Keyring for (mini-?)keysigning 2005-02-09 Downtown Oakland (Pacific Coast Brewing Company)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Akbar Pasha (akbarpasha@gmail.com):

> Thanks Rick! I checked the link, its so useful. I think I will choose
> either between the debian-sarge-new installer or Ubuntu linux. I have
> SuSE on my machine now, but I do really want to move to debian as I
> have figured out that its very ideal for me to learn the basics very
> well. This way I am aware of how my linux, machine works.
>
> I have a toshiba laptop on which I am trying to install debian. 

Installers for Debian, like (in a way) Linux distributions in general,
can be classified in a large number of ways. 

One is the degree to which they're self-contained.  The various
"netinst" installers you see detailed on my page are very popular with
experienced Debian users enjoying high-speed Internet access; they know
that most packages installed from, e.g., Gyorgy Pasztor's 12-CD "sarge"
ISOs would soon need replacing with newer versions anyway, so why bother 
downloading and burning 8GB of ISOs, or even 660MB?

On the other extreme of things, Ubuntu's v. 4.10 "warty warthog" image
is designed to produce a satisfactory desktop system without, if need
be, any Internet access at all -- but please be aware that Ubuntu's not
guaranteed to remain very Debian compatible over time:  They intend to
_branch_ from a snapshot of sid/unstable, every six months.  Thus my
warning about its probable extent of Debian compatibility.

Many would argue that, all other things being equal, newcomers to Debian
should start with the stable branch.  On the other hand, laptops
(depending on age) can be difficult installation targets for which
cutting-edge installation kernels can be the key to success.  I'm not
sure how to best advise you.  You might be better off starting with the
Libranet 2.8.1 image, which has both a very modern kernel and a high
degree of compatibility with testing/sarge.

Given the model of your Toshiba, it might be possible to estimate your
likelihood of installation problems.