In my never ending search for the ultimate challenge, I decided to remove Gentoo Linux from my trusty laptop and install something else that wasn’t as resource starving. Thus, Debian was selected.Debian is one of (if not) the oldest Linux distributions out there, being initially created in 1993 by a bunch of computer enthusiasts. Why Debian you may ask? I guess the major reason is because it is well know for its reliability and availability of applications. Second, it doesn’t have a nice GUI instalation interface, which would automatically label it as “non user-friendly” by many people. That is when the challenging bit comes in. Granted the installation itself took me less than 10 minutes and automagically detected pretty much all of my hardware (except for my non-Linux compliant wireless card), you still have to know some important information about partitioning your disks and selection of kernels, etc… and I’ve been around Linux for some time now, making me a little bit more “seasoned” than someone trying Debian for the first time.
The first thing I did was browse through Debian’s web site for the download section. Once there, I decided to try the net installation using the new, still in beta net-installer-rc2 (Release Candidate 2), found at http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/. You should make sure you choose the appropriate version for the type of computer you have (Pentium users would select the x86 image). The net-installer comes in two different flavors: minimal or full CD images. Since I have a good internet connection I figured I’d try the minimal CD (download less for a quicker result) and then install any extra packages as needed. That is actually a good thing, for it will allow you to really costumize your computer, by picking and choosing what you want to be installed.
Well, 15 minutes after starting the download (I had a pretty good mirror to download from) I popped a blank CD into my burner and burned the fresh *.iso image into a bootable Debain CD. I checked my laptop for a second time to make sure I had backed up all my files and restarted it with the new CD in it. At the very basic boot prompt, you’re greeted with a prompt that simply says “press for help or Enter to boot. If you like defaults, pressing Enter will start the initial install setup using a plain vanilla kernel image and assuming you have a “normal” computer that doesn’t require any special attention. However, if you do experience problems after hitting Enter at the prompt, chances are some of your hardware is not being detected by the default setup. If this is your case, reboot your machine and this time around press the F1 key for a detailed menu of possible boot parameters you can start the setup process and hopefully detect all of your hardware. I actually typed expert26 at the prompt so that the initial setup used the new kernel 2.6.x (turns out it was 2.6.8 optimized for the 386 computers) and allowed me greater control over what was being done. Once again, the defaults should work for most people.
boot: expert26
Assuming you get passed the initial boot process, from here on, you’ll have to make several decisions, selecting your options from the screen (menu-based and not point-and-click interface) by using your keyboard keys. Use the TAB key to choose YES, NO, or CANCEL, and the ENTER key to make your selection. Toggle options on and off by using the SPACE key.
The following is a somewhat brief descriptions of all the questions I had to answer and what I chose to select from the available options. Since I’m writing this based off my mental notes, the wording will be different from the actual options displayed on your screen.
Since this will be a ONE operating system ONLY, I chose (a). If you’re planning on dual booting with Windows, chose (b). Choosing (a) will give you the following screen:
PARTITIONING SCHEMES
The installer will partition the hard drive automatically, without the user’s intervention. Here’s how it will partition according to your choice:
I’d recommend newbies to choose (a) and continue. I actually chose (b) for personal reasons. Once you choose your file system and press Enter, you will be taken to the previous screen. Select “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk” and press Enter. The setup will warn you that all your data will be lost if you proceed and you’ll just have to trust me and choose YES from the next menu.
I chose GRUB over Lilo. You do not want to chose both!!!
Remove the CD from the CD-ROM and choose to reboot the computer. We are almost finished with the installation now. This time around, when you’re done rebooting, you are greeted with a new menu:
I chose “unstable”… Not for the faint of heart!!! Choose “stable” for your first time…
Here, the screen goes black, and APT starts checking the mirror for the Debian version you chose. Time for another stretch…
You are now taken to the console (black screen) with a debian login.
You’ll be prompted to enter your login name (for me I’ll login with gkemist) and password:
debian login: gkemist
password: *************************
… and the most beautiful thing will be displayed to you: The command-line prompt!!!
gkemist@frodo:~$
For my next article I will walk you through actually installing an x-window environment and getting some cool applications installed. In the meantime, enjoy the fact that you have come of age in the Linux world!!!
