Re: Improving installer?
Juhana Sadeharju <kouhia@nic.funet.fi> writes:
> Hello. I just installed the recent Debian 2.2. rev 2. The installation
> failed because the installer tried to download packages from the web
> even I had said no for web downloads.
Uh, this report is far too little detailed. At what point in the process did
this happen? Exactly what steps were used to reproduce this (probably
starting with point where you run base-config. All this information
needs to take the form of a bug against base-config, I think.
> Also, I need to update both kernel and X Window System to very latest
> versions. The problem is that about 200 programs depends on the X.
> It might happen I have to recompile all those programs myself. Therefore,
> is it possible to modify the Debian installer to recompile the needed
> packages?
Why do that? Why not just upgrade to the woody distribution, or the
unstable distribution even?
> Now to the basic installer. You could make the sound module installation
> more clear: now there are plenty of sound modules in misc section. It is
> also difficult to see what is needed when only Alsa is installed. You could
> have a separate "sound driver" menu containing text:
[snip]
This should be in the form of a wishlist bug against 'modconf'.
> Further, the installer formats the e2fs disk with 5% reserved for the
> root. 5% of gigabytes is a way too much. It is also waste of space
> in my use. While you have good advices about this topic I suggest
> a following compromize: please let the user select some reasonable value
> for the reserved space in Mbytes. Installer could have a list of
> appropriate values (including 0) and/or a number input field.
> The default value could be some safe value. I wonder if the percents
> of the disk size is a good unit at all --- I have feeling it could be
> the file sizes which counts...
I don't feel asking another question for such a minor detail is
worthwhile. It's easy to change this later with 'tune2fs'.
> Now I changed the reserved space by going to shell from installer, and
> performed:
> % umount /target
> % mke2fs -v -m 0 /dev/hda6
> % mount -t ext2 /dev/hda6 /target
>
> Because mke2fs seems to not offer option for setting the reserved
> space in bytes, I had no other choise than use "-m 0". Earlier I used
> tune2fs to change the reserved space but that was even more trickier
> because the rescue CD has no tune2fs.
So? Just do it after the system is installed.
> The installer had other confusing points:
> -It asks for the Debian CD but I have 6 CDs in total
Hmm. It can't know how many CDs you have. It only cares about the CD
you booted with or whatever CD matches the kernel you are booting.
> -Archive path selection was confusing
Yes. I'm working with a fix for that.
> -Installation of module "lp" failed
I've heard that before -- dunno if it's modconf's fault, or modutils,
or the kernel, or what. You could help by tracking that down,
attributing the cause, and filing a bug.
> -Installer didn't warn what happens when the hard disk is made
> bootable to Linux: user cannot boot to MS Windows without being
> a Lilo expert
Hmm, not a bad point.
> Suggestion: the installer could allow user to set the initial Lilo boot
> choises. Here is the initial dialog:
>
> 1 Linux
>
> <add new boot choise> <done>
>
> The Linux is placed automatically because the installer knows where
> the boot image locates.
>
> When a new choise is added, it asks for a name ("Windows") and the
> device. Installer could offer a list of partitions and their
> filesystems from which user could select one. After typing all OS
> choises in, the display would look like this:
>
> 1 Linux
> 2 Windows /dev/hda1
> 3 Windows 2000 /dev/hdb1
>
> The installer could print the above final list to "/boot/bootmess.txt".
This would have to take the form of a bug against lilo.
> The example Lilo config file has an old Linux image as a second
> choise. I suggest that only one Linux boot choise is installed
> by the Debian installer. Others can be added later in Linux.
> If one wants to install another Linux to the same computer,
> then the installer could go and look the lilo.conf of the other
> Linux. That could be a standard procedure of installers of all
> Linux distributions.
>
> I feel getting the boot menu working as displayed above would help a lot
> the users (expert or not).
No doubt, but understand that boot-floppies itself is obsolete, and we
are no longer adding such major new features to it. However, if it
was part of the lilo installation, that would benefit all users of the
lilo package rather than just folks installing.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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