Having a look at Sidux 2008-04;
Sidux is based on the unstable branche of Debian, better known as Sid.
I decided to give it a go and see if its a good idea to use Sidux in stead of Sid.
I decided to try the kde-lite-amd64 live iso.
The boot up of the cd was remarkebly fast (compared to Ubuntu) and ended up with a good looking KDE 3.5.9 but unfortunately without a wirelss connection, so I opened the Sidux handbook available in the menu, and selected Internet and Networking, and chose Getting online > Ceni.
Ceni is a text based tool for wireless that asked me a few questions and before I knew it I was online with my wireless, the kernel on the live cd is 2.6.28, and the needed ath5k module was available, nice!
Time to run the installer, I had a partition available for / (root) and decided to hook up my /home partition for my /home/tuxicity.
The installer was easy to use, I chose to format / and leave /home as is, and continued with the installer.
Unfortunately the installer will not let you use a user name thats already set up on your /home so I had to make up a new name, I was not very happy with this “feature”. Also the installer does not tell you after setting up your partitions which ones are going to be formatted and which ones are going to be hooked up.
I had my fingers crossed when the installer started to do its automated thing, but everything went fine and my /home remained in tact 🙂 . The installation was quick and after reboot I went into my fresh KDE environment, looking the same as on the live cd, including the still working wifi!! The wifi setup was transported to my hd , very good!!
I did a apt-get update and apt-get install kde to install the rest of KDE and was ready to go in no time.
Sidux is great for people who prefer KDE3.5* over KDE4, its all Debian and runs like a charm.
I also installed Gnome (apt-get install gnome) and set up the GNOME Display Manager known as GDM(dpkg-reconfigure gdm).
Gnome looks pretty much like the Gnome used on Debian, and runs fine, but a Gnome2.20 with some 2.22 parts is a bit old, and as a Gnome user, too old for me.
After installing Xfce 4 Desktop Environment version 4.4.2 (apt-get install xfce4) I logged into a standard Debian Xfce4 environment, all works fine.
Conclusion:
Sidux is a great Debian system, KDE3.5* centric, easy to install and to configure and includes the (now) latest kernel (2.6.28).
The Sidux tools seem to work very nicely; wireless was a breeze.
The feel of Sidux is fast and snappy, and it looks nice, specially with KDE.
Sidux is not really for the Gnome people, the version is a bit outdated. (This will probably change when the next version of Debian aka Lenny becomes stable).
XFCE4 also runs fine, no news or novelties, like Gnome its all “Debian “. (XFCE4 will also be more updated as soon as Lenny comes out).
If you would like to use Debian Sid, I would go for Sidux; Sidux keeps running when there might be breakage in Sid, it has a more recent kernel and is easyer to maintain and set up.
Tuxicity.
Tuxicity's source 
Did you try the system maintenance script’s? I.E. smxi and a few other’s. These script’s set sidux apart from the other’s. Most distros have little or none. If you come from the land of ms dos,a linux script is sort of like a batch file with a attitude!!! Hope you have fun and stay awhile.
Comment by analogtek — December 27, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
I think Sidux is Great, I was not able to find a god distro for my laptop until I try Sidux and is the only one that is working fine.
the first thing I did was install synaptic and the debian multimedia that make the system perfect for me
Thank you
Comment by fFrank — December 27, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
good distro 🙂
Comment by fFrank — December 27, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
Have you tried LXDE with Sidux? That may be a good alternative to both KDE and LXDE.
Best of luck, Sidux is a good distro.
Comment by SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — December 28, 2008 @ 2:40 am
@fFrank…
using Synaptic will break sidux over time…
From the sidux manual – http://manual.sidux.com/en/sys-admin-apt-en.htm
—————–
The Reasons NOT to use anything else but apt-get for a dist-upgrade
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are not always able to account for the huge amount of changes which happen in Sid (depedency changes, name changes, maintainer script changes, …). That’s not the fault of the developers of those tools though, they write a excellent tools and fabulous for the debian stable branch, they are simply just not suitable for the very special needs of Debian Sid.
Use whatever you like to search for packages, but stick with apt-get for actually installing/removing/dist-upgrading
Package managers like adept, aptitude, synaptic and kpackage are at the least, non-deterministic (for complex package selection), mix that with a quickly moving target like sid and even worse an external repository of questionable quality (we don’t use or recommend those, but they’re a reality on your user systems) and you will be courting disaster. The other item to note is that all of these types of GUI package managers need to run in init 5, and/or, in X, and in doing a dist-upgrade in init 5 and/or X , (or even an ‘upgrade’ which is not recommended), you will end up damaging up your system beyond repair, maybe not today or tomorrow, in time you will.
apt-get on the other hand strictly does what it is asked to do, if there is any breakage you can pinpoint and debug/ fix the cause, if apt-get wants to remove half of the system (due to library transitions) it’s the admin’s call (that means you) to have at least a serious look.
