If you like. By default, it installs binaries, but it also lets you download the source packages (well, or it'll download them for you), tweak the build parameters, and create your own binaries.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
If you like. By default, it installs binaries, but it also lets you download the source packages (well, or it'll download them for you), tweak the build parameters, and create your own binaries.

That's nice.

Quote: Original post by BBB
I can just install the stable version (called Sarge right? ) and then add stuff like an Xorg server with XComposite et.c.?

You can do that but it requires some effort. It would be easier to either use Sarge with some backports or just use testing or unstable. I recommend testing since unstable breaks essential things like KDE from time to time and it usually doesn't take very long for the latest toys from unstable to be brought in. With both testing and unstable you should do dist-upgrades at least every few weeks if you want to keep up, just like with gentoo.

Or just use (K)Ubuntu. It's Debian for real people.

arch

check their philosophy and see if it matches yours.

Quote: Original post by eedok
arch

check their philosophy and see if it matches yours.

A distributions philosophy isn't always their practice, though saying that, I am actually tempted to try Arch.

BBB: Have you tried memtest86+ to see if your RAM is faulty? I kept getting crashes in KDE but then memtest86+ told me I had over 40,000 errors in a RAM chip... since then I've had no crashes.

I like both Slackware's package manager, pkgtool (and related utilities), and other ones such as apt (through the form of Synaptic) and portage.

Two really useful programs are checkinstall and slackpkg.

Slackpkg is just like portage for a slackware mirror site (i.e. you could configure it to look at packages in slackware-current).
Checkinstall allows you to make .tgz files from source which you're then able to install using installpkg as so you can upgrade/remove it later.

Quote: Original post by BBB
And btw, if I'm not misstaken the debian manual said that installing an X-server is complicated and "out of the scope of this manual" :S . Is that true?

Certainly not more difficult than with Slackware.

Quote: Original post by BBBAnd how many CD's should I download? There didn't seem to be any X-server on the first disc.

Do a base install with a network install CD, switch apt-get to use testing in /etc/apt/sources.list and install what packages you want with apt-get.

Here's been my experience:

I've used Slackware.... back in 1994 maybe even as early as 1993!!! Probably not the best.

Debian.... When I was running ISPs back in the late 90s and even after that through up until about a couple of years ago, I used Debian. It was probably the best at the time and in fact is still very good and meets a lot of needs (so for some people it is the best).

Gentoo.... wtf? Really, IMO, this is only for hard-core folks that are more interested in Linux than in getting things done. This is installed on a box that I have stuff on.

CentOS.... Stay away from this. Although the idea is great, the implementation isn't quite there yet. I predict that this distro will disappear sometime within the next couple of years.

Fedora Core.... This is what I've been using. It meets my needs pretty well. The package update utility (yum) is waaaay slower than apt, which is the only thing that makes me sad. It's not bad on a 3GHz server, but on a 1GHz P3 box it I usually go out for a walk while waiting on it. I find this to be the best distro for my needs.

SUSE.... This is not bad. Definitely something to look at. I installed it on my laptop, and it detected the video, sound, and ethernet drivers properly. I thought it was a little on the heavy side; I needed something I could install fairly stripped down. Even Fedora's minimal install is a little too much than what I need, but I couldn't find a way to get SUSE to install just the basics.