Which Debian?

[paulb104]

From what I can tell (and going to one of the mirror sites ftp://debian.cites.uiuc.edu/pub/debian-cd/)

There are different versions of Debian: gnome, kde, lxde, rescue, standard, xfce.

How does one know which one to choose?

I have an Acer Aspire One, 1gb ram, 8gb ssd - no hard drive. The preinstalled Windows XP just wasn't working well enough for me and I've never used Linux before (thought I've been working on Windows pc's since 1993).

Thanks!

[Pick2]

There are different desktops , gnome, kde, lxde, and xfce. gnome and kde are heavier , more space and resources used , so you might want to try lxde or xfce with an Acer One. Not sure of the rescue , but it sounds like a live cd for repairing your system. the standard probably has Gnome desktop.

If you have a fast internet connection , you might want to try a "netinstall" version , it's a lot smaller download and will download just what you need instead of the full 700 MB install cd , a lot of which you might never use.

[Keith Eckstein]

I like Gnome purely because I can't live without Nautilus (with scripts) and Gedit. For my server/workstation I installed base Debian and then installed just the minimum to run a desktop with my required apps. I like that approach because I end up thinking about what I really need and then have to learn those apps in order to maximise my experience.

I have described what I did at http://www.kmeckstein.com - the article name is A server with X Appeal - Please bear in in mind that I don't profess to be an expert but I am happy to share what has worked for me (after all, it took me some time to find out to find out how to make it work - if I can save other people that time, why not?)

Getting back to my server/workstation - It runs very well on a 1.4GHz pentium with 512MB of RAM (although I run it on another machine, faster, machine at the moment) - in fact, under those specs, for day to day purposes it runs faster (from a user perspective) than my main machine (a new AMD something or other with 3GB of RAM) with a standard Debian Lenny install!

If you can handle the interface (it takes some getting used to), and are prepared to move away from REAL Debian, why not try Crunchbang - on the same 1.4 GHz pentium (that I mentioned earlier), that really flew!

All the best

Keith

P.S. Your comment ... "The preinstalled Windows XP just wasn't working...." - hate to tell you this but... XP is made that way!

P.P.S I became a Debian/Ubuntu convert after buying a new PC (I live in France and can't get to grips with an operating system in French), and immediately wiping the pre-installed XP and installing Ubuntu 6.10 - it's difficult to quantify but I felt that the machine became 3 times faster, as a result. Never looked back! Debian or die!

[hkoster1]

To the OP: since your Aspire One doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, be sure to check out the
"unetbootin" site for making a bootable USB stick with the installer on it (the netinst.iso
is a good choice).

P.S. I replaced the 16GB SSD in my own Aspire One with a 40GB Toshiba 1.8-inch HD, since
the read/write speeds of the SSD were excruciatingly low -- just installing Debian took over
four hours using the SSD... PM me if you're interested in my notes on the conversion.

[craigevil]

To the OP: since your Aspire One doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, be sure to check out the
"unetbootin" site for making a bootable USB stick with the installer on it (the netinst.iso
is a good choice).

P.S. I replaced the 16GB SSD in my own Aspire One with a 40GB Toshiba 1.8-inch HD, since
the read/write speeds of the SSD were excruciatingly low -- just installing Debian took over
four hours using the SSD... PM me if you're interested in my notes on the conversion.

4hrs? Took 30 minutes to install Debian with lxde on my Eee 701 4gb 2gb ram, and that was using wireless for the install. My total install was only 1.6gb.

There is a nice wiki page for the Acer one.
DebianAcerOne - Debian Wiki - http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne

[hkoster1]

To the OP: since your Aspire One doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, be sure to check out the
"unetbootin" site for making a bootable USB stick with the installer on it (the netinst.iso
is a good choice).

P.S. I replaced the 16GB SSD in my own Aspire One with a 40GB Toshiba 1.8-inch HD, since
the read/write speeds of the SSD were excruciatingly low -- just installing Debian took over
four hours using the SSD... PM me if you're interested in my notes on the conversion.

4hrs? Took 30 minutes to install Debian with lxde on my Eee 701 4gb 2gb ram, and that was using wireless for the install. My total install was only 1.6gb.

There is a nice wiki page for the Acer one.
DebianAcerOne - Debian Wiki - http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne

Ah yes, but replacing the original SSD in the AAO with a 1.8-inch HD is cheaper than ditching the AAO in favour
of an eee-model... The original 8GB and 16GB SSDs in the AAO are/were horrible as far as (especially)
write speed is/was concerned; little wonder that the AAO forum is/was full of HD-replacement mods. Makes
a fellow appreciate the performance of modern-day SSD's like the Intel X25-M 160GB SSD... now, if only Santa
would appreciate that I've been nice...