[REQUEST] Question for Parted Magic users

[LedHed]

Thanks lcoughey. I have an old version of R-Studio on another box. I haven't heard of the other paid programs you mentioned. I'll check them out as soon as I get this rig set up.

 

[GTP]

Just to clarify - "Debian World" doesn't mean using Debian itself which is a beast. One of the ditros based on Debian is what is being suggested. (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.)

Correct. And thanks for that clarification @Diggs . (I have that chart on my wall. It's six feet high lol!)

Barcelona,
I've decided to try several distros to see which one I prefer. I'll certainly give Debian a try. I'm curious to know, what do you like/dislike about Debian?

Debian can be a handful but distro's based on Debian are much cleaner? and easier to work with.

Debian based distro's include Mint, Ubuntu, and many, many more.

@edit
WattOS is a nice, clean, easy to use Debian based distro. There is a "full" version or a "Microwatt" version.

Don't discount Debian though. Once setup Debian is a beautiful and powerful environment, but for your purposes I'd stick with Mint.

 

[fencepost]

And as a slight detour back to the original topic of Parted Magic, if you want to be sure you have all the same packages installed the complete list for each update is right there on the website.

 

[Haole Boy]

All you find on a parted magic image you'll find in any linux distro. So why not installing a small linux with the tools parted magic provides? Done on a small SSD and with some SATA-Drive-Bays built into the case will fit all your needs. And you'll be able to keep the installed tools up to date.

I did exactly this as I could not figure out how to make updates to the PM USB drive persistent. There are a couple of forum posts about this, but it was all greek to me as I'm not a Linux guru. I went with Mint - very easy install and handled the re-partitioning of my drive (with Win 7 installed) perfectly - i.e. Windows still works after the re-partitioning. I had some questions that I could not find the answer to by googling, and the linux mint forum folks were very responsive and very patient with my noob questions.

I use it to run gSmartControl, gParted, and ddrescue. Have to investigate HDDSuperClone Pro to see if it's worth it to me. Only run it once or twice a month.

Harry Z