[PLUG] Migrating from WinXP Pro to Ubuntu 10.10

[Bill Barry]

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 1:59 AM, Russell Senior
<russell at personaltelco.net>wrote:

> >>>>> "Richard" == Richard Owlett <rowlett at pcnetinc.com> writes:
>
> If you want a non-bloaty base installation, you could try Debian.  It
> lets you install with a minimum of packages to start with.  Then you
> can add more as you need them.  However, Debian is not a particularly
> hand-holding distribution.  So, your mileage may vary.  Ubuntu is
> without doubt a friendlier place to start.  Stuff "Just Works" with
> Ubuntu most of the time.  Debian requires a little more knowledge to
> avoid cutting yourself on the edges.
>
> I am mostly ignorant of the RPM based distributions, so that advice
> comes with a FWIW.
>
>
>
I usually start installing Debian by installing the above mentioned minimum
system. At some point in the Debian installation it presents you with a menu
 so you can choose what to install. It has one thing checked by default. If
you uncheck that, it will install with a nice core set of applications that
will boot into console mode. Since you are probably comfortable with command
line type of work, you can work from there using apt-get install packagename
 to add whatever packages you want. apt-get takes care of the package
dependencies for you.  apt-cache search keyword will allow you to search the
packages to find the name of the one you want to install.  If you want to
move to a graphical environment you have several choices.  One of them is
the KDE desktop for which you can install a minimal components using apt-get
install kde-core.

Bill Barry