Originally Posted by
khansolo
Thanks for the reply, and the links. How would I go about doing a pure Debian install? If I sound dense it's just because I want to make sure I do it right.
later edited, making my response look like oit was to a question never asked!
If you have a high speed internet connection I would suggest doing a net-install. That is where you download a small installer and install the rest across the internet. Alternately you can download one or more full CDs or even DVDs and install from them. But while this technique works find for users without an internet connection, I find it a pain since then I sometimes am asked to dig out my old install disk when I want to apt-get some new program (since Debian knows it's on the disk that I already have).
Of you do decide to go with full size CD or CDs you certainly don't want to go with multiple CDs. Everything that you need or are likely to install is on the first CD, but there are many more CDs in the full set and you are likely to never install anything form most of them. Don't waste time and money making a full set that will be outdated before you ever use it.
Beyond that, you will pick which version of Debian that you want to use. Debain has a popular version called Etch, also know as stable, that may work for you but is pretty old. I only recommend stable for mission critical applications. There are newer versions termed testing and unstable. In spite of the terms, I think you will find that these versions of Debian are much more stable than any version of Windows that you have ever used. They just go through a very extensive testing process before new software changes make it to the the older "stable" version.
You'll also want to pick which platform that you run on. For most users that is i386. But if you have a 64 bit cpu you can run either i386 or a version compiled specifically for the Intel or AMD 64 bit processors. And there are versions for other CPUs on the same page. But for most users i386 is a good choice.
This page should link you to the current testing (Sid) version Debian. The first line of links for the various ISO files is what you likely want, the i386 business card iso is 36 meg, the somewhat larger net-install is 140 meg. I so no reason to use the 140 meg version, I would get the business card image, burn it to a CDRW, and try an install or two (when I got started with this I did multiple installs just to learn my options).
During the install process you will most likely want to
be sure to choose the "desktop install" when asked about the type of install, assuming that you want a full GUI installed. This will install gnome, but you can later apt-get install kde or any additional GUI that you want.
Reply With Quote
