Net Install

visser · Post by **visser** » 13 Sep 2008, 17:48

Hey all

one thing ive seen a bit of was linux distros that have net installs rather than dvd installers. more specifically debian.

but in general what is the difference between a net install and a full installer?

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 13 Sep 2008, 17:55

I am guessing a net install is a remote install done over the inter/intranet on the OS , the only other diffrence would be that you are installing it from a cd or dvd drive instead of over the net (my guess)

nightkid · Post by **nightkid** » 13 Sep 2008, 22:20

pretty much.
a net install for example would be having a basic edition of linux and say you want....envy, you would open a command terminal and type
sudo "pass"
sudo apt-get install envy

and it shows all the packets coming in then sets it up for u

G-Brain · Post by **G-Brain** » 14 Sep 2008, 01:20

The only difference is the installation source. If you get a CD/DVD, packages are installed from the CD/DVD. If you do the net install, you get the packages from something like an FTP server. The net install CD is obviously smaller, but depending on your internet connection, the installation might take longer. Net install also pretty much solves the problem of scratched media.

Post by **bad_brain** » 14 Sep 2008, 03:38

yes, the main advantage of the netinstaller is that you don't have to download the full DVDs.
just as example: I have a 2 mb DSL connection, for me a Debian Lenny install with desktop environment (it installs Gnome per default), web- and mail-server takes about 1 hour (on an AMD XP2500+ system with 2 GB RAM).

p.s. an important info for people that want to install the "oldstable" Debian Sarge via an old netinstaller CD: will not work anymore because in the sources.list entries the links don't point to /sarge....the links point to /stable, which is Etch now, and so the install will fail because of package dependencies that can't be solved with the proper versions.

p.p.s. I recommend to install Lenny, it is very stable already and reached the "frozen" status of development at the end of July ("frozen" means the "testing" times are over and the list of included packages is complete).
here is the link to the Lenny downloads:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

visser · Post by **visser** » 14 Sep 2008, 17:41

ha ha B_B thats twice now that you've suggested i get Lenny. im getting the feeling i should totally do it ha ha i already have the net install CD sitting in my cd drive on my server. that and Diagnol was convinced as well. he already installed it ha ha

youve made us into some total linux users

F4LSE · Post by **F4LSE** » 16 Sep 2008, 18:58

visser wrote:ha ha B_B thats twice now that you've suggested i get Lenny. im getting the feeling i should totally do it ha ha i already have the net install CD sitting in my cd drive on my server. that and Diagnol was convinced as well. he already installed it ha ha

youve made us into some total linux users

visser speaks the truth

debian ftw

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 16 Sep 2008, 20:00

I've tried Debian, but have gotten more into the Ubuntu family of Debian, eaither way it rocks

it worked on my lowest of systems quickly. Very good OS. Debian on my 128MB ram , 20 GB hd, 700mhz cpu system running faster then my 160GB, 2GB ram, dual core amd 4000+ system running XP.. priceless

Post by **bad_brain** » 17 Sep 2008, 04:29

Debian and Ubuntu are both good distros, but they can't be really compared anyway because the target group is a little different (at least in my opinion).
Ubuntu is more for the end user that wants a modern desktop system, so the used package versions are more up to date and also the hardware compatibility is better because non-free drivers are included.
Debian is more for professional use like for servers, the focus of Debian is maximum stability and not to be 100% up to date with the newest package versions, better an older package version that is known to be stable than the newest one which has not been tested enough yet. also non-free software is not included, the Debian philosophy is "100% open source"...which makes troubleshooting and debugging easier because every user can be a developer at the same time.