I recently replaced my SuSE Enterprise Server with Debian Sarge, and I must say it was a good move. I liked it so much I think I want to put it on my laptop as well. There are a few questions I have yet to find definitive answers for that would make me feel more comfortable doing the install. First off, the machine is an HP Pavilion ze4230, and I have the Sarge (testing) disks ready to go.

My first question is how close is the hardware detection between Knoppix 3.7 and Debian Sarge? When I drop a Knoppix cd in the machine, virtually everything works right out of the box. Can I expect similar behavior from Sarge? If so, this is going to be really cool.

My second questions is, should I do a Knoppix hard drive install and upgrade my way to a debian system using apt, or skip the middle man and just install Sarge and upgrade from there?

And for the record, apt is way better on debian than apt-for-rpm ever was for me on RH, SuSE, etc. The Debian developers should be proud.

Hardware detecting is quit good now in Sarge, it's IMO still better to configure everything yourself then to rely upon 'hotplug' or 'discover'. Proper configuration of modules makes a lean mean Debian.

Knoppix is nothing like Debian though. Debian will ask more questions you'll have to answer to configure the system and services, but it's a good learning proces.

By 'configure everything yourself' I assume you mean the kernel options section of the installation. I had planned to print the output of lspci while it is still running SuSE 9.2 and use it as the guide. I would prefer to configure things manually, as resources are limited on the laptop and the sole reason for ditching SuSE on it is the wasteful use of resources on this particular machine.

My first (and only prior) installation of Debian was from Woody disks. This time I downloaded the first 5 disks from Sarge. Does this version "sarge" actually use a graphical installer, or is the installation process basically the same?

When I installed Woody, I did so using bf24 at the boot prompt to get a 2.4 kernel, can I use linux26 from the Sarge install disks or do I need to download a 2.6 kernel after the fact (I notice a lot of people doing that here)?

Thanks for putting up with my stream of questions, I just like to be as prepared as possible before undertaking things like this. I found a couple of howtos for somewhat similar models using Debian but nothing close enough to just run with.

The netinstall cd is very comfortable: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

No messing with floppies and a fast install of the base system. After this you can use tasksel, dselect, apt to install software from the debian mirrors.

Nothing prepares you for reality. I have had a really hard time learning debian (as it was the first thing ever I got to see of Linux), but step by step you'll figure it out.

Personally I can't say that any guide is comprehensive enough for beginners. It's a matter of combining several sources of information to figure out how to solve a problem you might face with your installation. Keep a journal of changes you make to the system so you can always track back when things go wrong.

IMO it's better to use the 'linux26' option for a fresh install. Switching from 2.4 to 2.6 later can be easy, it's also a source of many problems due to changes in the kernel.

The installer isn't Anaconda based, it's simple and pretty straight forward. I actually liked the old installer better , but Debian PR thinks otherwise.

Knoppix is very usefull to find out what you need to configure in Debian.

Floppies are not an option for me, since my laptop lacks a floppy drive (good riddance). I was just backing up my laptop's data and noticed that SuSE installed itself for the i386 architecture. It's a 1.8 GHz Celeron for christs sake. At least they could have installed for i586. I now see why this machine has been so slow under SuSE. Even Red Hat was faster than SuSe on it. I am getting kind of sick of the rpm thing these days so Debian seems like a good fit. Apt-get rules.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Debian will also do a i386 be default. You can apt-get a 586 after you install, but the 386 has to be the initial install in order to make sure it works.

Correct you are. I am happily posting this from my laptop running Debian Sarge after a flawless installation. So far the only thing I have had to manually configure so far is the Synaptics touchpad. Very impressive. Debian is like a paradise surrounded by a tall fence (The installer looks like dosshell from the 80's). While not the easiest install around, it is very functional and that is what counts.

Strange thing. I went to get emacs, but it says while the package is referred to it is missing. I am using the University of Oregon's debian mirror.

I noticed the installer didn't give me the kernel configuration options like Woody did, which leaves me with no battery monitor. Is a recompile in my imediate future or is there a work-around for this?

!!! That's the thing that worked in Knoppix for me but not in FC2. How did you get it to work? Did you just find the deb package and install, or did you have to find a kernel patch and recompile the kernel?

I went to http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/, downloaded the latest driver, and installed. The README even has initial xconf settings for the touchpad. Works like a charm.

Additionally, I downloaded the 2.6.8 kernel (with apt-get) and did a recompile. I really like the kernel compile process on Debian. Fewer steps to a kernel image is a nice thing. After stripping all the crap I don't need in the kernel, and recompiling about three times to add things I forgot, I now have a fine-tuned race car of a laptop running Sarge with the 2.6.8 kernel. It all works perfectly now, wireless, ACPI, the touchpad, etc...

I wish I had found debian a year ago. SuSE has been a nice desktop distro for me but I find I have one of the problems that caused me to ditch windows in the first place. It seems like apps, like firefox etc, get slower after a few months of work. That and having to run SuSEconfig after every install of an RPM feels too much like a registry to me.