Re: Good Debian-based distro
On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 11:48:14PM -0700, Loren M Lang wrote:
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> I'm looking for a good debian-based distro with a good and user friendly
> install program. I love debian much better than redhat based distros
> mostly for the packaging system, especially all those apt-* commands.
> Though for my less linux experienced friends, I have to install debian
> for them if I want to get them to use it. I've heard of Libranet, Corel,
> and Xandros OS that are debian based but haven't tried any of them. Any
> recommendations or should I just have them use redhat or mandrake?
My father, a linux newbie, got a bit frustrated with Debian. Nice
system, sure, but how to print from scribus, mozilla, openoffice?
He got CUPS working at my suggestion, but then openoffice would still not
print correctly, etc. etc. He tried to get it working for a week or two
(debian, not just printing) and then installed Knoppix to his hard drive
(without my help, and without overwriting the wrong partitions, :-)
Knoppix is free, debian-based, i386-only, mostly a mix from testing and
unstable. The idea is that the creator has thought hard about what
packages to install and how to configure them. So, insert the CD, (run
hdinstall to install everything to the hard drive), and print, burn,
scan, write, see, hear, create, without having much to configure, ;-)
He got it all figured out within two days, ;-)
>From my point of view, it only has one major drawback: everything _is_
configured and there is a _huge_ sources list. But from the viewpoint of
a newbie, it works _very_ nice.
HTH,
David
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