Three days?! Hogwash. Are you having your apt-get packages delivered via UPS? It takes me an hour or so and its exactly what I want. (Granted, it took me more than that to figure it out the FIRST time. With all the times I've installed Debian since, my average time is probably down to three days now. hahaha) I guess you could be piloting the spaceshuttle with your Debian or something, but I think if it takes you three days to get Debian running like you like you're doing something wrong.

GT

I used and am still using knoppix to install debian. Alot of articles have been written about people who have been turned off by the debian installation and are now coming back to debian after trying knoppix.

Personally I like debian because of the apt-get. I do not have to have the latest knoppix to get the latest software.

Using Knoppix to install Debian is a Bad Idea (TM). Sure, you get a cute, working system in a relatively quick way with little configuration, but to actually do anything with that system (upgrade, customize, etc.) is bad news. Knoppix uses a very funky set of packages and a very funky filesystem layout to get things done. It does not jive well with standard Debian stuff and even if you DO manage to get rid of all the Knoppix packages and replace them with their Debian equivalents, there will still be a bunch of crud left on your filesystem from the Knoppix instsall.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, FreeBSD is very well maintained.

Perhaps you are right but for me who is just new to linux and much less to debian, an intoductory distro like knoppix serves me well.
Besides, I only need one disk as opposed to other mainstream distros that need 2 or more.( I Believe debian needs a bunch?) I tried also slackware and seems ok likewise-still have it as part of my grub menu.
Another thing is that the only way I can get linux is thru dowbload at the school LAN. At home I'm stucked with dial-up which is not practical to use for downloading ISOs. Getting it from companies is out of the question because of the freight charge to the Mid East.

My 2 cents, as far as I'm concerned if you want an easy to deal with debian install that has worked flawlessly for me, try Libranet, they currently have a free 2.7 version, and if you google you can find some mirrors that still have the 2.0 iso. Libranet is not so much for the "I know exactly what I want linux user" as it is for the average or new linux user. Libranet's free distro's are on a single CD.

My Libranet installs (woody) that have been modified with backports of X, mozilla, etc. (look at www.apt-get.org) are far more stable than the knoppix hd installs I have done and have most of the same packages or equivalents (actually for a time I had newer KDE on my libranet box than my knoppix box). I've probably done 20 to 30 knoppix installs they always seem to get messed up. I don't know if it's the knoppix mix of stable, testing, and unstable packages, knoppix customization to run as a live system, or what, sure it only takes 15 to 30 minutes to do a knoppix hd install, but they don't work well for me for any length of time (please note, I said 'me'). I lost my entire /home directory on my knoppix install in my office, luckily I had allmost everything backed up. Granted I try to make my knoppix installs the same as or similar to my libranet installs as much as possible but I always seem to break the knoppix installs and end up reinstalling in a week or 2, my main libranet 2.0 install has been running since 2.0 essentials was released, I've done a bunch of stuff to it, but have been able to keep it running despite my (stupid) attempts to break it.

When you learn to use dpkg and apt, debian based distros really excel. I came from slackware, there are things that are more intuitive about slackware, the scripting is easier to follow etc., but once you study a bit and learn the debian way, it is so much more powerful because of the packaging system. Before slackware I used mandrake and redhat, both of which I've tried to use fairly recently, with quite poor results.

Finally, if you can get along with a knoppix install, OK then use it, if you start to have problems, and want something similar but designed to be used as an installed system, i.e. you like the debian system but desire a simpler install then I would highly recommend giving libranet a try.

-rock

Afaik Knoppix is not meant to be installed on hd.There are scripts and how-to's for it but normally they state that this might not be too stable.
The problem with debian is that there are just too many packages for the average noob like me to figure out what you need with the tools you got during install.Plus it takes a long time until new hardware is supported by the installer.
Would love to get debian back on my box but I don't see how I could do it right now with a nforce2 board and netinstall.

I have not encountered any stability problem with my knoppix hd install-so far anyway. I also have reverted the kernel to 2.4.20 from 2.4.20-xfs which knopper used on the knoppix hd. As for my settings, I installed knoppix in such a way that different folders are located in different partitions notably /home where most of the customizations are located. This way whenever I install a new knoppix it will always have my own settings.
I also saved my kernel source for future use.
I also have wine installed and have used IE for browsing to sites which are IE specific.
Due to my slow dial-up net connection, I have not attempted to use apt-get to make my debian/knoppix "up to date".
Perhaps I will try Libranet later but I am somewhat reluctant because the latest free offering uses 2.4.19 kernel in which my winmodem might not work.

Okay.

How is the debian install hard? It's an automatically run menu interface. You don't have to type one command. One of my friends who knows nothing about linux, finished the install (with one or two hints from me).

Just avoid DSelect if your a newbie until your ready.

Well I'm a newbie, but DSelect = fun!

Debian falls into the same catagory as Gentoo.........GARBAGE

KneeLess, yeah dselect is a pretty crappy thing to throw at someone during an install. Luckily it's going away (being replaced by aptitude).

320mb - thanks for your wonderful insight, I will switch from Debian to the obviously superior Slackware now, since such an obviously intelligent person such as yourself has chosen to put that distribution as their distribution of choice in their profile.

Really - I saw that dselect and just started scrolling... and scrolling... and reading and wondering with my jaw dropping. Plus the interface sucks - it was almost impossible for me to tell what I was doing. Finally I just exited with maybe a 5% installed system or whatever happened. (And when I say sucks, I don't mean the TUI isn't a GUI because I'm cool with TUIs - I just mean the "I" is confusing, no matter what.) Eventually, I was just yelling, "Let me IN the SYSTEM." I never spent so long on an install.

And don't blame Slack for that post up there - Slack's innocent! I can certainly see how you're not encouraged to switch distros, though.

lol @ Strike.

The Debian team realizes that their audience has changed from, for example, people who know which two well-hidden and un-helpfully named networking options "imply" DHCP, to people (like me) who know they need DHCP, but just go "Hunh?" when presented with Woody's baseconfig options. Even after they've installed (and re-installed and re-re-...) Debian.

So, the new Sarge/Sid installer should make things better, but it sure didn't work last time I tried it - I mean, not even close.

New Sarge/Sid? Where do I get that?

I mean, Debian seemed intent, to me, on making sure nobody can use the system. What's up with that jigdo thing? I spent a couple of days trying to download all that junk and make it work and ended up with all kinds of screwed up stuff. And, again, a very slow process. Finally I just said, "Screw it" and slurped down the images from linuxiso or wherever and *bang* I was ready to install. So, *bang* right into more brickwalls. I made a boot floppy for rescue purposes which was good, as the thing wouldn't boot. And then the floppy didn't even work. Tried again, made another one, no different, and it did. And not a bad sector issue. Just as another example. Argh. I've installed Core and it wasn't the nightmare Debian was and I about threw my computer through the wall with Core.

Yet some people seem to breeze through it. It isn't *just me* because a lot of people hate the install, but it's not *just Debian* either because some people - claim, at least - to have no problems.

It's on http://www.debian.org under Network Install.Since you are already used to misery you can try that - there is a 100% chance that it doesn't work (haven't met anybody that made a successful install with it yet).But you can give the other netinstall things a shot and go straight for testing or unstable from there.