seeking opinions on debian install

[Ed Barnes]

Hi folks.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I joined the list, I queried you folks 
who are more knowledgeable regarding a partitioning strategy and some other 
installation options as it pertained to setting up Red Hat 7.2 (modified 
speakup distro taken from speakup ftp site) on a pentium ii 233 mhz w 64 mb 
of ram.

This machine was to be composed of a bunch of old parts that I have here at 
home along with some other contributions acquired from a friend who has 
just recently upgraded.
Anyway, most of the more important parts were coming from my friend Jen, 
I.E., cpu, case w 250 or 300 w ps, board, heat sink for chip, one of the 
two Hds, and I think that is about it.

Nevertheless, my collection of working comp parts here at home doesn't 
include a socket 7 board and I haven't had any success finding one locally 
so if I want to setup a temporary Linux box to play with til I am working 
and can afford to buy another machine which is more powerful in all 
respects, it probably won't happen til once I am done school and am working 
at least close too permanently. Timeline gives that to being some time in 
mid-Summer.
   So, despite the fact I have a few Pentium class chips around along with 
loads of 72 pin sims, my temporary Linux box will end up being a 486 dx 66 
mhz w 16 mb of ram 16x BTC IDE cd-rom, and a 1.6 gb Fujitsu HD.

I have done more reading including looking at the hardware requirements to 
setup Red Hat 7.2 and Debian 2.2 r 2, the one with speakup built into it.
 From what I have read and given my marginal hardware at the moment I have 
decided that Debian 2.2 r 2 "potato" would probably be my best bet.
I also read the Debian installation manual because I am a computer geek of 
sorts and I don't know any Debian users round here and I don't want to 
totally screw things up.  <lol>

Any thoughts, recommendations for or against what I've concluded so far.

Due to the minimal hd size of /dev/hda I figured I would use one of these 
partitioning schemes.

/dev/hda 1.6 gb fujitsu hd
/dev/hda1
/ 100 mb
/dev/hda2
/usr 700 mb
/dev/hda3
/var 400 mb
/dev/hda5 (this partition will be one of the ones created in as a logical 
drive in the extended partition during Linux install, same goes for hda6 
and hda7 respectively.
/tmp 100 mb
/dev/hda6
  swap 100 mb
/dev/hda7
/home 200 mb

 From what I've learned from reading the Debian installation manual, would 
work_std be the best setup kernel type for me to choose given my crappy 
hardware? See the exerp I've copied from the manual below.

<snip>

Work_std
A more stripped-down user machine, without the X window system or X 
applications. Possibly suitable for a laptop or mobile computer. The size 
is around
140 MB. (Note that the author has a pretty simple laptop setup including 
X11 in even less, around 100 MB).

<end snip>

Also, the most comprehensive kernel choice given the low budget hardware I 
have would probably be vanila wouldn't it?
See snip from manual.

begin snip

`vanilla'
The standard kernel package available in Debian. This includes almost all 
drivers supported by Linux built as modules, which includes drivers for network
devices, SCSI devices, sound cards, Video4Linux devices, etc. The `vanilla' 
flavor includes one Rescue Floppy, one root and three Driver Floppies.

end snip

The other option if you would think it more practical is simply create /, 
/usr, swap partition, and /home, ditch /tmp and /var, increase size of /usr 
to include  enough space for tmp and var dirs to be housed within /usr.
I would also not be boxing myself in as much with 7 tiny partitions using 
this second scheme.
So, it would look something like this.
/dev/hda is a 1.6 gb hd
/dev/hda1
/ 100 mb
/dev/hda2
swap partition 100 mb
     /dev/hda3
/home 100 mb
/dev/hda4
  /usr remaining space on 1.6 gb hard drive

For hardware the 486 has as mentioned before the 1.6 gb hd, a 16x BTC 
cd-rom which is jumperable, 16 mb 30 pin sim ram 4x4, isa or vesa ATI video 
card don't remember which, and a 16 bit isa sound blaster card of some 
sort. No nics in the box at the moment but I was going to add two 3com 
3c509 nics too.
Synth is an accent pc.

Anyone have any thoughts on whether partitioning scheme 1 or 2 would be 
vbetter and or anything else I've mentioned. Personally, the more I think 
it over in my head, as a first-time installer of Linux with limitted 
resources, I like scheme 2 better.

I'd appreciate any and all advice anyone has to offer.
You can write to me directly at ed.barnes at janus.northatlantic.nf.ca or 
edbarnes at superweb.ca, or reply on the list.
I've installed the Windows ver of Speak Freely as well til I get a Linux 
box up and on the go so I could join you folks on the reflector to discuss 
this if anyone would find this more convenient.
Is it still at: lwl.braille.uwo.ca:4074

Thanks all and do have a wonderful Sunday.

Ed Barnes