Other than a few obtuse references to some of the features of the Fedora 8 rescuecd, I could not easily figure out how to install Fedora 8 (fc8) in a similar fashion to Debian's netinst installer.

It took me a few tries to get a good burn on Damn Small Linux 4.3. Once I did, it worked great on my Dell Optiplex GX 520. It also performed flawlessly on my VIA C3 test box.

Finally re-installed Debian 4.0 “etch” on the Toshiba Satellite Pro M10. It’s a dual-boot installation with Windows XP. I installed from a CD (I only used CD 1, .iso image available on the Debian website.

Being in a reasonably small home I was eager to save on desk-space, and so decided to upgrade my ageing inkjet printer at the same time. Having looked around I eventually went for an HP Photosmart C5180 device.

We tested openSUSE, Ubuntu 8.04, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva Linux One, Fedora, SimplyMEPIS, and CentOS 5.1. All performed well, and each had at least one truly outstanding feature.

I was cleaning up my /home partiton when I noticed I had several tiny distros hanging around waiting to be tested. So I thought this might be a good time to write an updated Mini-distro Roundup.

I was always shying away from installing the firmware, building from the source. But when I found no other way, I ventured to get things done with sourceforge.net and here is how.

Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt becomes Release Manager for Debian, replacing Andreas Barth.

If you are currently using a Linux router on a home network, you should seriously consider uPnP. uPnP allows computers to request ports be opened for them, so applications that require open ports can work without work of the owner of the Linux router.

used webmin for most of my user administration in the past just because of the ease of use, however I’ve been trying to move away from webmin and do everything myself from the command line lately so I’ve gotten back into adding users and managing passwords and groups from the command line.