Re: What to choose
> If you want GUI, in unstable (and probably testing too), there's
> deity-gtk. There's also gnome-apt. I've never used either of these --
> I just know they exists.
oh, they finished that? goody.
> Heather> Also it is fairly easy to fake up entries for locally
> Heather> added programs, if you like to see them mentioned in the
> Heather> package system. Eg Adding an entry for a commercial
> Heather> (web/mailserver/etc) with a Provides: for that flavor of
> Heather> virtual package, so that things that need
> Heather> (httpd|mail-transport|etc) will install without complaint.
>
> It's also relatively easy to make your own packages with dh_make or
> deb-make -- depending on the program that you're installing. If the
> program uses autoconf, it's pretty simple.
>
> I also want to add, as an aside, that I like the way Debian handles
> kernels -- using kernel-package, you can make your own kernel packages,
> which makes custom kernel images really easy.
To bring it all back to laptops --
All "normal" debian kernels are APM capable, they just need an append
line added to the LILO
append="apm=on"
kernel-package means making custom kernels ... very important to us,
most laptops are *ahem* an odd mix of hardware, plus, with the exception
of hot-swap addons (USB, PCMCIA, parallel) rarely can use any other cards.
If Mandrake's installer asks "are you a laptop" that's a plus. What the
question affects if they do, is a good question. How easy they make it
to build a kernel, I don't know - I assume their source RPM is probably
on the discs.
We have a LOT of access to packages which are specific to laptop needs,
including some things for special laptops (toshutils, tpctl, jogdial, etc).
Okay back to just advocacy --
Oh yeah, and I entirely forgot about the package pentium-builder ...
you can make sure that anything you build via apt-get -b source <pkgname>
gets built as pentium-optimized.
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
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