After testing Debian Etch for a couple of weeks, I have switched back to Centos 5.1 x64. I like Centos a bit better. Centos has it’s problems with yum and dependencies. Apt is much superior in that regard. Centos excels in setup, configerations, and 64 bit support.
 With Centos you can run a 64 bit system and have full 32 bit support. 64 bit Debian runs in the pure 64 bit mode and does not support 32 bit applications without kludgey arrangements.
I am still testing but for now Centos rules! I have briefly tested Ubuntu, PClinuxos, and OpenSuse 10.3 in the past several days and will proably evaluate PClos soon.
Who knows, I may even test drive Ubuntu when the new 8.04 release hits the streets later in April.
tech ramblings
My previous recommendation does not always work. This seems to. Install the Nvidia drivers as recommeded by nvidia (run the nvidia shell script from the command prompt and compile the drivers).
Then remove nvidia-glx from etc, init.d or chmod it so it won’t execute. This should provide a working Nvidia install!
tech ramblings
If you start with a clean system, installing nvidia drivers is easy..the Debian way. Simply use these comands after exiting xorg:
m-a update , m-a prepare, m-a auto-install nvidia
However if you have experimented with several kernels (as I have including the amd64 on an i386 system) you may have trashed your nvidia setup.
I have found that this seems to work to force re-install:
m-a a-i -i -t -f nvidia-kernel-source, depmod -a, apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-glx-dev xserver-xorg
All from the command line.
tech ramblings
I have now switched to the 686 bigmem kernel. I find that enables my 4gb ram and also is compatible with the nvidia driver.
The only limitation I see with “Etch” is the older glibc (2.3.6) which limits you with some newer applications. I could upgrade to “Lenny” however, I prefer to continue to evaluate “Etch” for now.
tech ramblings
Currently I am testing 4gb Debian “Etch” desktop (i386 with amd64 kernel).
My first installation was x64 (amd) however, I was not able to get browser plugins to function properly with this version (including 32 bit browsers) so I reinstalled as i386.
The install is extremely fast using the network install (much faster than Centos/Fedora/Suse installs). There is probably more software available for Debian than other distros. Using the amd64 kernel, 4gb of ram is recognized. All browser plugins (flash, java, audio-x) install very easily. I am currently using Gnome desktop but I installed Kde, Xfce4, and Enlightenment. All seem to function as expected.
The Debian Community has excellent forums and there seem to be many repositories supporting the OS. The init system is slightly different from the Red Hat derivatives but easy to use.
All said, I like the OS, speed and usability for a desktop system.
tech ramblings