Re: installing debian
On Thu, Sep 16, 1999 at 09:12:41PM +0200, Tino van Uffelen wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I want to try and install debian. As I have a rather old computer (i486, 4mb
> ram and 60 mb Hard disk), I don't think I have room for both dos/windows and
> linux so I want to remove dos completely first. This means I don't have
> anything to fall back on when installing linux doesn't work. Could you
> please advise as what to do and which debian packages I should install.
>
> I have read the intallation guide to debian/linux. So I think I am
> comfortable with the first few steps. But what then.
>
> I've read that on a computer as old as mine, debian version 1.3.2 will work
> a bit quicker then the latest version, so I am intending to install that
> version.
If I were you, I would install 2.1.
I think the small performance boost isn't comparable to the bugfixes made
since 1.3.
Just a thought
> Will debian/linux partition my harddrive to my needs (I don't have a clou as
> to how to do that!)
I don't think it will do it without your help :)
But don't worry, it's simple when you use the cfdisk tool!
If I were in your shoes, I would just wipe all the partitions existing
and then make a 16 MB swap partition (you have to change the type) and a
linux partition from what is left. Also activate the linux partition (mark
it as bootable)
Probably making just one linux partition and then adding a swap file instead
of a swap partition would be better on such small disk, but this requires
some hand tweaking:
after the first reboot, when the installation process wants to start
dselect, switch to another virtual terminal (Alt-F2), log in as root and
issue the following commands:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1048576 count=n
(put number of megabytes of swap in place of "n")
mkswap /swapfile
sync
chmod 600 /swapfile
swapon /swapfile
if you want the swap to be activated every boot (if you are not sure, then
you want :)) you also should do:
echo "/swapfile none swap swap" > /etc/fstab
after the "swapon" command above
now, if for any reason you want more disk space just do:
swapoff /swapfile
rm /swapfile
and repeat the above commands with another amount of megabytes (no need to
repeat the echo command)
NOTE: changing the size of swap partition is impossible without deleting whole
harddrive
> I want to use my computer as a simple wordprocessor (maybe something
> compareble to works for windows 3.0??? a bit wordprocessor, a bit database
> and a bit spreadsheet.), nothing fancy and I want to be able to surf the
> internet, send and receive e-mail, and make my own webpages.
wow! you will probably need a larger hard drive if you want to do all of
these.
Recently I have installed an unstable version of Debian with the following:
1) X (including only 1 Xserver, xterm, icewm as a window manager and Polish
fonts)
2) Netscape Navigator
3) Myslq database server and client
4) apache Web server
5) PHP3
6) wget, MidnightCommander and joe - an editor
and it all took some 130 MB
Even not counting apache and PHP3 it will be hard for you to do all the
tasks you want with only 60 MB minus swap size of disk...
but again, I may be wrong
Marcin
--
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Marcin Owsiany
porridge@pandora.info.bielsko.pl
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