Debian vs Suse

[Leo J Mauler]

On Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:10:27 -0600 Karl Schmidt <karl at xtronics.com>
writes:
> Leo J Mauler wrote:
> 
> > Anaconda?  As in "if you have less than 128MB of RAM, *don't 
> > bother installing Linux*"?
> > 
> > Even at 64MB the RedHat Anaconda installer whines and whines 
> > about  not having enough resources, and at 32MB to 40MB it 
> > takes its ball and goes home.
> 
> Hmm - I don't have any machines with less than 128MB other than a 
> firewall -
> 
> Not sure the memory issue is a big problem today - (my first 
> computer had 1K of memory - came in $10 chips that had 
> 512bits each). Memory is cheap today.(Wish I could get some 
> for my cranium<g>).

Memory for older systems is NOT cheap.  There are sellers on EBay who
want $30 and up for 16MB 72-pin SIMMs.  You can get the same SIMM "new"
at MicroCenter for the paltry (by 1995 standards) sum of $44.95 per SIMM.

I've got a stack of Pentium 100Mhz machines which would be nice E-mail
machines doing console apps, but I only have 8MB SIMMs and each one has
only 4 SIMM slots.  So 32MB per machine.  *Current* RedHat says "buy more
RAM" when you try to install in under 64MB RAM.

Now, if RedHat 9.0 offered the possibility of activating a swap file or
partition right away, that would make it possible to handle *current*
RedHat on a 32MB machine.

> I would think you could borrow some memory from a second machine 
> during the install if it is a big problem.

And as mentioned earlier, when all you have is 8MB SIMMs you have nothing
to "borrow".

Now, the original thing was me saying how stupid it was to use a current
Anaconda to install Debian because of the 64MB barrier.  There are
options for installing *current* RedHat in under 32MB of RAM (such as the
RULE project), so installing RedHat isn't the point, installing Debian is
the point.

A nice Debian guy has already pointed out that Anaconda is being ported
to Debian by a fringe Debian person, and that the Debian group has been
rewriting its own installer so the Anaconda Debian project will only be
an alternative installer, not the only Debian installer.  So it looks
like I have no worries.

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