Re: Praise + possible bugs
On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 12:18:28AM +0100, Michael Renner wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Thanks for the big improvements to the debian installer (compared to the
> one shipped with 3.0), it greatly reduced the amount of time needed to
> install debian on boxes with "nonstandard" hardware (which usually
> involves using additional driver floppy disks or temporary installations
> on ide drives and then copying over to the "real" drives when having
> compiled a kernel which supports the given controller)
>
> I just installed debian from a jigdo-assembled sarge-iso (from 15.12.)
> on a tyan opteron barebone and the installation itself went smooth, the
> NICs got autodetected by the "net" install (Tigon3 based), the scsi
> controller too (LSI Logic Fusion MPT based).
>
> There were a few "rough edges" which might need to be taken care of. I
> don't know if these are known issues; I can open bug reports if this is
> needed/wanted.
>
> *) Lack of keymap selection: I chose "English/United states" at the first
> dialog because I loathe i18n'ed status/error messages. This apparently set
> also the keymap to us.
>
> *) No choice to use manual IP setup when using the "net" install. I'm not
> completely sure about that, but I think after choosing the interface I
> wanted to use for installation it jumped straight to DHCP without
> prompting me if I rather want to use a manual configuration.
Mmmm, debian-installer is some what targeted to the masses[1] by default.
The current behaviour is to probe 10 secs for a DHCP server and when
needed, it goes into manual IP setup. I'm too busy/lazy to report
the (new) kernel boot append parameter that enables more questions,
including networkconfiguration. Right now that means if you are installing
a server, that should get a fixed IP, you have to do some extra work.
>
> *) Misleading menu point description: After selecting the mirror where I
> wanted to pull the data from there was a point which was called something
> like "Scan for data from cdroms" or something like that, I can't really
> remember, which apparently scanned the cdroms for kernel modules and
> loaded the module for the scsi controller. Naming it "Probe for additional
> hardware" might be better (if this is the only thing it does, I don't
> really have a clue, please correct me on that one)
>
> *) Partitioning warning when trying to create no boot/have boot being
> larger than $magic_limit: It might be superfluous but a general warning
> might be good for unwary users which use old pcs/sparcs since they will
> very likely have problems when trying to boot a kernel from partitions
> which exceed the 1024 cylinder boundary (old pcs and sparcs), or the
> various 8GB/32GB/etc. bios limitations on boards with "newer" bios
> versions (Pentium/Pentium II era, etc.)
>
> *) "Suboptimal" lilo config: Whereas I like short, not overcommented
> configs, the lilo config presented by the installer was a bit _too_ short.
> It lacked the (IMHO) obligatory prompt/timeout parameters (to pass
> additional flags while booting, etc), had a deprecated "install" line
> ('install=/boot/boot.b instead of 'install=text' or menu (which would be
> better)). Throwing in 'compact' speeds up booting too but might break
> things with 'old' computers IIRC.
>
> *) Missing "hostname" prompt: Maybe I overlooked it, but I think that
> there was no such dialog box during the installation.
>
> *) Missing prompt for additional apt ressources (contrib, non-free,
> non-us).
>
> I hope this is helpful in some way.
>
> best regards and thanks for the great work so far,
[1] for many people and for the few that do mass installs.
> michael
>
Geert Stappers
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