[CLUE-Talk] Trying Out Debian

[Timothy Klein]

* Matthew Porter (mfporter at mindspring.com) wrote:
> 
> This is one of the things that sounds great about Debian.
> 
> Question:  If the only 'net connection I have is a dialup, will it 
> still be practical to do things like "apt-get upgrade" (or "apt-get 
> install foo") from an online archive?  Or will I need upgrade CDs?
> 
>  --Matt.
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------
> Matthew Porter
> Golden, Colorado

Well, I have never used a modem with Linux.  I have always had DSL, so I have 
no direct experience.  I think, though, that apt-get will still be quite 
usefull.  The upgrade from 2.2r0 2.2r2 was around 20 or 40 megabytes.  That is
going to take a couple of hours on a modem line, but it shouldn't be too
unbearable.  Also, apt-get is a smart downloader.  If you download 98% of
package xyz and your modem connection is lost, when you restart apt-get it
starts downloading the last 2% again.  Same thing if your connection dies after
downloading 5 of 6 packages.  It starts at package 6.

Now, for a modem upgrade from stable (2.2r2) to unstable or testing, (Sid and
Woody, respectively), it is going to take some time.  It seems like the last 
time I tried that the number of packages and size of those packages was quite
large (100+ megabytes?).  But it would be possible.  Just set it to do it at
night or while you at work, or something.

For the occasional security upgrade and package install, apt should be just fine
on a modem

HTH

Tim

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== Timothy Klein         || And what rough beast                   ==
== teece at silverklein.net || Its hour come round at last            ==
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