Bug#228755: installation-reports: Installation report: Debconf abuse by several packages
Package: installation-reports
Severity: normal
This is a standard Debian Installer report. However, it is not really
interesting as is : everything work quite well and all d-i problems are
indeed known problems.
The problem is elsewhere: ALL DD, please go to the end of the report and
look at the number of screens users are shown. Twenty-Seven screens, several
of these belonging to obscure packages Joe User is even not aware of.
This report will lead to subsequent bug reports against the given packages
asking them to *lower* the debconf priority they use.
I will make another installation with ALL tasks selected in tasksel. I'm
already prepared to a nightmare.....
PLEASE fellow DD's, STOP ABUSING DEBCONF.
Avoid notes about software upgrades when no upgrade is done. Avoid using
high priority questions for anything that has a reasonable default. Stop
thinking that your package is the most important in the distro and thus
needs prompting for each and every setting it has. Or at least, do this at
low priority.
INSTALL REPORT
Debian-installer-version: beta2 businesscard ISO i386
uname -a:
Date: 2004/01/20
Method: Network, proxied
Machine: VmWare 4
Processor:
Memory:
Root Device: SCSI
Root Size/partition table: Empty disk
Output of lspci:
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [O]
Config network: [O]
Detect CD: [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Create file systems: [O]
Mount partitions: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Install boot loader: [O]
Reboot: [O]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
(French as installation language)
Problems fixed in CVS:
- Keyboard chooser in english
- Detecting hardware incorrectly translated to "détecter le matériel réseau"
- Create xxx file system not translated
- Final keyboard is US layout (nasty bug in console-data, fixed)
Selected tasks:
Desktop environment
Linux Standard Base
X window system
Broadband Internet connection
Mail server
Conventional Unix Server (not sure)
Web server
C and C++
French environment
Custom kernel compilation
Config screens:
Format: Xs, Yq, Zd, Tu
s=number of screens shown (aka how many times to press Enter!)
d=number of questions with reasonable defaults which IMHO shouldn't have
been asked (guess what "d" is for...)
u=number of untranslated questions
n=number of useless notes
- pcmcia-cs : 3s 1d 2u 0n
- dictionaries-common : 1s 1d 0u 0n
- nfs-common : 1s 0d 0u 1n
- ssh : 1s 0d 0u 1n
- dictionaries-common : 1s 1d 0u 0n
- apache-common : 1s 0d 0u 1n
- libpaper1 : 1s 0d 1u 1n #226254
- efax : 2s 0d 2u 2n
- fetchmail : 2s 0d 0u 2n
- gdm : 1s 0d 0u 0n
- libc-client2002debian : 1s 1d 1u 0n
- xserver-xfree86 : 7s 0d 1u 0n (no autodetect by default)
(mouse autodetected)
- dictionaries-common : 1s 1d 0u 0n (bug?)
- libc-client2002debian : 1s 1d 1u 0n
- dictionaries-common : 1s 1d 0u 0n
- exi4-config : 2s 0d 0u 0n
_____________
TOTAL 27s 7d 8u 8n
General problem : when screens are too long, debconf dialog interface
shows a right cursor and a OK button. No novice user will then type
"Down" for seeing the rest of the screen...and thus will miss the last
part of the shown information. The "OK" button should be something
like a "More" button and should by default allow scrolling though the
text.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux mykerinos 2.6.0 #4 Sat Jan 17 10:16:28 CET 2004 i686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (ignored: LC_ALL set to fr_FR.UTF-8)
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