I think Portage is better, unless you're planning to use a lot of Debian binaries.

EISA...wow, I still have my old Prosigna and Proliant systems that are EISA based, but I haven't tried to install anything on them in several years so I feel for you but you don't *have* to use SmartStart, any drivers or utilities can be run by themselves and more modern Proliants have the utilities built into the ROM.

yeah its 1/2 EISA and 1/2 PCI lol by the way u say u have servers?
I have a mystery card (looks like a big paralell port - longer) is it external scsi or remote insigh or what?

and yeah we got apt kinda working now and GUI installer is in unstable/testing phase i like APT as never really used portage and i like the debian repos selection

System specifics

SourceLinux Beta 1 Features



1 LiveCD ISO
Text instillation – Graphical Coming Soon
Default Desktop is GNOME
Package Management with APT (DEB)
Built for the i686




SourceLinux Beta 1 Packages




abiword
2.4.5
alsa-lib
1.0.12
amarok
1.4.2
bind
9.3.2
cdrtools
2.01
cups
1.2.2
db
4.4.20
dhcp
3.0.4
emacs
21.4a
evolution
2.6.3
firefox
1.5.0.6
gaim
1.5.0
gcc
4.1.1
gimp
2.2.12
glibc
2.4
gnumeric
1.6.3
gtk+
2.10.2
httpd
2.2.3
iptables
1.3.5
k3b
0.12.17
kdebase
3.5.4
kdewebdev
3.5.4
koffice
1.5.2
libgnome
2.14.1

linux
2.6.17.11
module-init-tools
3.2.2
mono
1.1.13.8
mysql
5.0.24
nautilus
2.14.3
OpenOffice.org
2.0.3
openssh
4.3p2
openssl
0.9.8b
perl
5.8.8
php
5.1.5
postfix
2.3.2
postgresql
8.1.4
Python
2.4.3
qt-x11
4.1.4
samba
3.0.23b
thunderbird
1.5.0.5
udev
098
vim
7.0
xine-lib
1.1.2
xinetd
2.3.14
xorg
7.1

Looks good, but why build it only for i686? Older architectures are always backwards compatible with new computers.

its designed to be noob friendly and fast which is why its 686 optimised. most people will have a p3 or above so its ok

You could always release 2 structures, ie. i586 and i686.... (for those who still have a PII)

so is it released? I think I want to try it out.

i think we will make an i586 version as one of my friends and a co developer has a AMD K7 which it wont run on.

GUI installer is now done and so is apt and the system is now in a usable state. It is officially become a "release candidate" we expect it to be able to distribute it in about 6 weeks (docs need doing and we need a server)