About the author:
Og Maciel is a Visual Basic.NET and Oracle programmer by day for the Board of Education of NYC, and a huge Linux enthusiast/evangelist during his free free time. He first started using Linux in 1997 and have since fallen in love with the OS and community.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
“install something else that wasn’t as resource starving.”
I was wondering what the best linux for ‘old’ computers is.
my dad has a pentium 3 600 MHz machine
what would be the best distro -> fastest running with good usability for my dad on this machine
I would go for Mandrake 10.1-Official if you are not willing to configure/maintain the machine yourself, and Arch Linux if you are willing to do the initial few-hours configurations to bring the machine’s permissions to a satisfiable degree for a normal user.
Just make sure the machine has more than 128 MBs of RAM, because otherwise, distros like Fedora, SuSE or Mdk are really slow on low RAM. Arch, Slackware or Debian are borderline slow with 128 MBs. Below that (e.g. 64 MBs), I suggest you stay with Windows 98SE or WinME.
Ubuntu seems to run pretty well on older hardware, as well.
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
No graphical install, though. However, the installer is not difficult at all, if you’ve installed an OS before.
There’s always Damn Small Linux & Vector. Maybe even BeatrIX and ubuntu would work well.. There’s thousands of choices, no reason to stick with 98/ME.
More importantly, what desktops to run. They’ll all run on resource-starved computers, but some run better than others. I hate to get into Gnome vs KDE vs XYZ, but fact of the matter is, Gnome and KDE are pretty heavy compared to lesser desktops (XFCE, Fluxbox, etc.)
Where distros come into play is: what desktop environment they install by default, and whether they even have alternative, light-weight desktops on the installation CDs so you can choose them with little effort.
what is the aim of this article? There is already a thousand of articles that deals about a debian installation.
It is a waste of time!
i guess the first distro is slackware, but debian is a pioneer..
don’t have much ram, don’t use KDE (maybe even GNOME) – use something like XFCE (i’m using fluxbox)
debian is definately my favorite distro – i’m currently running it on a powerbook G4 – works great, sometimes i just wish it’d be a bit more up2date..but the stability tradeoff is worth it -> i’m using debian/unstable and i never had problems a used linux user couldn’t solve (used means you know how to configure text-files and console-basics maybe one year of experience) – but i think ubuntu is trying to fill the gap on the being up2date..tradeoff is that there aren’t as many packages as in debian (that’s a whole lot)..but you can always install official debian packages..
from my debian laptop experiences:
INSTALL:
apm
* if ACPI doesn’t work and/or your system is older, use apm
cpufreqd
*(manual and automatic adjusting of cpu speed)
gnome cpufreqd applet
* interface to above
go to /usr/bin as root and chmod +s cpufreq-selector (now you can change speeds by clicking on icon in gnome-panel)
laptop-mode-tools
* controls spindown of hard disks and cpu speed on/off battery
laptop-net
* auto configures networking when you plug in cable, disables when you unplug;
tpb (for thinkpads)
xosd
add nvram to /etc/modules (for thinkpads, maybe others)
* these add on-screen display and operation for laptop control buttons
if suspend doesn’t work, add scripts in /etc/apm/suspend.d and resume.d to stop and restart alsa and pcmcia services which can interfere with suspend. It’s easy… just copy an existing script and tweak it.
firestarter
* easy to use firewall – you can allow incoming connections by clicking on them or setting policies; I added it to the networking script to start/stop when networking did
ssh
* don’t use ftp or telnet, use ssh for secure communications!
CONFIGURE:
change /etc/syslog.conf and reroute everything to /dev/tty8 instead of log files –> reduces disk activity and you can see stuff by pressing CTRL-ALT-F8
change /etc/hdparm.conf and add dma, 32bit, multisector and umask settings to your hard drive
change /etc/fstab and add noatime to all writeable media in the options section (ie. rw,user,noatime) These prevents your hard disk from writing access time on each file you read
change /dev/inittab and comment out all but the first two of the six console ttys… saves RAM
move /etc/exim4 DISABLED_exim4 and /etc/inetd DISABLED_inetd as these are probably useless services on a notebook
SECURITY
* prevent outside use of portmap
edit /etc/default/portmap to listen only to localhost
but keep it around for famd which automatically updates your file browser contents when they change
* not allow root login on consoles
mv /etc/securetty to DISABLED_securetty and touch and empty version; this forces you to login as a regular user and su to root
* not allow ssh root login
make sure you install and use ssh for communicating remotely to/from your notebook
edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config to remove rootlogin… again this means you must ssh in as a regular user and su to root
* remove linux info and warn off people
change /etc/issue to a prohibition on unauthorized use and email address for loss/theft. These file is displayed on consoles
* install nmap and run it to probe ports
you should have many other than cups, instant messenger, mail, portmap, etc.
