Debian OpenLogo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, I decided to try reverting my laptop to Debian, having imaged it yesterday to provide a rollback option in case something went wrong.

The installation (via Net Install) took absolutely ages, but was pretty much successful. Then I got reminded why I stopped using Debian originally — the Unity style interface. It really winds me up. Then I was surprised by just how long it took to download updates. I usually get a throughput of between 100kb/s and 400kb/s depending on what and where I’m downloading from. I was getting around 20kb/s downloading from ftp.uk.debian.org and downloading the KDE package, apt-get was estimating 6 HOURS to finish downloading, and that’s not including the installing. I even used the tool netselect-apt to pick the fastest mirrors, and it still didn’t improve. I’m going to try again once I’ve downloaded and burned all the Debian DVD images. Maybe I might be able to select the packages and go straight to KDE without using the Unity-like interface.

On the plus side, I checked the DRM test video via Adobe’s web site and I was able to confirm that it works fine and I was able to view DRM protected material in Debian after downloading the hal package, so whatever happens, I’ll at least be able to use Google Movies now.

I might also take a look at openSuSE and see what that’s like. Hey, have to keep my options open. :-)