Re: status of debian-np

[Daniel Tygel <dtygel@nowtech.com.br>]

Really nice to read the last messages!
  Vagrant, count on me for helping with possible translations to portuguese. I'll check the links that you pointed out. It seems like Otavio is brazilian, is it right? If so, where do you live? I live in a tiny city in Minas Gerais.
  
  Let me see if I understand: is Debian-NP already well-suited for old hardware? Vagrant was talking about developing a cd-installer for Debian-NP based in other projects (skolelinux and freekbox). So I'll take a look in all those sites and check how they work. Here at home I have three computers: the one I work is a PentiumII 233Mhz with 128MB. There is another one which is a PI-210Mhz with only 32MB RAM, and finally an ooooold IBM notebook: a 486, 60Mhz with 20MB ram.

  So the best way I might help you guys is testing stuff in these three computers: the ease of installation, functionality, and so on. Maybe I'll start taking a look at debian-installer (does it work normally with debian-NP?).

  I'm not a developer, but an end-user who can type some code, just that. But you may count on me for this debian-NP project, since I guess it might be very important for us here in Brasil...

  Have you checked the slinky-installer of the rule-project? Gio, the RedHat installed by slinky is installed with very basic packages, using ICE WM, TinyX, the option between AbiWord and OpenOffice, and also the option to install some softwares for net...

  A question: is there any project trying to build a simplified OpenOffice package suited for old machines? I'm really impressed by the difference in resources consumption when we compare m$office and OpenOffice. Why is that so? (this might be a stupid question... but don't forget I'm an end-user).

  So, if I might help somehow in this project, let me know!
        Daniel

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:39:46 -0800
Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@freegeek.org> wrote:

> 
> always a good thing.
> 
> >   Until now, the best distros I found with the caracteristics pointed out by Gio were the following:
> >     - Vector Linux (actually in version 4);
> >     - RULE project.
> 
> there has definitely been mention of the RULE project before.  not sure
> about vector linux, but i'm slightly familiar with it.
> 
> >   Let me tell you about RULE project: it's a really great idea! It's a
> >   project aiming at working on existing distros, trying to build an
> >   installer which will install a basic package of that distro. Until
> >   now they have been working with RedHat. They developed an installer,
> >   called "slinky installer", which can install RedHat in as low as
> >   12MB RAM computer!!
> 
> impressive!
> 
> >   I think that other developers could join the efforts of RULE to
> >   develop installers for other distros, like Debian or Debian NP.
> 
> i'm not sure exactly how we would... debian-installer can work on as low
> as 32MB machines, possibly lower.  it has a lot of nice features and
> flexibility.
> 
> http://debian.org/devel/debian-installer
> 
> >   A question to this list: is the Debian NP project somehow stopped?
> 
> i would like to think of it as stalled more than stopped :)
> 
> most of the debian-np developers have been working on other projects,
> from what i understand. so there's always room for more folks!
> 
> currently, i would like to make an installation CD similar to the
> debian-edu/skolelinux project's installer, based on debian's sarge
> (pre)release, and use freegeek's freekbox3 package list(s) and debconf
> selections, and make a few profiles out of it.  i'd also be interested
> in making a low-resource alternative that's similar.
> 
> freegeek has started getting enough hardware that they're able to ship
> out 300MHz+ PII desktop computers with 128MB ram.  only a year and half
> ago, it was 166-200MHz PI's with 80MB of ram, and a year before that,
> 100-166MHz with 48MB ram.  so freegeek has some experience with the
> lower-end desktop linux machines, but less so with each passing year :)
> 
> http://skolelinux.org
> http://freegeek.org
> http://cvs.freegeek.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/freekbox3/
> 
> at the moment, i have considerable free time to work on this stuff,
> though it may not last very long.
> 
> live well,
>   vagrant
>