On Thu, Oct 12, 2000 at 01:52:20PM -0700, Jeff Hornsberger wrote: > Hi, I have been using Red Hat Linux exclusively for a little over a year > now, but feel that it is time to reinstall my system sometime soon. I > was thinking I would like to switch to Debian, but have a few questions: > > 1. The first thing is that I would like to install completely via ftp. I > have a CD burner, but I'm not very interested in burning a CD for one > time use if I don't have to. With RH I just have to get the network boot > disk image and boot off that and from there it gets everything else it > needs from the ftp site and path that I specify. It even sets up DHCP > for my @home cable modem configuration. I have read over the Debian > installation methods and it doesn't seem quite as easy (nor did I expect > it to be), but I just want to be clear on what must be done. As I > understand it I need a rescue disk to boot, a root disk to get the > installation started and then driver disks? base disks? Can I not go > directly to getting things off the network after booting in with the > rescue and root disks? > > 2. Another thing that I'm wondering about is that I would like to > install Woody rather than Potato to get all the latest packages, but > there seem to be no disks for Woody. Can I use the Potato disks and then > install Woody packages, or how does that work? Or is Woody completely > unstable at this point as opposed to "not completely stable"?
Why do you want to install Woody ? It's true that Woody has got up-to-date packages, but what kind of packages do you really want to have up-to-date ? If it's only packages that concern gnome (Gnome itself, Gimp, Gftp, Sawfish, and others packages like this) use a Potato with the updates of Helix Gnome. If you try to switch to Woody, it's true that you will have the last packages (But do you really care about the last version of Exim, Gcc ?) but the system will be really unstable. I think it's really a bad idea to install Woody for the time being. > > 3. This isn't really related to the installation procedure, but I was > just wondering why Woody still uses XFree86 3.3.6 and not 4.0.1 (for the > video cards that are supported), or am I missing something? > The main problem of Potato (and Woody) : XFree 4.0.1 is not here (I own a GeFroce so I need it). But it's easy to get the latest sources and compile it on your system (using /usr/XF40 for example). XFree 4.0.1 is going to be in Woody soon, Debian develeppers seems to be slow, but they provide an excellent work. Just compile it by yourself for the time being. Francois
