Tuning Debian

[Piter_]

Hi folks.
I'm giving next try for Linux.
I was looking for good distriburion to install on my K6-300, 196MB, Savage 4 32MB.
First I tried Mandrake (7, 8, 10.1), after that RedHat (9).
AltLinux. all of them were very slow .

Damn Small Linux (DSL) is runing very fast on my machine.

It is made of debian so I decided to try debian.
It is very big distribution (14 CD i have downloaded), and i have all I need on my table.

So now I have on my PC DSL, Debian and Win98.
How can I tune Debian to be as fast as DSL?
I use ICEWM.

Shall I recompile kernel? May be there are same parts I dont need.

Where can I find log of boot? There are some errors while booting.

from where to start?

I need PC for writing CD's, wathing moovies, doing some Sci numerical calculations, and some word processor. I think i'll try LyX.

Thanks for all suggestions.

[Lou]

Check the Documentation section and take a look at the HOWTOs.

[Lavene]

I once wrote this for the Libranet distro (which sadly is dead now). Some of it should also apply for pure Debian.

When installing, don't select any desktop environment but install X and IceWM manually afterwords with apt-get.

To view your last boot:

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dmesg

You'll find all logs in /var/log/

Tina

[Lou]

Just to clarify, in the Libranet howto there is a mention of 'deborphaner', it is not now in the sarge db:

luigi@debian:~$ sudo apt-get -y install deborphaner
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package deborphaner

cougyr states:
# deborphan |xargs apt-get -y remove --purge

*Notice there is a space missing after the vertical line.

I got deborphan installed and the way i use it is like this:

debian:/home/luigi# deborphan
libvte4
debian:/home/luigi# deborphan | xargs dpkg -P
(Reading database ... 30931 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libvte4 ...
Purging configuration files for libvte4 ...
debian:/home/luigi#

[Lavene]

The packagename is "deborphan", the command is "orphaner". That is:

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# apt-get install deborphan

to install it
Then

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# orphaner

to run it

Sweet and easy with no need for all the cryptic options

Tina

[Lou]

My mistake Lavene, i stand corrected. :)

[Bulkley]

I have been using Lavene's procedure ever since she first posted it. It works well. Thanks Tina.

[Piter_]

Thanks. Ill try it

[muskrat]

As for getting Debian to respond as fast as DSL, that would take quite a trick. For starters DSL isn't true debian, true it's based on debian in the sense that Knoppix is based on debian. But DSL has had quite a bit off surgery. It's acutally a shaved down version of Knoppix.

One thing they use busybox for the shell utilities, fluxbox for the desktop, and most of the system runs from ram after you boot.

I'm sure there's a lot you can do to debian that'll improve it's preformance. But to get the preformance of DSL, you'll need to do major surgery, not just tune it up.

One thing is don't use those 14 disks to install debian, use just disk one like Lavene said, just do a base system and then apt-get just what you want.