Re: Newbie needs help

["Lorne Williams" <lornew@direct.ca>]

From: Donovan Rebbechi
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 1999 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: Newbie needs help


> THe differential section is less than 100MB. The base
redhat mirror takes
> up much more. If you're short on HD space, get a RH 5.2 CD
and install the
> contents of the differential subsection on top of RH 5.2

Sorry, can't afford it. Don't want to either! I want to get
started by downloading from the Independence site.

> > Does anyone have a plan that will get me going in a 200
MB
> > Linux partition?

How about 300? What's the minimum?

> You can theoretically. But it's pushing the limits. Try
imagining
> installing Windows xx on a machine with 200MB of HD space
and you get a
> pretty good idea. The more features you add
 DOS->Win3.1->Win95->Win NT )
> , the more space you use.

Windows 95 is only about 150 MB for a full install. The .cab
files themselves are 45 MB, plus a few goodies, say roughly
60MB. I haven't tried it, but you might be able to download
and install onto a 250 MB drive. I recall that my first
install of Win95 was on a laptop with 4MB of RAM, and a
120MB HD. From floppies, over DOS. It was slow, but it
worked.

It worked. I didn't care that it was slow or lacked snazzy
apps. It worked enough to get me excited about the potential
of it. That's the sort of starting point I want with Linux.
Get me into X and let me explore.

> Here's a plan anyway: grab the Redhat 5.2 CD. When it
comes to selecting
> packages, choose individually, and keep it minimal. Don't
install LaTeX or
> Emacs. Don't install developement tools. Do install the X
window system.
>
Perhaps someone could do this, and take note of the packages
required. Keep the accessories to a minimum. One text
editor, one game, an email program, a news reader. A starter
system for the end user - non programmer.

There are distributions that fit on one floppy. I don't want
to go that small. To be comfortable for the average windoze
user we need to be able to put them into X with a minimum of
fuss. We can learn from MS. A full install of Win98 doesn't
give much more than the short list above. But it works, it's
snazzy, and there are tons of programs available to add to
the system right away.

Thanks for you help Donovan!

Lorne.