choosing a distro and version

[Thomas Ward]

Hi, Ed. Well, I would suggest Red Hat 7.2 myself. If you have access to a
high speed internet connection, and a cdrom burner there is a version of Red
Hat 7.2 on the Linux Speakup site that has Speakup already built in. It has
boot disks to help you with a self voicing install, etc.
Red Hat was my first distribution, and still is my favorite distribution.
Fpor newbies it has quite a lot to offer. The sound configuration tools,
kudzu hardware maniger, and other configuration tools to help you get it
going.

Your partitioning sounds good. It would be a vary good idea to put /home on
/dev/hdb.  I will leave it up to others to give specifics on partitioning
they use.

----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Barnes <ed.barnes at janus.northatlantic.nf.ca>
To: linux speakup listserve <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 11:22 AM
Subject: choosing a distro and version


> Hi again folks, hope nobody is sick of hearing from me yet, if so, I'm
> sorry.
> nevertheless, I was looking at the speakup web site, in particular
available
> information on Debian and Red Hat Linux distroes.
> I am debating choosing to setup either a Debian or a Red Hat system as my
> first Linux system
> I have spoken with some Linux users locally and the general consensus from
> those who have used both distroes is that for a first-timer Red Hat might
be
> an easier setup and that after I have successfully conquered setting up a
> Red Hat box I would have enough skill to conquer setup of Debian and/or
> Slackware as desired.
> Any thoughts?
> The system which I was planning to use and dedicate to setting up Linux as
> its only operating system is a Pentium II 233 MHZ w 64 mb of ram and two
> HDs, it has a sound blaster pro sound card, and it will have a Symbios
Logic
> pci video adapter or an Sys chip set based AGP though I am leaning toward
> using the AGP so as to be able to use the extra pci slot for something
more
> practical like one of the nics.
> I know that I should create a min of three partitions, /home, /root, and a
> swap partition.
> I have rough ideas of how big I want these partitions to be based on what
I
> wish to do with the server from a functional point of view.
> The two HDs are 1.6 gb and 2 gb in size respectively.
> From a point of view of incorporating some level of fault tolerance in the
> system I was thinking the root partition and the swap partition should go
on
> /dev/hda and the home partition should go on /dev/hdb.
>         This would make system backup more convenient as I would only have
> to backup the /dev/hdb drive to save user data.
> In the event that I do anything to cause the kernel to blow up I could
> simply flatten /dev/hda and re-install it and re-create the user accounts
> whose data is still stored on /dev/hdb and or my backups.
>   I was figuring that I would optimize hd space usage by using the 2 gb
> drive as /dev/hda and use the 1.6 gb as /dev/hdb as I don't estimate that
my
> system would have any more than 2 too 5 users, root, an user account, for
> myself, and one too three accounts that I might create to facilitate my
own
> fooling around and attempting to learn more about Linux aside from the
> accounts which some Linux services, processes create after they are
compiled
> into the kernel and started.
> I was also thinking of putting a min of two nics into the system so it
could
> be used to store a dynamic routing table for dns and create an ip subnet
> mask so though I am paying for only one ip through my cable internet
service
> provider all the machines I have at home could both access the internet
and
> be accessed from the internet by me.
> I know that steps to create an ip subnet mask and setup dns are well
> documented at linuxdoc.org and I enjoy reading tech docs as required so I
> won't bor you guys with questions that have already been answered
elsewhere.
> I have read the readme files pertaining to speakup when it is installed
with
> both Red Hat 7 and 7.2 respectively and I already have copies of both
> versions gotten directly from a Red Hat mirror.
> Due to the fact that easy-to-use boot disk images are available for 7.0
and
> I don't need to modify any software which I already have other than
> downloading the appropriate boot image and using rawrite to copy it to
> floppy it seems that this would be the best distro to choose in my case.
> In reading the speakup-related readme for Red Hat 7.2 it seems that I
would
> have to radically alter the CDs I already have to make it work with
speakup
> and I don't really want the extra work at the moment.
> Lastly, for synths I have two Accents, a pc and an sa, a transport, and a
> BNS.
> From the collective experience of others, is there one which is easier to
> get talking or which works better than any of the others given the ones I
> have available to me or is it just a question of me choosing the one I
like
> to listen to the most and choosing to use it over any of the others.
>
> In closing, thanks for reading, I'd appreciate any thoughts on what I've
> written and guidance as to whether I am hitting a home run or if I am very
> much out in left field so to speak.
> Any and all opinions welcome either sent to the listserve or to me
directly
> using either ed.barnes at janus.northatlantic.nf.ca or ebarnes at superweb.ca.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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