Well, you'll find this list very pro-Debian, so right here, much of your support woes can be alleviated, (with regard to your earlier pro-RH-documentation comment) assuming you search Google at a minimum before asking. I prefer Gentoo, but I do not use it in such a large environment. A gentoo install can be done remotely, but you would need a user on the opposite end to plug the CD in, configure the network, and start sshd. >From that point on, you can do everything remotely. Ultimately, I find both Gentoo and Debian to be rather similar, but have stuck with Gentoo because the Portage system makes more sense to me than Debian's apt. Part of this opinion is derived directly from the fact that I don't use Debian/apt every day, though. FWIW, the differences between *any* Linux distribution aren't so vast that you will find yourself without support. Best of luck, and welcome to St. Paul. On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 08:26:20 -0500, gregwm <tclug at greatlakedata.com> wrote: > On Tue, 2004-07-27 at 23:36, Chad Walstrom wrote: > > The new debian-installer is working well for attended installations, but > > for unattended installations, you'll need to use FAI (Fully Automated > > Install) or autoinstall. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. > > > > I've used FAI to maintain 80+ Debian machines at the Institute of > > Mathematics and its Applications, on hardware approaching 6 years old. > > It was very stable, very flexible, and sometimes very frustrating. > > > > Scott Dier uses autoinstall to maintain the Debian boxes at the CS > > Department at the U and swears by it. I'm sure he can give you examples > > of its strengths and weaknesses as well. > > > > Take a look at the package descriptions for each on > > http://packages.debian.org. > > > > Perhaps we should have a theme TCLUG meeting around the idea of > > unattended installations. > > my need is to do installs remotely. i fully intend to attend to them, > presumably using vnc, but the machine itself may be far away. with just > a knoppix cd i can get vnc control, partition, and download whatever i > want. but then to install, i'll need a cooperative installer.. > > -g > > > -- > gregory whitley mott > it coordinator > nonviolentpeaceforce.org > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org > Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > -- John T. Hoffoss _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list