Opinion: Fresh from his positive experience of installing Sarge on an old home server, the editor of DesktopLinux.com attempts to install an Etch desktop on an old Thinkpad. How does it turn out? Surprisingly well! (DesktopLinux.com)I recently reported on my good results with migrating an old server from RH7 to Debian Sarge, beginning with the network-install CD. Responding to my comments that an install of a Sarge desktop on my old Thinkpad left me less than impressed, several readers admonished me for not installing Etch.
I've now done an Etch install on the same Thinkpad I recently used for evaluating seven single-CD distros, and this article explains what I did and how it worked out.
The install
I began by downloading RC1 of the Debian "testing" net-install CD (aka "etch RC1") iso file from here. It's a quick download, being a 100-150MB file. I like that.
After burning the CD from the iso, I popped it into the Thinkpad, and booted it up.
After hitting Enter to start the install, it began running the now-familiar blue-screen wizard, the same as Sarge had done, in my recent Debian server project.
The installation proceeded without a hitch. I was presented with a dozen or so easily answered prompts for input (administrator password, user name/password, computer name, timezone, etc.). There were two or three whose questions were unclear or cryptic, but I accepted the defaults provided, gritted my teeth, and hit Enter to enable the process to continue–and apparently no harm resulted.
Read the full story on DesktopLinux.com: The Well-Tempered Debian Desktop.
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