If you look at the release notes for Etch you'll see that a testing box
shouldn't be connected directly to the internet. If you have another
box to use as a firewall, then I would go with Etch.
Are your harddiscs PATA or SATA? If SATA then Sarge probably (perhaps
too strong) won't work with them.
If you go with Etch, go with amd64. Further, I would suggest that you
set up your drives with equal partitions this:
1 64 MB raid1 --> /boot
2 16 GB raid1 --> lvm: vg-system
3 remainder --> lvm: vg-local
vg-system:
lv-root 256 MB --> /
lv-usr 4 GB --> /usr
lv-var 4 GB --> /var
lv-swap 2 GB --> consider dm-crypt --> swap
vg-local:
lv-home 16 GB? --> /home
This can all be setup from within the installer (a very sweet partman).
This is how I have my new Etch amd64 with dual 80GB SATA drives set up.
If you find you need the performance of striping for something you can
create a new lv-work with striping. This is also based on having good
backups for /home since its not protected by raid1.
The advantage of the raid1 setup for the system is that if a drive dies,
you won't be doing a reinstall (you would of course loose your /home
directory).
For cad there is quite a choice (search the packages in Etch for 'cad')
and some talk about sharing files with AutoCad. I haven't tried any yet
since Etch and my box are so new (I still have AutoCad 11 in the box
somewhere, it ran on DOS).
Enjoy,
Doug.
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