I'm currently booting to SD, having cloned from sd using Penguinbait's installer (which has worked great by the way). I'm now trying to decide which Linux environment to install. I've been reading through the forums and the choices are somewhat daunting. Whether to go Debian or KDE, and even choices within choices. To give some guidance for recommendations, I'm looking for a system that is the easiest to use on an N800 (BT keyboard is available), can be installed on a system that already boots from SD, allows me to open .doc format, and allows me to print from apps within the IT. Is this all doable? I'm actually considering an eePC, but much prefer the form factor of my IT. TIA.

Your best bet is probably Easy Debian.

Penguinbait's KDE might provide you most of what you are looking for.. but it's harder to remove I think if you decide you don't like it.. Easy Debian won't touch your SD maemo and will allow you to run KDE, Gnome, IceWM, LXDE, whatever .. or just run any of the debian apps from within Maemo itself.

A lot of people get confused when referring to "KDE" or "Debian".. "Debian" is a full operating system like OS2008; it grants you access to thousands upon thousands of apps ported by the Debian teams to the armel ARCH. You have two options there.. Deblet (for booting and using Debian as a full OS).. or the Easy Debian method where Qole has a put a TON of effort into making "debian" seamlessly integrate into Maemo.. while you are still using two different OS's and library sets it appears to you (the user) as if Debian is just another app being run on the tablet.

KDE is a window manager.. it provides you access to a very limited KDE suite of tools and thats it.. everything else is exactly run through Maemo, and on Maemo, and is just like running the default OS except it 'looks' different.

Yes, Easy Debian, as you suggest was looking quite attractive, but a recent post by Qole suggests he's removing AbiWord and CUPS, so wouldn't this mean I'd be losing the ability to print? (Currently, AbiWord under Maemo does not seem to recognize CUPS. I have both installed).

You wouldn't 'lose' it.. you'd just have to re-install it. It won't come with the default packages anymore.

OK, that's good to know. Not, having experience with Easy Debian though, does one "apt-get'' to install programs, or is there a Synaptics-like package manager as in Ubuntu?

It doesn't get any more "synaptics-like" when it's Synaptic itself .

(Remember, Ubuntu is based on Debian. Anything you can do in Ubuntu is possible in debian)

One can apt-get, and I typically do, but there are several package managers for Debian about, including Synaptic, which (I think?) is installed by default.

Not everything designed for a full-screen with mouse is very efficient on the tablet with a stylus; YMMV, of course, but I found synaptic a little awkward.

You guys have me convinced. I'm ready to take the plunge into Easy Debian. I think the whole Synaptic thing sold me ;-)

Follow-up. Thanks for all the help. The install went without a problem. I've been able to install and uninstall apps with Synaptic and able to print from AbiWord and Open Office, so I feel like I now have a real, working laptop replacement .

I installed the easy-deb-chroot-0.6-2_armel.deb as listed on the 1st page of Qole's thread, but I see that there is an updated version - easy-deb-chroot-0.9-1_armel.deb. What is the difference between the two? I plan in the future to re-partition my internal 4GB SD so I can install Debian there instaed of the external card, so reinstalling is not a problem if 0.9 is better. Thanks.

If you wanna use a partition for running Debian I'd recommend going with Deblet. With the image file you'll run into a filesize problem and be unable to add any more software (the default image is 1.1 GB I think?? You can expand to 1.5 before it gets flakey.. anything over 2GB will likely not work).

So to use the entire 4GB internal you would need to repartition and either download/extract one of qole's root tar's running around .. or just use Deblet.

I recommend the latter.

I like the Easy Debian image for something specific.. if Debian has a specific app you want but you don't want to deal too much with anything else.. get Easy Debian's files and load that app.

For using tons of debian apps and using lots of space I'd just go deblet. Qole has made easy debian very "easy" to work with Deblet as well as his own images. Deblet just provides a little more options.