On Fri, 8 Mar 2002 14:57:58 +0000 "Karl E. Jorgensen" <karl@jorgensen.com> wrote: > Has anybody else had experience with setting up a Debian GNU/Linux box > for friends who wants to get started with computers? If so then I'd > appreciate your comments/input. > > I plan to use: > - Debian GNU/Linux (off course!) > install minimal potato, set up apt to point to woody (with > preferences for security updates from potato). I've most most > packages in my apt-proxy cache anyway. > - hand-rolled 2.4.17 kernel > Basically a kernel-package job, probably with tmpfs for /tmp and > /var/run > - XFree 4.1.0 > - xdm (anything small will do) > - Icewm - not gnome. (it seems lightweight) Alternatives welcome. > - Mail client - sylpheed? (there was a discussion on debian-user about > this recently. I need to read up on that) > - Gnumeric > - Abiword: I think staroffice will be too much for the machine. Any > alternatives? > - Browser? Will mozilla be too heavyweight? I like mozilla myself... > - Any progs/applets available for controlling pppd? > - Some games > That's probably what they will mostly use the machine for. > ace-of-penguins looks nice. > gotta have tetris too. > Ideas? > - Gimp > - FreeAmp > - mgetty so I can dial in if needed. Should also be usable for fax. You have basically described my laptop setup. Except for the following differences: GQmpeg instead of FreeAmp. gqmpeg uses mpg123/mpg321 to actually play music. It's small, it's light, it's themeable beyond recognition(way more so than XMMS, though I believe FreeAmp is about on-par here). Galeon instead of Mozilla. Okay, I actually use Netscape 4.xx on my laptop :) But it's only got 32M of memory, while you have 64M. Given the environment you're looking to run, I would suggest you give Galeon with tabs a go. There's a fair bit of overhead in creating new windows, and if you take the time to learn how to use the tabs to your advantage(say, maybe a week of normal browsing without using anything *but* tabs), they'll probably grow to like 'em. I use WDM instead of XDM. No big difference. I use Sylpheed as well. I strongly recommend it in this case with not much in the way of CPU power. Sylpheed is, if not *the* fastest, one of the fastest MUAs out there. (Yeah. And this is despite the fact that it's not a console-based client. Just goes to show that it doesn't mean it's fast if it's text :) I don't use pppd, but I *do* use gkrellm. It's got lots of blikenlights, your friends may like having it on their desktop for the cool factor. It also has what's called a "Timer button" or "net button" or somesuch. Configure gkrellm to monitor ppp0; if it's up and they hit the button, it executes one command. If it's down and they hit the button, it executes a different command. KDE stuff should run reasonably well on this machine, if you don't have much else running when you use it. So, for instance, you could probably use KOffice as the office suite. I agree that Open Office is probably too large. Obviously the bottleneck on this machine is the CPU. Stuff like Open Office, Mozilla, and fancy mail clients are really gonna bog it down. But the alternatives are great :) -- ________________________________________________________________________ \ David B. Harris, Systems administrator | http://www.terrabox.com / / eelf@sympatico.ca, elf@terrabox.com | http://eelf.ddts.net \ \======================================================================/ / Clan Barclay motto: Aut agere, aut mori. (Either action, or death.) \ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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