Debian Sarge HELP!!

[tynen]

It took me about a week to find an os that would work on my Dell Latitude CP. I found it Debian Sarge, oh how happy I was when I finally got it to install.. and how sad i was when I learned i installed only a command line version..

I NEED HELP!! How the heck do I get xfce or any gui to work on this? It doesn't have access to internet, so whatever I did it would need to be from cd. Debian Sarge is fully installed, but it's only command line.

Please help!!! I extremely need it. I am a semi linux noob. Just so you know.

Thanks in advance for any help!=]

[falko]

I suggest you try Ubuntu instead of Debian. It's based on Debian, but has newer drivers, and installs a desktop by default (unless you download Ubuntu's server version).

[tynen]

Originally Posted by falko

I suggest you try Ubuntu instead of Debian. It's based on Debian, but has newer drivers, and installs a desktop by default (unless you download Ubuntu's server version).

The computer doesn't have enough resources for ubuntu. It only has 64 mb of ram, and only a 233 mhz proc.

[martinfst]

Originally Posted by tynen

The computer doesn't have enough resources for ubuntu. It only has 64 mb of ram, and only a 233 mhz proc.

Any GUI will require more memory, 512 at least. Sarge vs Ubuntu does not make much difference. Create a big swap partition (~2 Gig) and expect your system to crawl. 256 for a server version is doable, but that won't give you a gui. Back to good old command line times.

[till]

I suggest to try xubuntu instead of Debian:

http://www.xubuntu.org/

Its basically a debian with the XFCE desktop.

[rasterburn]

actually martinfst not all GUI require a min of 512mb ram, i was running an old laptop that had just a 10GB hdd, 192MB ram (64MB Base ram), and a 600MHz processor in it, i set the partition to run 5GB with windows XP, 500MB for linux swap, and then 4.5GB for Linux itself, linux ran screaming fast in comparison to windows, i was useing x-window-system with fluxbox, and no gui login. x-window-system is the backend for all desktops and window managers alike, fluxbox is the GUI that i was running, i find both Gnome and KDE are too bulky and resource hungery.

[martinfst]

Originally Posted by rasterburn

actually martinfst not all GUI require a min of 512mb ram, i was running an old laptop that had just a 10GB hdd, 192MB ram (64MB Base ram), and a 600MHz processor in it, i set the partition to run 5GB with windows XP, 500MB for linux swap, and then 4.5GB for Linux itself, linux ran screaming fast in comparison to windows, i was useing x-window-system with fluxbox, and no gui login. x-window-system is the backend for all desktops and window managers alike, fluxbox is the GUI that i was running, i find both Gnome and KDE are too bulky and resource hungery.

The majority of users will stick to the mainstream Xwindow managers, either Gnome or KDE. Both are, are you also say, resource hungry. Sure there are Xwindow managers that require a lot less resources. The by till referenced XFCE manager can run in around a 128 Mb environment. If you don't mind swapping (and thus a really slow system), you can go even lower. If you strip everything to a bare minimum, I bet you can get a working system with less then 64Mb.

But these steps will be way over the head for a lot of visitors on this forum. And many problems arise from low memory configurations, that's why I gave a 512 Mb minimum memory advise. With current memory prices, this will save you a lot of effort. But be my guest is you can make a tutorial for a complete system running on 64Mb memory, that will be 'deployable' by the beginning/average user. And if your looking for a really technical challenge, go after the 64Mb limit configuration. It can be done.