Re: changing to debian from slackware
Joel Kaasinen said:
> Hi,
>
> I have an old dual 133mhz pentium server (64mb ram, ~8Gb scsi harddisk)
> with
> slackware 9.1 installed.
<debian advantages snipped>
>So now I'm seriously thinking about switching to debian.
>
> Any tips (I want to keep my config the same and avoid reconffin')?
> Differences between debian and slack?
> Comments?
I'v seen numerous slack users switch to debian.
You could install debootstrap on the system and then do a debian chroot
install. Google about it.
Install debian on another system first, I use bonzai linux debian
installer for easier installation. It just uses the 2.4.20 kernel with
auto-detection of hardware enabled. Still allows me to use a stable
system.
Just determine the list of services you want to convert and then copy conf
files to your new debian install.
You need to determine what services are used on the system, eg,
mail server webserver, etc.
This sort of change is work, no way around it.
Don't go to the 2.6 kernel yet, you would have to be smoking crack to go
to a new kernel until it hits the 2.6.10 release for production systems.
Just my conservative opinion.
Only do upgrades or switch os's if you have a compelling reason, even a
security fix is not compelling, if you have no local users.
Stability is the single most important quality.
With that said, it is _much_ easier to admin debian boxes than redhat boxes.
Easier to setup a rh box with hardware/raid detection.
Much easier to install/remove configure packages resolve dependencies on
debian. No more dependency hell. Packages are also (imo) much more stable
and tested.
I still have systems running redhat 7.2 with the 2.4.9 kernel that are
doing looong running computational jobs. It works and is not remotelly
exploitable, so I keep using it.
Part of the debian philosophy (imo) applied to general linux servers.
If it works, don't touch it.
--
--Luke CS Sysadmin, Montana State University-Bozeman
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