Debian on a Qube2
The first operating system, which I gave a try, was Debian (testing).
You have two choices how to install it, either by netbooting the Qube
and then using the serial port to go through the installation process,
or by removing the HDD and copying the necessary files by hand onto the
disk. I decided to use the second way, because I didn't want to bother
with setting up all the necessary daemons (dhcp, ftp etc.) to get
netbooting to work and by then I only had 16 MB RAM installed and the
installer needed at least 32 MB RAM to work. Thus you need to remove
the HDD. I would definitely recommend to remove the board, on which the
RAM is installed before removing the HDD, because otherwise you could
damage the board.
A really good install instruction including all necessary files can be found here: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/cobalt/
One thing you shouldn't forget, if you install it "by hand", is to set
the first ext2 partition, on which the kernel is placed, bootable. I
forgot it the first time, because I was so excited and I needed an hour
to find the error (I looked everywhere else, except there).
A serial cable is really useful, too, in case the Qube gets stuck
somewhere before you have net access to it. I would definitely
recommend buying one before messing with the Qube, because it doesn't
display any errors on the LCD during start up!
After the installation and quite a long boot time it took my Qube almost 2-3 minutes with 16 MB RAM to finish the boot process.
After that you have a full functional Debian on it. Use apt-get or
aptitude to install what you need. I would recommend using lightweight
programs otherwise it won't be fun playing with the Qube.
Some alternatives:
Use zsh/ksh instead of bash, lighttpd or thttpd instead of apache,
sshfs/ftp instead of samba for filesharing, cups with ipp instead of
accessing your printers with samba if you have no windows clients.
Additionally I would definitely get some additional RAM if you run a
Qube2 with only 16 MB RAM.. I am now using 128 MB and I could still use
more!
I really liked using Debian the best, because it worked really stable
and it is a solid Linux distribution in general. Another advantage over
the other distributions / OS’s is that you don't need to compile
anything, which can be a pain in the butt with slow hardware. One
downside is that the Linux kernel has a bigger foot print (Ram use)
compared to the NetBSD Kernel.
In the end I can recommend Debian as an OS for the Qube2.