PanDebian - loopback or direct install?

[hmc]

Hi guys,


I'm about to let the PanDebian installer install Debian this night.


However, I'm unsure. It offers installation in a loopback file or "Direct".


Actually I prefer a direct installation, as then I have access to all files without mounting a loopback device first. It's somehow more convenient to me.


However, can I install it in the "direct" way on the same SD card partition as the Pandora OS is located (I always boot from SD), without problems, or do I need to provide a separate partition for it?


Also, it seems that LibreOffice is not available for lenny, as I read in another thread. So when the installer asks (will it?), I should probably choose squeeze?


Thanks,


Daniel

 

[Hoodoo]

I'd propose to install Debian on a separate SD card and run it from there, there's an article on this in the wiki. If you don't care too much for the gaming side of Pandora you should be fine with it. It's quite a simple algorithm - rip kernel out of your working Pandora setup, stick it into basic $distro install, scavenge for Pandora specific scripts and then just install X and the apps you want.


As for LibreOffice - as for now I wouldn't even try to install and run it, after I've tried firefox on Pandora. It will only drive you mad in the best case.

 

[hmc]

Hoodoo,


I already chose to install debian ("squeeze") into a loopback file of 2GB on my boot SD card partition. I didn't dare to install into the same SD card partition as the Angstrom OS is installed, and I didn't want to spend a second SD card for Debian (I like to have the second slot free for a data SD card).


I'f fine now with this method.


Of course I installed Libreoffice, and I must say it's very, very fast and stable! I am really surprised! It is very well usable.


In order to synchronize our understanding of what fast and slow is... (not that you think that I have very different measures for this):


Firefox is really slow in my opinion, too.


LibreOffice is much more snappy.


Daniel

 

[Linux-SWAT]

LibreOffice works fine in squeeze on a loopback.

 

[peelie]

having a difficult time to install PanDebian;


using loopback when it comes to downloading squeeze give me error message saying not possible to download


then when trying download direct using SID get caught in a chroot loop ;


trying to install it on a separate partition (ext2) using hotfix7a2


any pointers? i remember it was very easy many moons ago on hotfix5!