It’s a shame so many of these OSNEWS articles are superficial how-to-install things. There’s a lot more useful stuff to do.
if you’re willing to do the setup beforehand for somebody else, ROX + a window manager makes a darn nice desktop with low resources. ditto for XFCE
OK, just wondering, whats the best distro for a fast x86-64 with a couple of Gig of Ram / SATA / PCI-E etc… May be my next purchase.
If older hardware is concerned, I’d go for NetBSD 2.0 or FreeBSD 5.x/4.x of the BSD’s, and Linux, well any binary distribution built for i386, that in case “older” is really old, i.e. <i686 (PIII, Athlon). My suggestion would be Slackware or Debian. For your dad’s PC, I would recommend Gentoo but only if you’re eager to learn a lot in short time and are at least a little bit experienced with computing. In the other case, try Mandrake or SuSE, they’re more user-friendly. Just take care of the software you install, it shouldn’t be the hungriest system resources consumer.
I myself use Gentoo Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Gentoo on my 3.2GHz machine, both other on slower ones.
I run Debian unstable + Gnome 2.8 on a PIII-700 Thinkpad. I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and play movies with Xine. No probs and I don’t miss my desktop.
Any distro would work great on that. However I still have to recommend Debian for any and all computers. Its what I know, its what I use. Others would say gentoo, but i pull for debian.
If older hardware is concerned, I’d go for NetBSD 2.0 or FreeBSD 5.x/4.x of the BSD’s, and Linux, well any binary distribution built for i386, that in case “older” is really old, i.e. <i686 (PIII, Athlon).
I would second that NetBSD smokes on older hardware although you would have to fiddle with it a bit to get a dekstop system running on it. I personally prefer Suse Personal for desktop use it seems cleaner.
As predicted by bob, I’ll say Gentoo then 🙂
You _could_ use Debian, if you like the idea of your shiny 64 bit processor pretending to be 32 bit the whole time. AFAIK there isn’t a native version of Debian for AMD64.
The AMD64 version of Gentoo is still a bit experimental, but that’s most of the fun 😀
does noone here remember yiggdrasil?
now, said that, i’m a slackwarer
http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/
Debian on AMD64
This page is meant to assist users and Debian developers running Debian GNU/Linux on the AMD64 architecture. Here, you will find information about the current status of the port, which machines are publically accessible by developers, where to discuss development of the port, where to get further information about Debian porters, and pointers to more information.
Current Status
The AMD64 port is currently waiting to be included into the official Debian archive. The development archive is currently hosted on Alioth. The port contains kernels for all AMD 64bit CPUs with amd64 extension and all Intel CPUs with “em64t” extension, and a common userspace.
A complete 64bit userland
The userland is entirely 64bit, taking advantage of the additional CPU registers, no lower and upper memory segmentation and the ability to address more then 4GB per process. Native execution of legacy 32bit binaries is supported by the kernel, and core libraries are provided by the ia32-libs package.
This guy installed Gentoo without any problem, but saw the Debian install as a challenge? Hmm? Nobody besides me thinks there’s something odd about this?
thank you , Anonymous from …..cable.rogers.com
very good tutorial, agree with you that we only read about installing and installing.
more of your stuff, very well explained
thanks
I’ve happily used many of the popular distros on an old P633 PC with 256MB and very humble i610 integrated graphics.
As other have said, its worth increasing the memory if you prefer KDE or GNONE desktops. If the PC likewise has integrated graphics, you might also consider putting in a graphics card to improve speed or incase of weak driver support.
Distro choice is largely personal taste, so I order a bunch of liveCDs by mail ( http://www.budgetlinuxcds.com is very current & cheap). You can try them out and check for look & feel, package selection, HW compatibility, configuration tools, forums etc.
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php has a complete list liveCDs sortable by name, ISO size or function.
Me, I currently like ProMepis & even more PCLinuxOS. They compress about 1.9GB of very sane app choices into onto 1 CD and both have clean well organised menus. One is Debian based with KDE & GNOME desktops. The other has Mdk drake tools and you can re-master your own custom liveCD.
