On Tuesday 02 September 2003 18:20, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> I have received my new Compaq Presario 2540EA and while Windows
> works on it nicely I decided I prefer to install some kind of a
> Linux distro.
>
> I found a set of Red Hat 9.0 CDs on my desk so I started to use them.
>
> boing: it got stuck quite at the beginning when it was trying to load
> the driver for 1390 (I have a built in firewire in this notebook).

The sony vaios also come with a firewire-based CD ROM. I was unable to find a 
distribution that is able to detect it during installation (though it is 
bootable).

But since you wrote:

> Anyway I am quite sure I'll try to install Debian on this machine

I'm willing to share with you what I did: I used the Debian installation 
diskettes to perform a network installation; that worked like a charm. AFAIK 
that's what all other vaio users do, so maybe it's the right solution for 
you...

Of course, diskette + network installation will work for all distributions, 
not just Debian - but don't tell anyone :-)

> I also would like to know if it is safe to use the
> network installation of Debian ?

Sure. During the network installation you are not running any services, so 
there are no entry points to your machine. If you're especially worried, 
install it behind a NAT gateway and no-one will be able to reach you from the 
Internet.
(For the purists sake I'll mention that there is the possibility the Debian 
mirror will get hacked and some plants a special "Gabor Trojan" that will be 
installed there just to hack your machine. I doubt that's a realistic 
scenario, though)

>
> How secure is my computer during installation before I can harden it
> manually ?

"Secure enough".

>
> I attended Shachars presentation in August where AFAIR he suggested
> to pick up a Debian derivative distro. Install that and then
> get-apt to unstable. Is this what you recommended ?

I wasn't in Shachar's presentation, but in one of Shachar's installations I 
attended (it was on one of my machines), he installed Debian stable and then 
distupgraded to unstable. That's what I've been doing since.

-- 
"It was only a one liner. A semi-illiterate chipmunk could've written
it. " -- MBY about his 2.5.73 kernel patch in tpam_queues.c

- Aviram

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