HD Install :: Frugal vs. Debian

Hey, I installed DSL frugal from the live CD to my HD about a week ago. I found the initial configuration frustrating: everything vanishes on reboot unless you specify otherwise. I've started to understand backup/restore well enough that I think I will be able to make frugal work for me if I put some effort in.

The trouble is, I don't want to have to hunt down a new directory to add to filetool.lst everytime I change a setting. I would like to have all settings (passwords, apps, hardware profiles, etc) store to HD by default. That is to say, I don't want to be left worrying on every restart "did I get everything??"

My question is: If I do a debian type install, will all conceivable settings persist as they might in Windows, OS X, or UNIX?

Alternatively, if this is not the case, is there a way to accomplish this within the Frugal install?

Alternatively still, if this is not the case, can someone recommend a distro that will run on 96 megs of RAM and AND write all settings to HD automatically?

If you have at least 128M then a frugal install works best. You can have persistant /home /opt directories and not have to worry about settings disappearing. The only thing is if you use alot of .dsl packages your ram is filled fast. Now they have .uci and .unc that solve some of those problems.

I run a HD install on my old PC that has on 64M and it works faster. HD installs are fragile and I broke mine two times mounting a .uci and leaving a usb drive in on boot that had a different backup. If you do a HD install use only .dsl packages or apt-get. Luckly DSL is easy to install if you read the wiki on HD installs

Thank you for your reply u2musicmike, but I'm not sure I understand what you are recommending. When you say:

Quote

I run a HD install on my old PC that has on 64M and it works faster. HD installs are fragile and I broke mine two times mounting a .uci and leaving a usb drive in on boot that had a different backup. If you do a HD install use only .dsl packages or apt-get. Luckly DSL is easy to install if you read the wiki on HD installs

Are you reffering to a debian type install?

I use a debian install on my armada laptop and things work fine. I use synaptic and mydsl quite often to add software. The only thing to remember is that when you install a dsl package the change is permanent (you can't just unload the mydsl extension like with a frugal). Everytime you make a change it is permanent. Also if you upgrade to a new version of DSL you need to redo all your changes (I keep the dsl extensions and .deb files on cd and install from CD if I upgrade or reinstall).

As u2musicmike said though you can break your install if you make changes that cause problems (reinstalling doesn't take that long though so I find it an acceptable risk). I have a partition for /home so I can keep all my personal stuff if I reinstall anyway and only need to reinstall apps.

One thing you would want to do for an HD install is to put nofstab as part of the boot line, otherwise your fstab file will be over written at each boot (not a problem unless you make changes to your fstab file for mounting).

Josiah,

I have the debian type HD install on an older machine that has a 200 MHz CPU and only 64M. I tried frugal on it and it was really slow. I like the HD install using DSL 2.3.

I also have a compac laptop that I run from the CD and I used the backup up tool to save my setting to the HD. I restore my settings by typing dsl restore=hda1 at the boot prompt with the CD and if you have frugal you can change lilo or grub to restore a backup or write your /home /opt directories. I use this laptop for surfing on wifi.

My recommendation is both but it depends on how much ram you have.

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