Reinstalling Debian on the Self-Reliant Thin Client (updated)

Since the CF card serving as the sole disk drive in the Self-Reliant Thin Client (Maxspeed Maxtor converted to use as a full desktop PC) checked out with fsck via a card reader on another PC, I decided to do a reinstall of Debian, this time Lenny instead of Etch.

I can't seem to use a Debian network mirror on this particular local network. Even though this particular LAN offers DHCP, it doesn't send DNS information, and my supplying the nameserver addresses doesn't jump-start the process. I used to install from this network with a static IP and have no trouble, and I'd like the choice between a dynamic and static IP in the Debian installer. I've been using my Debian Lenny DVD for installs recently, but I don't have a DVD drive pull to connect with the maze of IDE and power cables snaking out of the thin client's box. I did have a recent CD image of Lenny with Xfce and LXDE, so I burned that to a CD-R and used that to do the install on the thin client.

The Xfce desktop installation of Lenny, after the base install, is only 487 files (I believe the GNOME desktop version is some 700 files). So it shouldn't take as long as a network install. Having a CF card as the system's hard drive does lengthen the process. Commercial SSD's might be faster than traditional spinning magnetic hard drives, but garden-variety CF cards meant for digital cameras are definitely not as fast as regular disk drives.

Once the installation is done, I can pull those cables, remove the CD drive from the IDE cable Frankenstein "chain," reconnect the CF-to-IDE adapter that's built into the Maxspeed (using a VIA C3 Samuel CPU spec'd for 1 GHz but running at 500 MHz for some reason, with 256 MB RAM, the maximum for the ECS EVEm motherboard) and have a very portable PC with no spinning hard drives.

I generally install the standard Debian desktop with GNOME, but I have used the Xfce desktop installation, which unlike Ubuntu's Xfce variant Xubuntu doesn't include a whole lot of GNOME utilities.

That means no Synaptic, NetworkManager, Update Manager, etc. I might try managing the network interfaces with Wicd, which I don't think is even in Lenny but is probably available as a .deb package, or will certainly be available in Debian's Testing release, Squeeze.

Memory management: I have a limited number of PC133/PC100 memory sticks, and I had two 256 MB and one 128 MB stuffed into the Debian Mac (G4/466), which is running Debian Etch. (I have to update that box at some point; I hope I don't run into the same problems as I did with the thin client.) I had to pull one of the 256 MB modules to put into the thin client. What I really need to do is find a few cheap 512 MB PC133 memory sticks for the Mac. Not that Debian doesn't run great in 640 MB, but I'm always more comfortable with 1 GB, and the G4/466 maxes out at 1.5 GB. And I always recommend maxing out the RAM on any given computer (and usually do just that).

CF memory card as hard drive: I did most of my early experimenting with Linux and BSD on the Self-Reliant Thin Client using the aforementioned long IDE and hard-drive-power cables, into which I plugged any number of regular hard drives, switching them out at will. But I wanted to try running off the CF card (the thin client, back when it was an actual thin client, used just such a card for its own OS) and see just how long it will last in semi-regular use.

I could've used Puppy Linux as the OS, which is deliberately sparing of write cycles on the flash memory, and I still could. All I need is another CF card and I could easily swap them in and out of the thin client to run as many different OSes as I have cards. In fact, I just might leave the CD drive connected and the thin client case open, get a handful of CF cards and do those installations.

With a frugal install of Puppy Linux, I should be able to update the card without pulling the thin client apart and inserting a CD drive into the IDE chain (there's only one IDE header on the motherboard, otherwise this would be a lot easier).

Instead, I could pop the CF card out of the back of the thin client's CF-to-IDE adapter, replace the relevant files in the Puppy frugal install on another PC with a card reader, reinsert the CF card into the thin client and then have a fully updated Puppy box without needing to burn CDs and get the drive hooked up.

Later that day: I now am running Debian Lenny on the Self-Reliant Thin Client. Since I wasn't able to access a Debian mirror during the install, I used the Debian CD #1 image with Xfce and LXDE, choosing to install the Xfce desktop.

I've run the Xfce installation of Debian many times before, and while I at times appreciate all the GNOME tools in the standard Debian desktop (most of which are included in Ubuntu's Xubuntu variant, which is a lot more GNOMEish than not), I've been using Linux and BSD for about two years and have done my share of manual network configurations.

I'm also comfortable updating installations in the terminal and have gravitated toward Aptitude rather than apt because I tend to get more packages with Aptitude that make the given applications run better. Plus Aptitude keeps records of everything you've done with it — not that I know how to access said records, but I still use Aptitude because it works.

So I can get away without NetworkManager (although I've said I will try Wicd to manage the network interfaces in this installation) and Synaptic, and Xfce has plenty of GUI tools of its own to control the desktop.

Right now the first Aptitude upgrade is still running, and I'm enjoying 1280x1024 video (from an S3 Virage chip) on a LaCie 22-inch CRT monitor (the Daily News is swimming in these boat anchors). The graphics were never lightning-quick on this hardware, and no Linux kernel, Xorg implementation or other magic will change that. I've never been able to watch YouTube video on this box, even in Puppy Linux; and sound is similarly terrible. As a thin client with 2001-era hardware, the Maxspeed was never meant to be a fully functioning PC, even though I've been using it as such since 2007.

At first glance, I can tell you that Debian Lenny boots at least twice as quickly on the thin client with the CF flash card as hard drive than Etch did. That's a performance improvement I can live with.

I said before in this entry that I might keep the thin-client box torn apart in order to get another CF card, install Puppy Linux on it and be able to switch OSes by popping out one CF card and inserting another.

However, after a morning and afternoon screwing around with this in between doing my regular work, I'm ready to seal up the box and let Debian Lenny ride.