Doing the BIG Debian update
The big Debian update is installing now on my main box (desktop install, with GNOME and Xfce) -- I'm pretty confidant all will work when it's all done.
It's so easy to do these updates in Debian (and everything derived from it, including Ubuntu). Even so, I'm committed to learning how to do this very thing in the Slackware environment. My Slack drive sits right next to the Debian drive (each a 14.4 GB IBM-made IDE drive), and my hacked thin client (Maxspeed Maxterm) has extra-long cables running outside the box that enable me to swap drives at will.
Actually, the Debian drive also includes a pup_save for Puppy Linux 2.16. The Slack drive is configured to triple-boot Slackware 12, Vector Standard 5.8 and Xubuntu 7.04. It's pretty full -- not all that much room for files, actually.
And I have a third drive with SimplyMepis 6.5 on it. On this VIA C3 Samuel 1 GHz system with 256 MB of RAM, Mepis and its KDE desktop run so slow, it's distracting. KDE runs way better in Slackware, and I've been able to take care of all the configuration issues that have come up (thanks, LinuxQuestions.org!!). Once I write up the SimplyMepis review, that drive is fair game for something new.
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Enjoying reading your blog, specially the Linux stuff. Everyone has their favourite distro and mine's currently Vector 5.8 Gold. It's faster than 5.8 SOHO and I like the simplicity of the XFCE desktop, even is it isn't very configurable. One day I should compare it to Slack I guess...
I'm currently trying out Deli Linux which I think was mentioned in a posting on your blog. Very interesting install routine! I want to see how it runs on a 200 MHz Pentium 1, but LILO wouldn't install to the MBR so I have to do some Googling.
In Deli Linux, I can never get past the point where it can't find my CD drive and asks me to type in the name. How can it not find the CD drive if it booted from CD in the first place?
Steve,
just wrote a short Howto about QEMU on http://blog.thedebianuser.org/?p=204 - maybe that could help you testing all these distributions?
Kind regards,
Wolfgang
I have used QEMU to run Puppy Linux, and on a Pentium 4 at 3 GHz with 512 MB of RAM, it was really slow -- almost unusable. I don't know how much CPU you need to have a good experience with QEMU, but what I have is not enough. And my test machine runs at 1 GHz -- it would be worse, I think.
My next project -- fixing the somewhat grainy fonts in Debian Etch (in Firefox).
(Update: I DID fix the fonts ... details forthcoming in a new post)