Its all good and thankfully varied.
What? Unless I totally misunderstand this (and I hope I do) this is the bigest load of #%$^! Since when is picking what gets installed on your system constitute a distribution that equals resource starvation for a computer system!?!?
Gentoo is one of the most configurable distributions out there! Everything can be installed from source for crying out loud!
Whew, now I feel better 😉
Since when is picking what gets installed on your system constitute a distribution that equals resource starvation for a computer system!?!?
-O3
I was wondering what the best linux for ‘old’ computers is.
my dad has a pentium 3 600 MHz machine
what would be the best distro -> fastest running with good usability for my dad on this machine
For a Windows user that don’t want to find out how to config things on the commandline? Xandros Linux. For the diehard that want a quick, small _and_ up2date system? Slackware. For the ones who want to have a reliable desktop with a rocksolid system behind? Free- or NeTBSD. I use Free- and NetBSD for desktops 🙂
i have several old machies doing live sering (hobby, smaller projects) using netbsd. it works very well. not only does it not require reosurces for non-essentials, it also now, with netbsd 2.0, makes even better use of your hardware investment.
What? Unless I totally misunderstand this (and I hope I do) this is the bigest load of #%$^! Since when is picking what gets installed on your system constitute a distribution that equals resource starvation for a computer system!?!?
Gentoo is one of the most configurable distributions out there! Everything can be installed from source for crying out loud!
Whew, now I feel better 😉
Compile on an old box and understand what the guy meant. Drop the zealotry, please, compiling’s not for everyone.
That’s what ebuilds are for…and I don’t like Gentoo.
I would say go with Slackware or Debian. So far those have proven to be computer savers for me. I have a couple of really old laptops and desktops that I installed these distros on and they both run REALLY well.
Slackware is the fastest of the two IMHO, and my personal favourite. But Debian’s apt-get is slowly spoiling me and I’m finding it to be a lovely treat to keep the system updated.
BTW: Debian isn’t THAT out of date. Unstable and even Testing both have pretty updated versions of the two major DE’s and xfce4 4.2 which has just been release can be installed with no problems from a thirdparty repo.
I love them both and recommend them whenever I can.
Gentoo is one of the most configurable distributions out there! Everything can be installed from source for crying out loud!
But who wants to spend a whole week compiling it on an old box? And that is just for installation. What about updates? Or when you want to install a new webrowser? Do you want to wait 3 long days for that box to compile that? When you can just grab the binary package and in less then a minute already have been browsing the net by then? Wow you can compile stuff from source! Can’t you do that in most(if not all) Linux distros? Nothing special there man.
As previously noted, Debian is not the oldest distro. Slackware is the oldest distro that still is around and others before Slack.
Secondly, he is spewing the common misconception that Debian is a hard distro to use. The biggest problem is the antiquated installer that he bypassed by using Sarge.
Thirdly on he recommends using the ‘stable’ packages, which are pointlessly outdated for a common user and would shy them away from Debian. Testing packages are relatively stable, and even unstable would be considered stable compared to other distros’ stable.
Finally he misspells Purdue. For shame.
Someone suggested using ebuilds insted of compiling but one has to ask the question i.e. why use Gentoo then? Cannot the prospective user use another distro with prepackaged easily available binaries like those rpm distros such as FC, SuSE, MDK; or others like Slackware, Arch? The whole idea about using gentoo is for optimization for optimization sake irrespective of care for duration of installation, building, configuration.
If one has some really old or “challenged” hardware (e.g. 128 mb or < ram), I suggest you either go for a total cli experience (a number of distros allow for a base install only option) or opt for something with light WMs like Vector Linux – http://www.vectorlinux.com/
it doesn’t have a nice GUI instalation interface, which would automatically label it as “non user-friendly” by many people. That is when the challenging bit comes in.
<snip>
you still have to know some important information about partitioning your disks and selection of kernels, etc…
<snip>
boot: expert26
Well, duh. He selected an expert install and wanted it to be n00b-friendly? How about trying to just hit enter at the boot prompt?
Its not the prettiest of installers, but the default install mode is fast, lightweight, and easy to use. At the same time, it gives you the option of what kind of packages you want installed (i.e. graphical desktop, web server, db server, etc… and it picks the packages for you). So the author chose not to install any packages (i.e. make it a desktop installation) and he wonders why he gets a pretty command prompt at the end?
