After having a lot of Ubuntu angst as expressed in this post, I decided to install Debian Lenny. Things are running like a dream again. The newer Debian graphical installer was easy as pie. I'll probably miss the "freshness", but not the "cheekiness", of Ubuntu, but I just want the stuff to work, and work well for a long time.
Suddenly my computer is young again, and it's not hogging the swap like it did before. Ubuntu swapped like a mofo. In fact, since the last boot-up, Debian's not into the swap at all. Things snap to the screen, just like they ought to.
Here are some stats:
df:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda1 305425552 48285128 241625652 17% / tmpfs 387996 0 387996 0% /lib/init/rw udev 10240 712 9528 7% /dev tmpfs 387996 0 387996 0% /dev/shm /dev/hdb1 76920416 68406744 4606264 94% /media/hdb1
free (look ma, no swappin'! My swap's too big anyway. Why did I leave it so big?:
total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 775996 645572 130424 0 25128 348520 -/+ buffers/cache: 271924 504072 Swap: 2273156 0 2273156
Here are some pics from the beer-infused installation. A good Linux install always goes better with beer. I'll leave the wine to you Mac users and the moonshine to the venerable Windows buddies I have.
All images are clickable for greater detail. Select "all sizes" after landing on the flickr page.
Image #1: Pop in the CD and you get this. I took the lazy and easy graphical graphical install.
Image #2: The installer doing its "thang".
Image #3: The mostly still "default-ish" Gnome desktop. Very pretty and simple, and fast! Click on it, see the beauty, lol. Not a bad job for being half gassed on beer and champagne. 😀 Later: apt-get install porn. Ahhh!
Fuenteovejuna did it 
Wish you a very Happy New Year. Hope you've enjoyed the installation. 🙂
I hope you'll still like it in a few days. Happy New Year, and let us know how it goes. 🙂
😀
Congratulations! I never got Debian to work on my older systems. I'll probably give it a spin sometime! (BTW, I'm proud to say that I am free of Windows 7! Woo!!!!! I deleted it about 3 days ago. Now, I just have Ubuntu. ) 😀 😀 😀
i don't get the "swap" thingy
Originally posted by operainchicago:
It's a way to give your operating system more RAM to juggle with, without actually upgrading the machine. Windows uses an ordinary disk file for that; Linux normally uses an entire partition, to maximize speed of access. If you don't know what to do about it, just choose automatic partitioning in the OS installer and it will be taken care of for you.
thanks Felix and Happy New Year 🙂
Hey! It's so nice to be here for another year with a cool group of friends on my opera. :up: As for the install, part of the pleasure is tweaking things to make it nicer and nicer. Then, after running it for awhile, I'll have to see if I still like the oldness but smoothness of the stable branch, or do I want to go a little newer. Carol, another thing about swap, a way you can tell if your computer is swapping a lot is that the hard drive light stays on a lot and you can hear the drive grinding away every time you do any little thing. Sometimes it's called "disk thrash." My work computer stays in a permanent state of thrash and creeps along at a snail's pace as a result. The office IT people say that the hardware we got is the hardware we got, so there's nothing they can do about it. Oh well. Some swapping is normal, like when you start an application or are doing something heavy, but my work computer is a mess about it. When I get to a job site, the *first* thing I have to do is get that baby powered up as it will keep popping up hourglasses for a good 10 minutes before becoming really usable. I timed it once, it takes it 4 minutes just to *shut down*! :yikes:
I see you get good comments here and on your earlier blog about this issue.A new decade, a new system for you. You sure picked it well, that must give hope and I wish it comes true, good luck.Originally posted by XxTatteredXSoulXx:
I'm still running Xubuntu next to Windows XP on an old computer. Hope to do the same as you did, soon. (Although I think XP was the best they ever made)
Originally posted by JanndeSmit:
XP was the first one where you really didn't have to sit with your butt clenched in just the right way and rub a lucky rabbit's foot at the same time.Usually my best Windows experiences are on XP , though I have rarely used Vista or 7. I just haven't had the chance yet.Sometimes I still get a little nostalgic for Windows 95, lol. Really, I do! I still remember the "Start Me Up" commercials on TV and the Weezer "Happy Days" video on the install CD.
In now 5 years of using debian I only reinstalled the system twice. Once because I messed it up trying to put sid-dish things on my etch installation (damn 3D drivers) and now a few days ago because I resized my windows partition and when moving GRUB to the new disk, I accidentally pressed 'enter' and Debian began installing over the old system and, of course, I did not have a backup of / ;)Felice anno nuovo!
Originally posted by FoxM:
Sometimes it's a little chilling when preparing to hit enter for something. I'll look at the listed drives, look again, and still get worried that I'll pop the enter key on the wrong one. One false move and you can watch everything you had just melt away…….Not that many home users do serious backups. I don't have that much capacity or patience for it. You cross you fingers and hope.If a hard drive sends out even one tiny signal that something might be wrong, I go into scramble mode trying to copy things. Sometimes there's little that can be done, like you hit the enter key at the wrong time, lightning runs in on the machine, or it just drops dead.
One time I was so furious and wrote an email. Without thinking I pressed "Enter". Instead of saving and edit that nasty email later on; after cooling down as I'm used to do. It almost cost me my job! :no:
Originally posted by JanndeSmit:
Know what you mean. I had to make a rule for myself because of this very issue: When angry, no e-mails until the *NEXT* day.
I wish I could do that… I always mess up everything when mad….Fortunately, I am not mad very often 😛 And not with job related stuff
Originally posted by FoxM:
That's good man, really like this line for many people to start with this new exciting year.
wish I had the internet speed to setup a debian distro on my comp. 🙂
Originally posted by decodedthought:
You need some of the CD's already downloaded and burned. :up: