successful bochs install
I successfully installed the official 22 Feb 2003 sarge-i386-1.iso, built using
jigdo, in Bochs 2.0.2. As with the netinst image, it said the 2.2.20 kernel
was going to be used. There were also the same issues of things scrolling off
the top of the screen.
Reasons you might want to install under Bochs:
1) You can take screenshots.
2) No risk of damaging your existing disks.
3) You are nostalgic for the old days when installing took all night, and want
a way to slow down your hardware to 1 bogomip.
To paraphrase JWZ "Debian Installer is complicated because your needs are
complicated." Almost all of the questions asked are there for a good reason.
And the default answer is usually right. Things on i386 are already in working
shape, for which you are to be congratulated!
But the sad truth is the only thing people look at when "reviewing" a distro is
the installer. And the CD installer is going to get bad reviews because it
asks too many questions. How much work would it be to create a Novice mode, in
which one answers questions about language and partitioning and nothing else
prior to reboot? I had trouble choosing which language to do the install in,
now you want me to pick a filesystem? Novices shouldn't be asked this
question; ext3 is a sane answer, give it to them automatically. And having
picked a CD install, why is the novice later being asked whether to install
from CD or floppy? Then later still why is the novice being asked whether to
install from CD or network? GRUB and LILO both work, pick one for the novice
doesn't care. The main menu has 17 options on it. Fully half are unneccesary
for the novice user doing a CD install!
The current disk paritioner has a crummy interface. Would it be difficult to
grab one of the more friendly partitioners (e.g. DiskDrake) from another distro
and use it instead?
Sorry to be so negative. I know this is a difficult piece of software to just
get working on 11 architectures, let alone making it simple.
--Andre
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