SIDUX

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SIDUX
Sidux is Debian Unstable, made stable. It is a rolling Distro, no re-installation needed when a new version comes out. It is supposed to be stable, bleeding edge OS. Sidux installs fast, it took me just 7 minutes to install the Lite version on my ACER 5101 laptop with 2 GHz AMD Turion and 512 MB RAM. It boots fast too. It also runs fast and I did not see it use SWAP when RAM was free. Dynamic frequency scaling is enabled by default, my 2 GHz cpu runs at 800 MHz most of the time and my laptop uses about 16 Watt of power with good display brightness. For an OS that is just over an year old, Sidux is very impressive. Sidux recognized every piece of hardware, it is supposed to be good at hardware detection. And it has an excellent manual,one of the finest manuals I have ever seen. In addition to the nice manual, Sidux has very well maintained WIKI pages. The Sidux forums are very friendly and supportive. Sidux does not have any package manager as such though it has a meta-package manager for some packages. The meta-package manager also gives you the option of installing the non-free packages. I could play VCD in Kafeine after installing the non-free stuff, something I have been unable to do in Ubuntu In Windows XP, I had to open the DAT file to play VCD. The Lite versions (400+ MB in 32 bit and 64-bit) do not include Open Office or Gimp (image editor), but Open Office can be installed by using the meta-package manager. I prefered to add abiword(text editor) and gnumeric (spreadsheet), I wanted to keep my system Lite. Next I added iceweasel (mozilla firefox for Debian) as it is my favorite browser, and a couple of other packages using apt-get. I wanted Gnome, but it is 'NO' in Sidux, though you can add and run it. Unless you are prepared for system breaks. So you use KDE, in case it crashes, you have fluxbox to bank upon. Sidux has given me the chance to get familiar with KDE. Installation and removal of packages is done by apt-get in the Terminal (or Konsole), and you are supposed to use the Debian Unstable repository that is enabled by default. To enable my wired network connection I had to configure my network card for DHCP and then configure the DSL which is simple and straight. You just have to click on the right menu. For DSL you just click on sidux>net>DSL>My PPPoP conf. NOTE : Now they have CENI for both WIRED and WIFI network setup. Installation is pretty simple once you have your partitions ready, you can use the partition editor built into the Live CD. You run the Live-CD and you click on the installation icon on desktop to install' Choose your partition for /, enable mounting of other partitions that you want to mount at boot, and after the final 'go' it is just a matter of about 7 minutes for the light version unless you have installation of meta-packages enabled in the last step. Soon after you install, just enable your networking and then install sidux-scripts. You can also open the meta-package manager and install what you want including the non-free items. The sidux-scripts also installs Ceni for easy network card configuration. To upgrade (you are supposed to upgrade at least once in 4-6 weeks, acually daily) you press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to exit GUI and the KDE environment. Then you enter run-level 3 and run the SMXI script (just type SMXI and press 'ENTER') to upgrade. Information on SMXI and upgrades is given in the Sidux manual. Sidux is not for absolute beginners in Linux, it needs just a little bit of experience. My few months of experience with Ubuntu helped me a lot, after all Ubuntu too is Debian based. You can choose other Desktop Managers at time of Log-in, but Sidux with KDE is fast enough. Sidux is one of the finest Distros, though it is just about an year old. Some say that Sidux is seductive, Sidux is not only seductive, it is very addictive. website: sidux.com You will find all the information you need at their website. Please go through their excellent Manual before you install. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Following has been taken from the sidux manual, with a few modifications to avoid confusion. fromiso Installation For normal use we recommend the ext3 file system. It is the default file system for sidux and well maintained. fromiso' is much faster then from the CD- /DVD-drive and keeps the drive available. 'fromiso' installation occupies just a bit more space than your iso file and boots from the iso just like the from Live CD. Booting is faster and if you do a HDD install, it is faster. No worry about bad burns, as no CD/DVD is used. You just need a working Grub. Requirements: * a functioning grub (on a floppy, a HD-Installation or the Live-CD) * a sidux ISO Image e.g.: sidux.iso and a linux file system like ext2/3 First we choose a place for the iso and 2 files we need, so we get shorter names. Therefore we create a base-directory: for example in "/media/sdax" (sda1 or, 2, or 5, or 6, or whatever, for example) create the directory "sidux" and copy the iso into it: $ sux mkdir -p /media/sdax/sidux mv sidux.iso /media/sdax/sidux now we move to that directory and mount the ISO image: Here we assume that the name of iso image is sidux.iso. Either use your iso name in place of sidux.iso or rename the iso file to sidux.iso. Please note that file names are case sensitive in Linux. mkdir -p /mnt/test mount -t iso9660 -o loop,ro /media/sdax/sidux/sidux.iso /mnt/test After mounting the iso have a look at /mnt/test/boot/ code: ls /mnt/test/boot/ and use the names for vmlinuz-... and initrd.img-... instead of the ones shown below or in the sidux manual. Now copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img files from the mounted iso image to the directory (where X for the kernel and HD are known variables:: cp /mnt/test/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 /media/sdax/sidux/ cp /mnt/test/boot/initrd.img-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 /media/sdax/sidux/ Next you have to customise grub. Therefore edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst and add the following lines AFTER the ### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST: NOTE no wildcards on grub line for filenames allowed! Here in sdxn put a value for y (y = n-1). For sda3, use 2 (sd0,2), for sda1 use 0 (sd0,0)and so on. x = 0 for a drive , x = 1 for b drive and so on. If you are using 64-bit NYX, you can change the title below to sidux 64bit NYX from ISO or whatever you like. ### ISO boot title sidux 32bit from ISO kernel (hd0,y)/sidux/vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/sidux/sidux.iso initrd (hd0,y)/sidux/initrd.img-2.6.23.9-rc1-slh-smp-1 With next boot you have a new menu item in grub to start the iso image.