Having been through this recently, part of your answer depends on the age of the machine you plan to use for the installation. Recently, I purchased an SC420 Dell server for the specific purpose of installing and becoming intimately conversant with Linux. I chose Debian, and I guess I'm not really sorry about that, but in retrospect, a more modern, corporate supported Linux like Zeus might have been easier. The big problem with Debian is the huge cycles between official releases. Woody is basically June, 2003, way too old! Anyway, I chose to purchase the Woody set of CDs because that's the official release. Bad move, and don't do it unless you're using older hardware! The rule of thumb seems to be that the older the release, the older the kernel, and thus hardware support. If I had the install to do over again, I'd go with the newest kernel along with Sarge that is available either on CD or, even better, through the network that is not on the 'unstable' branch. I didn't have the network as an option because I couldn't get to the network until getting a newer kernel and module for my network adaptor. Another possibly helpful comment: I was amazed at how helpful the people were at Dell about this, even though Debian is not officially supported, only Red Hat. They have a website devoted to Debian on Dells and an email list. Your hardware vendor may do the same thing, and their advice can be extremely helpful. Hope this is helpful. Chris On Tue, 8 Mar 2005, Andrew Hodgson wrote: > Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:28:21 -0000 > From: Andrew Hodgson <andrew at hodgsonfamily.org> > Reply-To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. > <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> > To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> > Subject: Debian install > > Hi, > > I am going to get some Debian CDs, and need to know whether to get Sarge > or Woody R4 sets? What is the easiest to install with Speakup, baring > in mind I want to use Gnome? > > Thanks, > Andrew. > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- Chris Gray, Sr. Technical Writer Symantec Corporation 415-738-2649 voice 415-348-9636 fax San Francisco, CA 94107
