Debian-live plus Debian-eeepc equals the perfect combination (imo)

I got this cute eeepc model 701 4G in June 2008, it was one of the first netbooks in my country and quite expensive at that time (350€). But I just couldn't resist getting one with GNU/Linux installed. Before these netbooks appeared it was rather difficult to find a laptop without "that other" hideous legacy operating system pre-installed. You had to pay for it even if you didn't intend to use it at all. (Getting a refund was just myth and legend)

The eeepc came with Xandros but do you want to know how little it lasted there? Just a couple of weeks and Debian took over!!!


I love my eeepc so much that I just can't imagine my life without it. I use it more than any other of my machines. I installed Etch (=lenny testing), Lenny and now Squeeze. If everything goes well I'll install Wheezy, and hopefully whatever comes next.



I use it with a full-blown desktop environment (id est gnome) and I even have openoffice!!! (I  removed it at first but changed my mind later) But if I have to tell you the truth I had to get rid of a lot of bloat. (cups, exim...) due to space constraints. At the moment of writing this I use it everyday with these applications: amsn, xchat, radiotray, metv, supertux, dropbox, filezilla and chromium browser. Some of them at the same time and it works tirelessly!!!


Well the story goes that in order to tweak this pretty little thing I used two awesome tools: a debian-live system and the savoir-faire of Debian-eeepc project. In order to learn more about this project I recommend you to take a look at their site. I could talk about this project for hours because I have read and learned a lot on their site. But I'll let you judge by yourself.

Update 1 (March 4th): I tried this image from the debian eeepc wiki. It is awesome in live mode (with lxde) but the installer crashed in the middle of the process. Anyway it is a release candidate 1.  The stable release, if any, ought to work just fine.

Debian Live project

The last time I remember talking on this blog about the Debian Live project was when I installed Squeeze on my eeepc 701 4G.

But I'm pretty sure I have made references to the project a thousand times. It's a project I have followed from the very beginning and one which I really love. If I am not mistaken, now I'm just trying to recall from the past, the project was initiated by the live team led by Daniel Baumann after everybody out there was building debian-based live images without any official release available anywhere. Debian live came through to fill that empty space. The project has now produced stable releases out of Lenny and Squeeze. (There were no official releases of Etch) and at the time of writing this they are working on the production of live images of Wheezy. There is a daily, weekly and monthly build on the project website. There you can also find an online cgi builder to tailor the images to your liking.

One important thing to notice is that the project is geared towards helping users to create their own images as the team members focus on developement rather than simply providing pre-built images. Although they produce those images for practical reasons.

On http://live.debian.net/ you can also find links to different sections of development. Among them all I would like to point out the live-manual as I happen to be translating it into Spanish (Together with a partner)

In the manual you'll find everything explained in detail. But here are some of the reasons why I personally love debian live:

- Gives you the tools to build custom images and shows you how to use them.

- It is useful to test hardware. Images can be installed on different media from cds to usb sticks. You can boot them from the media without having to install anything on the hard drive. (You can save changes if you want to, using persistence)

- It is very handy as a rescue tool (That I can assure you)

- You can now use it to install Debian on eeepc's. You will definitely then need to check out the debian-eeepc project led by Ben Armstrong. I'll tell you about it on another occasion. It's gonna be soon.

Installation of Squeeze

As I told you yesterday. Debian 6.0.0 code name Squeeze has been released today. I had already installed it on my laptops but not yet on my desktops. Today I have installed it on Odd. F.hopper  will have to wait for some time until I have some afternoon free.

I've had some issues, but they were of little or of no importance at all. The strangest one was that the installer didn't install gnome. I had to manually do it later on the terminal after the installation had finished. Other things were related to the fact that new software has new features and I still have to get used to some of these changes.

Well, evolution does not work properly. It didn't work after freeze either. I suppose the team will provide a fix soon.

Well it's a bit late now. I'll tell you more on another occasion. 

Squeeze released!!!

This is going to be a very special weekend because Debian 6.0 codenamed Squeeze is going to be released if everything goes as scheduled. The release notes are going to be published today or maybe tomorrow. We have to keep in mind that the official announcement will probably come from the USA and that their  time zone has a difference between 3-8 hours to GMT. I am at +1. There can be a delay of several hours.

Congratulations to all Debian project members and volunteers from around the world.  I will keep watch all day for this important moment to arrive.