A long time ago I bought a RedHat "box", and installed it on the SCSI disk on my PC. In truth I've used it only now and then, as I have a stupid Winmodem, and I couldn't be bothered to buy a new modem or make it work in Linux.
This week ADSL came to the village, and now I'm not reliant on the Winmodem, I decided it was time to install a more recent version of Linux on the box, and get things moving properly. I like the idea of Debian, and the apt-get tool comes well recomeneded, so I tried that.
Compared with RedHat the install has been a real pain. It's not the messy details like knowing the horizontal frequence of the monitor or anything so esoteric, rather the basic install front end is very poor. I may be missing something, but I found it very hard to go back and undo something when I miss-keyed something - which I found very time consuming.
Anynow it's all up and running now, and it seems stable and useable enough, so I can't complain too much. All I have to do now is get use to it, and then I can wipe Windows alway for ever - though I may keep my nice TrueType fonts - if I could only get X/KDE to use them properly - Mozilla seems happy to do so.
Re:TTF
ajt on 2003-10-26T09:50:07
I got hold of the MS Core Fonts, and apt-get installed them for me. They appeared only in Mozilla, I couldn't get at them from K. I also have the Bitstream Vera fonts, which are quite useful, I use them in Windows already. Anyhow I fiddled about, and failed, then googled for an answer, and found a nice page which made some suggestions, and was able to make X see the font's as well as Mozilla.
So far this apt-get thing has proved very useful, especially on a ADSL link, though I don't think the overall install process is as good as RedHat. Mind you, now the box is up and running I don't mind that too much, and apt-get is VERY cool.
