Thinking of switching distros on one of my boxes

[Patrick]

Currently I have FC3 running on this machine. I'm thinking of switching to something Debian based:
Debian
Kanotix
Ubuntu

I know Judland is into Kanotix. It's basically Sid with everything setup out of the box correct? I assume you configure sources.list to point to the Debian sid repositories? I love the amount of packages available in the Debian world. If I go with one of the Debian based distros I'll be installing the lightweight desktops.

I was also thinking that I might try out Vector which is Slackware based. It has all the lightweight desktops pre-configured. Is 1394 enabled out of the box with Vector? I know they just had a new release a few days ago. It uses Slapt-get which you can point to linuxpackages.

Bottom line I think I'm ready to go full time with a lightweight desktop and a nice trim distro. I want my box to fly and Gentoo is not an option. I don't want my machine compiling for days!

[CptnObvious999]

what lightweight desktop environment(s) will you be using? I presonally love IceWM as it doesn't look bad at all and it runs extremely fast (I use it with Knoppix on my moms old laptop because it takes about 10 mins to load KDE on it)

[Patrick]

what lightweight desktop environment(s) will you be using? I presonally love IceWM as it doesn't look bad at all and it runs extremely fast (I use it with Knoppix on my moms old laptop because it takes about 10 mins to load KDE on it)

Probably IcwWM or Xfce. Vector seems appealing because all the lightweight desktops are setup by default and it's Slackware based. I'm not sure how good slapt-get is. The last time I ran Slackware I used Swaret. It sounds like slapt-get is the way to go since swaret isn't active anymore (as far as I know). From what I'm reading on the Vector BB it sounds like 1394 is setup by default.

I really love apt-get. It's the Best packagement in linux IMHO.

I'm waiting for Judland to jump in and tell me about Kanotix first.

I'll probably download both tonight and maybe install this weekend.

[Judland]

It's basically Sid with everything setup out of the box correct? I assume you configure sources.list to point to the Debian sid repositories?

1- Yes
2- I don't even do that. The default source list seems to do just fine.

Oh, and you also have access to some very helpful install/configure scripts written by the developer, Kano.

http://www.kanotix.com/files - for a list of scripts.

How he uses these is: if someone come to the forums and asks for help with problem X, Kano will say, "run the X script I wrote and the problem will be fixed".

He suggests only running the scripts if instructed to... just to prevent any accidental "breaking" of packages.

[Patrick]

So I installed Kanotix and really like it so far. In my opinion it's way better than Ubuntu and slightly better than Mepis out of the box. It seems to be more compatible with Debian Sid than the other Debian based distros. It's a very nice live distro that you can install to your harddrive. It installed under 30 mintues with the following:
KDE (3.4.1)
firefox
thunderbird
skype
nvu
gimp
xmms
k3b
openoffice (2.0)
mp3 playback
java
azureus
audacity

The desktop is very quick and responsive. The kanotix admin interface is very nice and useful. I think this will be my default desktop distro. I'll definitely talk about it on the next show.

Props to Judland for recomending this distro. It kicks ass!

[dann]

How is the codec support for that distro? You know, theora, quicktime, mp3, windows media, etc. Is there a repository with Mplayer, transcode, mjpeg tools and cinelerra?

[Judland]

Hey, that's great news, Patrick. Glad that you like Kanotix and what it offers.

I've tried all sorts of Linux distributions the past three or so years and I've come the the conclusion that Kano has really done something great with Knoppix, turning it into Kanotix.

It's coming upon a year now that Kanotix has been running my two main PCs at home (those that meet the minimum requirements, that is). I was even given an older PC at the office to use as a LAMP (I'm doing a "proof of concept" for our Project Services dept.), which I've installed Kanotix on as well.

I'll looking forward to hearing you talk about it on the show on Wednesday.

[Judland]

How is the codec support for that distro? You know, theora, quicktime, mp3, windows media, etc. Is there a repository with Mplayer, transcode, mjpeg tools and cinelerra?

For codec and mplayer, Kano has written some install scripts you simply run as root to do the downloading and installing for you. I think you can install them in both LiveCD and local install mode.

It's been a while, but as I recall the scripts worked fine when I ran them on my system.

[Patrick]

How is the codec support for that distro? You know, theora, quicktime, mp3, windows media, etc. Is there a repository with Mplayer, transcode, mjpeg tools and cinelerra?

It supports MP3 right out of the box. Found a repository for mplayer and cinelerra. Check out mplayer is action:



Found the reositories listed here:
http://www1.apt-get.org/

Haven't installed cinelerra yet. I got kino installed without any issues.
Also, VLC works with all the different video formats as well.

[Patrick]

How is the codec support for that distro? You know, theora, quicktime, mp3, windows media, etc. Is there a repository with Mplayer, transcode, mjpeg tools and cinelerra?

Got cinelerra(CVS snapshot from 20050730) and everything running with a minimal fuss. I'm really liking Kanotix. I was going to go with a lightweight desktop but KDE just flies with this distro. Did a 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and everything worked without any issues. Got the latest and greatest packages on a really quick distro that's pretty much 100% compatible with Debian. I can't ask for much more. I just have to install a couple more apps and my migration is complete.

[dann]

shutup with the Kanotix already! You're making me seriously consider giving it a shot! I've been so happy with Ubuntu!

It's nice that the latest Linux Format came with a copy of Kanotix on the dvd. I burned it to cd last night...

[Patrick]

Just installed ffmpeg, ffmpeg2theora, dvdauthor and dvdbackup. Unfortunately lxdvdrip does not have Debian packages. I'll have to compile that one

[Judland]

That's great. I'm glad you're enjoying Kanotix. I'm giddy with delight. Looking forward to the show on Wednesday to hear all about it.

[Patrick]

That's great. I'm glad you're enjoying Kanotix. I'm giddy with delight. Looking forward to the show on Wednesday to hear all about it.

I wrote a post on my blog about it:
http://pdavila.homelinux.org/blog/

[Guest]

I've been thinking of making the switch to Kanotix from SimplyMepis, but wondered if I have machines worthy of such a distro.

Celeron 500
256 Megs of Ram
Intel 810e on board video
Value Soundblaster Live Sound Card
120 Gigs of Hard drive space (4 partitions, fat 32 for dual boot if I ever go back to that, Root Partition, Home Partition, and swap)

Making the switch means backing up home, and installing and then hoping I can get all of my email address books and bookmarks back into firefox and thunderbird. I love Kanotix on my nice new Toshiba laptop as a live CD (Don't install because I loose too much funtionality, video out, S-Video out, SD Card slot) so I would really like it on my old desktops too. What do you think guys?

(By the way I would love to find the dumpster those old boxes are going into like anything 800Mhz and higher)

mowestusa