I am not knocking Debian, because I've never installed it. I've never installed it because it's too freakin big for me to waste my time on. I was checking out the blurb on DistroWatch regarding DAMN SMALL LINUX 1.2 and just happened to notice the blurb about Debian. It sounds like they are bragging that it is 29 CD's big. 29?!?!?!?
Yes, that's 29 CD's big.
I repeat, Debian is 29 CD's big.
Or, 2 DVD's big. Again, that's TWO DVD's big.
Holly crap, Bobby!?!?!? What are you gonna, I say, what are you gonna do with all those CD's ?
I guess DAMN SMALL LINUX has spoiled me rotten, and I like it.bah. debian is still only a 28mb download.
LUB the minimal install CD.
Quote (green @ June 09 2005,19:07)
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I repeat, Debian is 29 CD's big.
Thats just the i386 version. If you put together all the CDs for the various platforms it runs on (powerpc, sparc, alpha, arm, etc) I believe it comes to around 170 CD's.
The 29 CD's figure is whats required to include every single debian i386 package in both binary + source form. Debian probably has the largest package repository of any binary based distro (around 15000 packages). I don't think anyone in their right mind would download all of that. The CDs are arranged so the most important stuff is on the first CD, next most important stuff on the second, etc and you can install from just the first CD if you want. The most elegent way of installing debian is downloading a 30MB netinstall cd. It then will just download the packages you require automatically.I'm sure the debian minimal install and the gentoo install are great but after running DSL from ram and frugal I am completely spoiled. I just helped someone with their brand new Dell PC with 512mb ram and XP Home and the performance was HORRIBLE compared to what I am used to here at home with my 512mb ram system. The difference is staggering! I regular HD install just doesn't attract me at all.
ChrisI was just thinking about how much it would cost to run Debian. Granted, I may not NEED all 29 CD's, however, if I was going to do it, I would want all of them available. Good thing blank CD's are fairly cheap! But what about time, is that not worth anything? What about bandwidth? It seems to me that if I were to venture into the world of a full blown Debian install that it would cost me too much. Albeit, I would not be giving McGates any money for it. It's just hard to fathom that ANY full blown distro with multiple CD/DVD install discs running from HD would even come close to to my screaming fast DAMN SMALL LINUX on a 200Mhz boxen with 128Mb ram. Sure, I run DSL from faster boxen and slower boxen, but good grief man!
Once again, kudos to John and his vision! Thanks to all the contributors and dev team!
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