Trying to come back?

[Joseph Norton]

Hi All:

It's been a rough year or two!--not all of it, but, enough!

To briefly update:

I went out of circulation because of a house fire suffered in December 2007.  I lost my computers, most of my software, my 3 hardware synths and most of everything else.

On the good side, I escaped alive and physically intact.

I have also gotten married and have a beautiful wife and a 4-year-old step daughter.  So, again, not all bad news.

We are in new quarters and I have acquired a donated HP computer which seems to be capable of running Linux.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to a hardware synth.

I saw on blindcooltech that there is a small distro called "GRML".  I have successfully downloaded and installed it on my HD.  It does work, but, I probably need some assistance to do more with it--if this is even possible.

Can I install or build a more robust systtem starting with GRML?  In particular, can I get a better software synth than the robotic british one that ships with GRML?  Since it's based on Debian, can I install Debian packages over it?

Or, are there other alternatives for installing Linux with only software synth available?

Any help would be appreciated.