Ubuntu has an “official” ia64 build… not that I have tried it myself
There is lots of off-topic discussion in this thread and everyone advertising their favourite distros, as usual.
Luis Lima wrote recently a similar, although more detailed, Debian installation guide using net-installer-rc2 http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9271 They both chose the “expert” installation option, although the “linux26” option is easier and will work for most users. The laptop after-installation tweaks from Anonymous (IP: —.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com) sound quite good and I’ve rarely seen them in this kind of howto’s. The writer of the present article, Og Maciel promises to guide new Debian users with more after-installation configurations in further articles and that will be most welcome reading.
Personally I find that installing the base system with the new Sarge net-installer (rc-2) is quite easy. The difficult part begins when you start configuring your system and choosing the kind of desktop software you need. Well, at least Debian has lots of packages to choose from and the packages management frontends — apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, etc — are better than in any other distribution, IMO.
Also Debian offers many command line tools, some with ncurses or GUI frontends, that require considerable knowledge of the Debian GNU/Linux system. How to ensure that you don’t install buggy packages (apt-listbugs, apt-listchanges), how to load kernel modules (modprobe, modconf) how to configure the default applications (update-alternatives), how to re-run some post-installation scripts for important packages (dpkg-reconfigure, gkdebconf), how to manage services (invoke-rc.d, update-rc.d, rcconf, sysvconfig), etc, etc.
In addition, setting up a Debian desktop system requires often editing config files with a text editor, reading man pages and documentation in /usr/share/doc and sometimes doing google searches and asking questions in help forums. But still I don’t think that Debian is among the most difficult GNU/Linux distros. It is a very popular distro with many users and help is always available when you get stuck trying to accomplish some task.
Besides, Debian’s age shows in maturity — the whole system is very clearly organized and Debian developers have added post-install scripts and sane defaults to many packages that make the apps often ready to be used right after installation, which is not always the case with some less mature distros or operating systems. Also it is made easy for normal users to participate in developing Debian by filing bug reports, which are always well received. The large number of system developers and package maintainers work really hard to fix all reported bugs.
Because gentoo is still the most bleeding edge. You may want ebuild a, and the latest of b.
I like Gentoo. Up2date repositories. No dependency problems. However…LOL. You need some power for compilation or you going to get frustaded after a while. So for old hardware I try what others have recommended: DSL, Ubuntu, … But if you have a good machine, even a 64 system then go with gentoo. You are going to have some fun, and a distribution without many complications. Dont get scare about what people say. Go with stage 1 instalation. I am not a pro, and I didnt have any problem. Gentoo has a great documentation.
I found this article to be somewhat useless.
A noob tries Debian, so what?!
Why is it posted on OSnews?
Why not? Just because you see this as useless doesn’t mean it is to another user. I respect the fact that osnews also feels this way.
You can’t please everyone, and this is horrifyingly obvious when you read the comments on this site.
Keep up the good work OSnews.
Zealotry!? How about dropping ignorance!?! If you mean by try compiling on older hardware the fact that it will take a while, then please state so. Otherwise this once again makes no sense! When you can pick what gets installed and what doesn’t you will ALWAYS have a better tuned system no matter the age of the hardware.
How will Debian, Slackware or any other distribution be any different than Gentoo? They all use the same kernel and pretty much the same tools. Some just have more of them that come defualt than others.
Gentoo is good…but if you need a real power packed distro along with excellent management tool. Go for SUSE 9.1 or above. Its the best no doubt
/me using Debian/Unstable/Gnome onto a notebook with celeron 400 and 128Mb of RAM.
imho it runs smoothly.
It’s a bit “slow” when I have to launch openoffice.
If you have a lot of big apps such as openoffice it will be slow obviously.
The subject of this article is handled so many times before, and I would say that this one doesn’t tell me anything new.
I’ve been reading the “a month with a Mac” articles and I really like the idea. Maybe there could be more “a month with” stories. I have thought about writing my own, the problem is that I can’t switch for that long because of my work (which is primarily windows oriented). The installation of Linux isn’t that hard anymore, using Linux in day to day life is! Maybe some folks have the time to share their thoughts and experiences??
i am not a regular linux user, i have only used the debian branch of AGNULA. rather i am a freebsd user. however, just because you have installed the os does not mean very much. i feel that you have come of age once you have compiled your first custom kernel.
