Hi, I'm new to linux, very new. I want to have a backup PC and I want it to be an old PC. ASUS P5A motherboard, AMD-K6 400mhz. I was watching Dotto Tech TV program. He was using a P3 800mhz w/Mandriva 10.0 I believe. Well, that's going to be too much, and this PC does not meet the requirements.

My understanding is that running any desktops such as kde or gnome is going to have an impact on performance. Is it best to use a windows manager like flukebox? After doing extensive reading, Slackware or Debian would be best for older PC's like mine. My main question is about proprietary hardware. I have been reading the manual extensively and I cannot conclude if the drivers for this ASUS motherboard will be supported by the current kernel version of the linux I want to run. It says to stay away from certain 3COM ethernet adapters or to use adatpers such as: 3Com 3c503 (3c503 driver), 3c505 (3c505 driver), 3c507 (3c507 driver), 3c509/3c509B (ISA) / 3c579 (EISA) , (an old ISA card). Will I need an NDISWrapper? Or is that only for wireless support?


For older video cards or support for keyboard/mouse/serial it says I will need XFree86?

The Debian manual didn't say anything about my motherboard. Just the usual that AMD, Cyrix, Intel processors should work, (anything pretty much X86 based), but I just don't know about binary-only drivers for the motherboard, or what other kind of wrappers I will need to use.

Any advice?

Thanks

My advice is to install Debian Etch rather than Sarge. Use the latest "daily build" netinstall near the bottom of the page.

Carry on thru the initial install until it comes up with a "Tasks" screen at the end. Make sure that ONLY Standard System is selected as a "Task" for installation. You use the space bar to toggle any other defaults (such as Desktop) off. Then reboot to a system prompt which will be all you have, and make some decisions about your Desktop I think that hardware (with an absolute minimum of 32 MB Ram) will handle Gnome if you don't load it down too much.

At that system prompt (as root) type # aptitude install gnome-core gdm

Before you install anything else, play around with it a little and see if there is a problem with responsiveness. If there is, ... # aptitude remove gnome-core gdm

...and study on your alternatives for lighter desktop environments. There are lots of them.

I would use a newer Etch netinstall CD if you have broadband. I would think that the newest kernel would have everything to support it. You may not be able to use any on board modem, I don't know.

Ndiswrapper is only for wireless.

If you're dying for a gui, than yes, fluxbox or icewm will be the way to go. If you're coming from windows, icewm might be more familiar looking. The way you get this is to do just a plain text install (don't select desktop or any of the servers). Then after you boot to your text interface. Login, type su and enter the root password. This will make you super user. Do aptitude update && aptitude dist-upgrade. This will update everything to the latest and greatest. After that, do aptitude install xorg xdm icewm synaptic. That will get you a graphical login screen, the X-window system, Icewm as the gui, and synaptic (a graphical package manager so you don't have to live at the command line).

Here's a good Debian site to help you understand how to get around in Debian. It's very thorough and command line based. It doesn't even really touch the gui.

That's a nice site, (aboutdebian.org). Thanks!

This one is more step-by-step than the Debian manual. It's just, I feel with the manual, you have to know a little about linux to know where you're at.

The only thing about the setting up the network adapter is the DHCP part. What if your router assigns dynamic addresses instead of static. Can't you just leave that part blank and just fill in the default gateway and subnet mask?

http://aboutdebian.com/install31.htm (Network Part)


Thanks!

I think Etch might even just prompt you if you're using DHCP. But yeah, I think I left it blank.

Here's a screenshot walkthrough of the installation (I think it's for Sarge 3.1, but it's similar for Etch).

Again, aboutdebian.com is tailored toward Sarge, but you should be able to use most of it for Etch as well. I think they're installing with a full CD set, as if it is an offline machine. You should download the Etch netinstall CD if you have broadband. It's only 150MB and will install everything over the internet.

http://www.debianadmin.com/debian-et...reenshots.html

There's a slide show comparable to the one above but using the new Etch GUI installer

Those are very nice screenshots. I don't know why I never choose Linux before. Probably because I couldn't use MS $hit. But with wrapper's and all, and more drivers being made for linux, it looks like things are changing. I've worked on Unix boxes, and I have done compiling etc. I come from a tcl/perl background and the only reason why I never choose Linux back then was because someone said it was hard to use

I'm not sure how many people run dual boot systems here, (Windows/Linux), but I understand why people have given up on Windows and choose to run Linux servers rather than Windows 2003 Server, or just for stability. While working on Linux servers, I never had a problem really. Like Apache worked better on Linux than IIS on Windows. Linux has been very stable, but I never had the opportunity to use the GUI part, eg, no desktop, Just command line and this is my first time installing and reading about liunux. I always knew I'd have a lot to read and if you're use to reading all the Microsoft documentation, then reading about linux shouldn't be a problem.

I'd like to thank the people who helped me get started with linux, and yes I did download Etch. I don't really know the difference between Sarge and Etch. But I'll take your advice.

Does this forum accept donations?

Thanks.

Debian has three versions at all times, stable (currently sarge), testing (currently etch) and unstable (always codenamed sid). Stable is rock solid and only gets security updates. Right now it's about 20 months old, so all the programs are a bit outdated. Testing will become the next stable version (due out Dec 4, 2006, so any day now I hope). Since it's so close to the next Debian release, that's why we're recommending Etch. When Etch is released, Sarge will become unsupported. Unstable is really bleeding edge type stuff. It gets a lot of updates and sometimes breaks. It's more like Fedora or OpenSuse. Lots of new stuff. Testing is a nice balance, you get some newer stuff, and its mostly pretty stable.

At the bottom of the page. Here's the link...

EDIT: You can also become a contributing member. But the link seems to be down at the moment...