This is the reason why Debian builds use apt-get, not the other package manager tools.
Comment by anon — December 28, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
hi ! I’m from sidux brasil at http://www.sidux.com.br. I’m the sidux brazil administrator and I came out with new sidux forum in my country in order to spread out the sidux in brazil. please, appologize me my english because my official language is portuguese.try to install the script called smxi (sidux maintenance) and you see how excellent is sidux.It’s very easy to install it, but if you don’t know how I may let you know later on. Besides, there is another script to the graphic video called sgxi which you install the gforce (nvidea) – the oldest and newest. you’ll see the difference. you can also install with smxi the opera web browser, skype, openoffice, light office,google earth, change easily the soucers.list and so on. the smxi is called the sidux maintenance and was develloped by h2 form the sidux community.the smxi you may install and remove a new/old kernel; you coud change the download servers and a lot of things that it’s difficult to describe in a few words. smxi is wonderful and It became the sidux better and better! smxi is like a control panel but it’s much better because yoy may safely update and distro upgrade outide the x (desktop), inside text mode (black death screen).I’ll see you later. best regards.
Comment by ottosa@gmail.com — December 28, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
You say
“…
“feature”. Also the installer does not tell you after setting up your partitions which ones are going to be formatted and which ones are going to be hooked up.
I had my fingers crossed when the installer started to do its automated thing, but everything went fine and my /home remained in tact 🙂
”
Please read what the installer offers: It say clearly:
>>>>
Set mountpoints of other Partitions
(will not be automatically formatted)
<<<<
and yes this was for sure the main reason to not allow old homes to be used … old configurations with new versions can only lead to conflicts
( and afaik this is stated in the release notes)
btw the correct write for the distro is “sidux” and not any arbitrary variation of upper/lowercasing.
The missing gnome variant for sidux is afaik due to the fact that nobody wants to take care of it. The sidux dev team asked for anyone willing to invest some time and work to take care of that but till now noboby has offered his help. .
Comment by anon — December 28, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
All my machines are now running sidux [2 amd workstations with 2G and 4G of ram, one old Dell Inspiron 8200 with only 512Mb, one Thinkpad X61 with 4G of ram].
It’s a platinum distro. Add to that the availability of very very useful scripts (thanks h2 & all) and running a really up to date distro is a breeze. It’s a rolling distro, so there is no need to upgrade the whole thing every six months to get the latest and greatest stuff. A 15 minutes maintenance twice a month keeps one with a very up to date system.
The sidux community is very knowledgeable and helpful. The sidux manual is very well done and covers a lot of topics; the irc is great and the sidux team is on it regularly; the forums are very informative and mostly free of background noise; it is easy to read all forums everyday.
jyp
A very happy and grateful sidux user.
Comment by jyp — December 28, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
[…] Sid or Sidux? […]
Pingback by Boycott Novell » Links 29/12/2008: oVirt Preview; OpenOffice.org 3.0 Past 25,000,000 Downloads — December 29, 2008 @ 11:13 am
@anon, What I missed was an overview of what was going to formatted, and what not, before hitting “enter” to start the installation.
As far as not being able to use an old /home/”username” is concerned, a warning would be in place, and would imo be a better option.
Comment by tuxicity — December 29, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Thank you very much for the recomendation, I hope is not to late, I did install tons of software with Synaptic and so far so good.
when it come to the scripts smxi sgxi I have try the long time ago with disastrous consequence, I’m sure they are much better now, next time i’ll give them a try.
and than thank you, for your explanation
Frank
Comment by fFrank — December 29, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Lolwut? SMXI/SGXI Broke your Sidux? That’s odd…
I’m just floating along with Debian Lenny 5.0/Netinst/LXDE – tried Sidux a few times and was impressed with its’ speed, but I can’t quite get over KDE – and I’m not *about* to start ripping out KDE libs and stuff. 😀
I’m glad this page is here, btw – I’ve referenced it I don’t know how many times for the sources.list page in your comments (http://www.sourceslist.eu/sourcesdebianlenny.list), so I figured I’d finally drop a note.
Cheers~!
Comment by Steve — April 26, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
I dont browse the net now without a anonymous proxy like http://www.surfshuffle.com, it protects my computer from the nasties on the net
Comment by bypass filters — May 22, 2009 @ 2:43 am