debian - why is there so many cd's to download?

[craptakular]

Hi,

After my recent success with Mint, I think I wanna try debian. Is there any advantage/benefit to it over ubuntu/mint? I understand the later are based of debian anyway.

If people think its worth a look, can some one link me to the bog standard live cd? As I only seem to find iso's that require a lot of cd's. Does that make sense?

Oxy

 

[Ethics]

You don't REQUIRE all of the cds, they simply comtain EVERY package available for Debian, they cater for all users (as best they can) and you are to pick and choose what you need. There should be a net install cd in there too, or just go with a base system and install configure the rest via apt-get

 

[growse]

There's a bunch of options with debian, predictably based on exactly what you have / need.

- Tiny CD, about 40 MB, http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r3-i386-businesscard.iso
-Bigger CD, about 180MB http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r3-i386-netinst.iso

Both the above need a network connection to get debian up and running.

If you need to get it up without a network, you need either:

- Single CD, 650MB. Basically, the first CD in the complete set of disks http://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/#stable. This will get you up and running, and you can install extra stuff from the net.

- Everything, 21 CDs or 3 DVDs. Huge. Basically every package, so you can get everything without hooking it up to the internet. Not recommended really.

Hope that makes some sense.

 

[craptakular]

yeh that makes more sense. Ill try the 180mb image first. So theres not a live image as such?

Is there any benfeits ti standard debian over ubuntu/mint? or are they basically the same?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Debian is more focused on having proven stable packages and they make no concessions for what they consider non-free software.

 

[Ethics]

Debian is more focused on having proven stable packages and they make no concessions for what they consider non-free software.

Just to expand on the above:

Not sure if it's still the case but Debian Stable freezes program revisions when it's released and will only release bug fixes etc. for those versions.

if you want to keep upto date with program revisions you'd need Debian un-stable or wahtever it is called. Ubuntu uses a more 'bleeding edge' approach and releases new program revisions etc.