On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 09:57:58AM -0400, Gregory Avedissian wrote:
My experience with Debian 3.0 -
The installer is archaic. First, you have to put in all four disks to be read. Then you get to select a base package, then you get to fill in more selections from a list of everything. You can use the arrow keys to scroll up and down the list of over a thousand packages and the space [...]
Ah, someone who hasn't learned the secret of dselect: Don't use it. :) To install debian, go and burn the bootable CD ISO image. After it installs the base system and launches dselect, find the key that exits immediately (I think it's 'x') and press it. (If you don't have access to a CD writer, you can put the base system on your FAT partition, and use the single boot floppy to access it.) You now have a bootable system with networking support. And you've done the hard part. From here on out, if you want anything just use "apt-get" (My first choice is usually "apt-get less" and other rediculously basic packages. Then, "apt-get x-window-system" which is an adventure and a half.) I like this method so much, because you have a system with only exactly what you want and nothing more. Which is good if your hard disk is 240M. But, of course there's a certain personality required to like Debian, because it certainly does nothing for you except install stuff with all its dependencies. Which is all I want in a distro to begin with. -Chuck