work around the boot loader and I guess the
human interfaces.

The package selection is , um, pragmatic, there were no man pages !!!


In short its easier to do this if you cut down on the end user options,
apart from a stupid method of loading the vid drivers at install, I
guess the choices they made were very well thought through.

[Stopping there before I really get going]

>
>users are auto root. *shudder*. the support horror of it all....
>
LOL. Not for Lindows :) But yeah for us NO way .

>> 
>> Another option that Computerbank Victoria has been toying with lately
>is > Knoppix. It's a very user friendly Debian-based distro with
>excellent > hardware support designed to run completely from a CD
>without any need for a > hard drive, but it can be installed to hard
>drive if you like. It does have > its downside; the hard drive install
>requires a hard disk partition larger > than 2GB, and the entire system
>is copied from the CD, including quite a lot > of packages that aren't
>really necessary for a computer being sent out by > Computerbank. Once
>you go through and remove all the unnecessary stuff, it's > quite
>well-suited for Computerbank use.
>
Generally agree with all the above.
Especially if we hand the end user a copy , which they can give to a
friend:)


>
>ive installed it on two machines now. the same machines were then
>migrating to straight debian, with same packages. the speed
>difference!!! knoppix is bloaty and a bit too slow for my taste.
>but hey, its a quick type of debian. 
>what was that about debian hw support again?;)  )

Hmm one install to fit them all ?

debian has "# dpkg  --get-selections > Student.flavor 
then (after 200 meg base install)
dpkg --set-selections < student.flavour
apt-get dselect-install
(get a coffee)
set tzone

Or you can just hand conf a couple of flavours and rely on the
dependency tree to pull in your latest versions etc.

>
>hth, r:)
>-- 
>Romana Branden
>ITShare SA Inc/ComputerbankSA 
>http://itshare.org.au/
>ITShare SA gives away computer systems 
>created from donated hardware and opensource software.
>
>

p.s. I think I have an idea for the ultimate virus :)

connect these dots...

new udeb based installer , embed a stripped wget (or enhance explorer
/mozzy) gradually build up the net-installer  .... (slowly)
 build a root file system in ram (< 16 meg)
But above the old himem limit. (from scattered  files)

partition off a small working space > loopdev

when everything is in place install lilo and keep all their files but
next boot ... :)

Now add in some sort of filesharing encryption thingy and total world
domination :)

java or javascript vb :)

I guess I would get arrested or something :)

I AM joking !

pete