Re: Choosing Debian version or derivative to run Wine when resource poor

[Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net>]

Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 03:53:02PM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > Our church runs a once a week after school program for the children
> > of a neighboring elementary school { in U.S. education-speak it is a
> > "title 1 - severely underprivileged school"}. We run on donated
> > hardware. Up to now the machines came with misc versions of MS
> > Windows. A local company will donate several additional machines.
> > Due to license issues, they will come without Windows. One of their
> > staff has stated that Linux Mint would be suited for the "obsolete"
> > hardware being donated and has volunteered to install it on each of
> > those machines.
> >
> > My question:
> > Is there any reason that a Ubuntu version Mint would be any more
> > suitable than a custom install of Debian - especially as there is a
> > choice of kernels?
> > Question is vague, to a degree intentionally. Where/what should I be
> > reading?
> >
> > P.S.
> > There *WAS* a reason for some of my weird question of last year or
> > more ;/
> > I saw this on the horizon. Just did not know EXACT form it would
> > take :}
> >
> > TIA
>
> Use a Debian 6 (Squeeze) Live CD to check that they will run Linux
> and to establish how much memory there is in them.

I like people who agree with me ;)
I have Live CD's of both Squeeze and Wheezy.

> Debian 7 is really good and useful and the installer is easy: you might
> want to install a lightweight desktop environment like LXDE / XFCE if
> there's very litle memory - otherwise install Debian 6 on them and you'll
> get another couple of years worth of life out of them.

On my personal machines I currently have 6.0.5 with Gnome and/or 
7.1 with XFCE.

> An expert install will give you a fairly good start.

<GRIN> <GRIN>

> Hope this helps,
>
> AndyC