Re: [PLUG] troubled newbie with debian

[Fred K Ollinger <follinge@sas.upenn.edu>]

> Reason for using 2.0 is that the equipment I'm trying to install on is
> even more obsolete.  This is a (not another!) learning experience.  I
> cannot even put all of the packages in this edition that I would want as
> the hard drive is only half a gig.  The DOS side is also an experiment

I'm not quite sure if a new version of debian would be any bigger.

> with freedos.  I have to use archaic equipment for two reasons.  My wife

Freedos rocks! Great for its simplicity to learn about hardware, IMHO. It
has the fastest boot time I've ever seen. It doesn't do very much, though.
It's pretty cool to see what we were missing before the days of real
multi-user, multi-tasking oses.

> The freedos experiment is working better for me simply because I am more
> familiar with it than with Unix and therefore Linux.  I know that is a
> function of time but I have to get the damned thing running first to get
> used to using it.

Have you thought of net or openbsd? They are quite small.

What are kids going to do with these systems? Seems like learn unix and
programming skills. If someone wanted to learn unix for unix's sake, I'd
give them openbsd. It's a piece of cake as all the config files are well
commented and the faq at www.openbsd.org is awesome. We need to get a link
to a clone of this on the debian front page. It's a pain to upgrade,
though, compared to debian as it wants you to do everything by hand that's
automated and debconfed.

Good luck.

Fred

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