Re: Takin' the plunge...

["Royce Bell" <rpbell@earthlink.net>]

Sheesh, you guys are scaring the pants off me!  Or, maybe I'm just getting
to old to go about things like I did 30 years ago...hmmm?  Actually, I'm not
so scared as I am overwhelmed at how much I have forgotten over the years of
DOS/Windows immersion (I'd transliterate that as "baptism," but the
scriptural import of that term implies newness, regeneration, and Heaven:
All terms that seem quite inappropriate in the context of BSOD).

A number of you have posted me directly with a recommendation of Libranet as
a good starting point, while still maintaining the Debian relationship.  A
couple of you guys (any gurls here?)  warned that I would not be happy with
Libranet.  Am I correct in understanding Libranet IS Debian with simplified
installation/management?  And, are there limitations to Libranet that I need
to know going in?  Are there benefits to the Debian distro directly, and
what are they?  At this point, I'm not so sure I'm interested in a plethora
of configuration options, so much as a clean and stable install that will
let me get the system up, running StarOffice or some other suite
(suggestions?), connected to my Earthlink/DSL account, and printing.

Also, I'm not sure I am understanding some terms you guys are using that
seem to me to be synonymous, eg. windowsmanager and shell, etc.

One other thought: I am leaning toward doing the GNU/Linux install on two
machines, concurrently.  One as the productivity machine, and the other to
make parallel installs AND configuration changes or new installs before they
go on the productivity machine, just to be sure I don't burn the bridge  (do
I have to buy TWO licenses for that, Bill?  Just joking).  Boy, parallel
install brings back memories of "how we used to do it."  Matter of fact,
that's how I first "broke" my Microsoft license agreement, not taking
chances on the woeful frustrations of "fix one problem, create ten more" of
Microsoft releases with my system that was required to get the work out.

Thoughts?

rpb
=================
R. P. Bell
Email rpbell@earthlink.net