You know what amazes me – it’s not that people find some articles here and other places of little value, its that they take a time to complain and whine about them over and over and over. Sheesh, if you aren’t interested in something, *don’t read it*.
Amazing how the internet allows us to drop all social skills, politeness, and general decency as we become a bunch of rude, petulant little jerks through the safety of distance that the internet gives us.
God, just skip it and move on to the next article if you’re not interested or start your own website.
“Amazing how the internet allows us to drop all social skills”
This isn’t sesame street. OSNews is a business and if it wants to sell advertising, it needs happy visitors.
hi,
I have a friend of mine using AMD64 laptop, I am going to try installing Linux64 on his laptop, have any of you used linux64 before? How’s the performance for applications and games? Thank you
“Just make sure the machine has more than 128 MBs of RAM, because otherwise, distros like Fedora, SuSE or Mdk are really slow on low RAM. Arch, Slackware or Debian are borderline slow with 128 MBs. Below that (e.g. 64 MBs), I suggest you stay with Windows 98SE or WinME.”
I have Ubuntu running on an old 350MHz cpu, 128 Meg RAM Gateway machine, and it runs lickety-split fast. Everything just pops up virtually instantly, except, of course larger programs like OpenOffice or FireFox (Gecko rendering engine is big and takes a while to load) take longer to load.
I also have Ubuntu running on my 300MHz, 228 meg RAM Thinkpad 600, and again, it’s blazingly fast. I’ve had Red Hat 9, Mandrake 10, SimplyMepis, and now Ubunut running on that machine, and Ubuntu was easily the fastest.
I’m amazed at how fast Ubuntu is on this legacy hardware.
A few other nice things about Ubuntu: It’s based on Debian unstable (optimized and tested for stability), and it has a brain-dead easy installer, modified and optimized from the new Debian Sarge installer.
Keep up the good work who ever you are REAL Laptop stuff
By Anonymous (IP: —.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com) – Posted on 2005-01-25 21:14:09
> 3. Is the hardware clock set to GMT?
> Choose NO unless, you live in England or nearby.
D’oh. This is a question about whether your hardware clock is set to GMT or to the time in your local timezone…
I use Debian on all my desktop computers and on two Gateway PIII 700mhz and 600mhz laptop and love it.
I also echo everyone else whoever wrote the laptop info should maybe consider writing a whole artcle about debian with laptops or anything else debian thanks alot Anonymous (IP: —.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com)
Removed Gentoo for Debian? Resource starving eh?
I have seen this all before. If anyone has a reasonable machine (>1Ghz) that can handle the compiling of Gentoo within reason (You only have to do it once I tell you), and you know what you want from Linux (a seasoned user) then run Gentoo. The base GUI install (base + X + Window Manager) can be tar.gz and burnt to CD for other installs – as long as you don’t compile for P4 and load it on a P2. Keeping everything up to date is not that hard. Have portage renice compiles to a conservative level and keep working!
But, if you are a Linux user that likes going through distros like underpants and like to stick the toe in the linux pond for fun – leave Gentoo alone and come back another year when you are sick of the others.
Capital idea Mr. Magoo
A lot of stuff always end up in a distro war.
I don’t us Gentoo but your point is well taken.
Jim
I have a 350MHz K6 128MB RAM, 4GB HD laptop that runs Debian unstable with the 2.6 kernel just fine.
However, it is too slow for XINE, and I don’t bother trying to run KDE or GNOME on it. OLWM works fine as a window manager, and the Debian menus are automatically populated no matter which window manager you choose.
While I agree that a 4GB hard drive is absurd for anyone trying to view movies, everything I need in terms of Debian OS and applications only takes up about 1GB. More than enough space left over for everything the little machine is good for.
I agree with the other posters, less than 128MB of RAM makes for a difficult time.
Any Linux system should be running with the clock set to GMT, not local time. Things will just work as they should. Again, answer YES to the question “does the system clock use GMT,” unless you are dual booting Windows on the machine.
You set your time zone later, which has nothing to do with setting the system clock to GMT.
Archangel, it has already been pointed out where to get fully 64-bit Debian. The official archives don’t contain the necessary files, but they are available from alioth.
http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/
If u’r using unstable flavor, u’ll not need security sources for apt at all, just in cases that u r using stable or testing, or both