The Debian Operating System

4-1-06
Well I finally gave up playing with the Knoppix version of Debian and put the native Debian on the system. It is amazing how much better it works. I know Knoppix is supposed to really supposed to be a Live CD and not per se an installed OS but it was my first entry into the land of Linux. Anyway Debian is great. I was playing with it last night and this morning adding programs with Apt-get - which is the easiest program in the world.

So I am bragging!!!

Debian is easy because it loads with KDE the same desktop that Knoppix uses. KDE pretty easy to use so I get my kids on it. I am worried the computer is going to become a game machine for the kids not a project computer for me.

But I want to try out other flavors of Linux and see which I like most. That if if the kids give me any time on the computer I just set up. They are loving the games. Sure they are mostly 2-d games with no real action but they love them. Although they have a free version of Civilization which I was playing last night not as good as the original but i am still addicted to it!

You have to realize I put this on Pent III at 500 Mhz with 128 MB or RAM . And it runs great! It make me wonder how it would run on a current computer? They even make a 64 bit compatible version. I do not know if the 64 bit runs in 32 or 64 though. I have heard it just runs at 32 but I am not positive.


I am being good now! I only destroy computers when I have free time. Not in the middle of the semester like before! Also I use my External 120 GB hard drive and back up frequently (well not as much as I should). I am going to try to do it every Saturday morning that way my data will be safe.


As far as Debian goes the easiest was to do install is to do a network/Internet install. You burn one 180 MB file and boot your computer from it. I am wondering now, you should be able to do it from a flash drive. I had seen the documentation for it on the Debian site but did not read it. Anyway you boot from the iso and it is easy after that. It auto detects everything. I think it is easier than setting up a Windows machine. There are some tricky questions on it if you want to tweak it but you can leave the the defaults in Debian knows how to set itself up. Then it all depends on your Internet connection. My home DSL is good so it took about 30 minutes to an hour. Again, You have to realize I put this on Pent III at 500 Mhz.