Steven wrote:
>
> The best distributions for survPCs are probably Slackware
> and Debian. They both enable you to pick and choose what
> to install, so you can create a compact/zippy installation
> (very important for survPCs). I think Slackware is better
> (particularly for DOS dinosaurs), but it wouldn't be a
> mistake to use Debian.
Slackware is better at minimal installations for new users.
Debian can be very minimal as well but it takes some more knowledge.
Debian has to ways of installation, a manual one and one based on a
profile. The profile selects a bunch of packages for you but will
give you a rather bloated setup. Manual selection is a little harder
and takes quite some time. You'll have to select all packages by
hand. READ THE DSELECT MANUAL. dselect scares many first time users
but it is really easy to use once you know it. If you ever need help
with it just mail me, I'm more then willing to help. (I'm actually
writing a book about installing Debian). dselect allows you to
select all packages by hand, and there are quite a lot of them.
(2.1 (Slink) consists of 2600 packages, and 2.2 (Potato) will be
closer to 5000). This is a lot work, especially if you have to read
all the descriptions to learn what does what. Fortunatly dselect
will tell you what packages you need to get a working system.
It's called dependencies. A package has tells dselect what other
packages it needs to run, and what other packages it advises.
dselect presents this to the user. It's really convenient once you
learned to communicate with dselect.
--
Casper Gielen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
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