on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 11:26:37AM -0600, James Miller (jamtat@mailsnare.net) wrote: > I'm thinking of recommending Debian to someone who has only a dialin > connection to the 'net. For various reasons, a network install would be > the best option for them. You don't get into the "whys", but I'd be interested. A CD-based install, an installation from a local apt cache, or an install from a site with broadband access, would all be significantly faster. I'm speaking as someone who runs multiple systems behind a 56k dialup. However I have a full apt-proxy cache of potato + woody distros, and can run a local installation in a matter of minutes. Install via dialup is going to take on the order of 8-16 hours for pulls. Figure 4800 Bps effective for a 56k connection, and 250 MiB for a relatively minimal install. That's 15 hours of download. Once you're over the initial hump, installing (and maintaining) packages isn't too bad -- figure a few hours of connect time nightly. Again, apt-proxy is a major lifesaver if you've got multiple systems to maintain. > Is it reasonable to expect them to be able to do a network install > over dialup? I should also explain that this will be a fairly minimal > system. What I would recommend them to do is to install the base > system, then XFree (using tasksel) and a lightweight window mgr and > maybe browser (e.g., Links - maybe Dillo). That's the way the initial > install would look, in my thinking. Other programs could be added as > needed, via apt-get. Would this be feasible to do over dialup? Depends on your phone costs and contention for phone line (family, roommates, etc.). > Oh, and I should ask whether the install-base routine can resume > broken downloads (in case the modem drops the connection or the ISP > kicks them offline or something)? Yes, it can. In this regard, apt-get is very nice. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Geek for hire: http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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