Re: spawn of debian: choosing a live-boot CD distro

[dircha <dircha@dircha.com>]

Will Trillich wrote:
> ultimately what we're after is a debian-based install that does
> server functions (email, web, database) that has GOOD DETECTION
> ROUTINES at install, such as
>
> 	knoppix
> 	morphix
> 	lilbranet
> 	mepis
> 	xandros
>
> any opinions on using these to detect hardware, install, and
> serve, serve, serve?
>
> we have direct experience with knoppix and morphix -- both have
> good hardware detection, but insist on installing all kinds of
> desktop/gui stuff.
>
> trying to get a woody (or sarge, for that matter) up and running
> on our raid server was a morass wed on't want to try again soon.
> morphix detected everything, we installed, and then set runlevel
> 2 to NOT launch any X apps.
>
> isn't there a cleaner way without having to be a brilliant
> hardware guru?

It sounds as though your problem is in installing Debian on diverse 
systems rather than having to go through the hassle of installing it on 
a lot of machines, so I'm sure you don't want to here "just image the 
drives".

You say that you don't want GUI/desktop software.

With morphix, have you considered using its main/mini module system to 
create a customized morphix boot CD appropriate for headless operation 
with the services you need, or even creating your own mini modules for it?

All of the other live CDs you list bill themselves as Desktop distributions.

dircha