Re: [PLUG] Debian install

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

> Where is a good site (mirror?) for getting Debian 3 iso files?  Thanks.

Sorry to answer a question w/ a question, but here's the story. On the
bright side, you will learn why many of us don't mind such a minimal
installer (don't need to see it very often).

If your computer is networked then:

1. if you installed potato all ready, you can just upgrade to woody w/o
reinstalling or restarting. Here are detailed instructions on a
dist-upgrade:

http://www.debian.org/releases/woody/i386/release-notes/

2. net install is great. It only takes a couple floppies and a networked
computer. No need to download tons of cds if you only need a few packages.
And you can always apt-get later:

http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

I like the xfs net install, but that's really bare, and I am not sure that
the xfs filesystem is for everyone. From experience, I actually recommend
ext3, but this is off topic.

I'd like to get those tiny cds and burn some net installers to pass out
sometime.

3. you can also get the latest release on cds in which you generate on a
networked computer on the fly. That means that instead of downloading and
installing stale isos, you can get the isos with all the proper patches
all ready on there:

http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/

Jigdo is jigsaw installer. It creates isos on the fly from the latest
sources (like jigsaw puzzle).

Note that I have successfully installed jigdo on redhat7.2. It worked
great. I just created all nine sarge cds (sarge is debian testing, ver.
3.1).

4. Finally, if all this doesn't impress you, you can download a "polished"
installer for debian from here:

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/libranet/2.0/

Mike Leone is a big libranet advocate and his arguments make sense to me.
Easier installer to get your feet wet in debian, you can upgrade to woody
from here. I burned an iso a while ago, but I
never used it.

Also, there's the experimental installer (pgi):

http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/pgi/


Probably a bit more info than you bargained for, but I still think that
choice is good especially if you have a lot of really good choices.

Good luck with this, and feel free to ask more questions.

Fred

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