Tried the beta4 installer. Here are my impressions:The initial partitioning screen gave 2 options -- erase whole disk, or manually partition. I chose manually partition, as I was installing on a spare partition on my main box. From there, you can go to something like "walk-through partitioning" which takes you back to the previous screen. You might think about just calling this "return to previous screen". Also, it doesn't really walk you through anything there, does it? only 2 options... Maybe this is just my impression, but it seems like things could be worded a little differently. If you'd like me to further elaborate, please let me know.
Next, the grub installation, when not installing to MBR, needs to be more clear on Grub partitioning scheme. Also, I installed everything to /dev/hdb7, my spare partition, and told grub-installer to install to (hd0,6) -- I only have 1 hd, so it's hd0 under grub -- and it didn't work. I was going to chainload the Debian installed Grub from my normal one installed with my Gentoo system. I told it to install to /dev/hdb7, and it worked fine. I'd say, either leave off the Grub partitioning thing altogether and just use /dev references, or make the Grub stuff more clear. Not sure why it didn't work when I told it (hd0,6) but did when I told it /dev/hdb7.
Lastly, the base system configurator only lets me add one apt source. The old installer lets me add as many as I want, and I always thought this was a good thing. I'm glad that security updates are added by default, but I'd still like to be asked by default if I want to install non-US and non-free software. If not by default, then the configurator needs to ask me at the beginning what debconf priority I want.
Hope these impressions are helpful, and please let me know if you have any questions about this.
Thanks. Martin Michlmayr wrote:
* Brian R Drell <drell@mail.utexas.edu> [2004-01-23 01:17]:Comments/Problems: The install went very smoothly. I think that the base-config could be simplified a great deal. I loved that the installer easily found and installed the correct drivers for my hardware. The base-config did not ask me for sources of non-free software, so I had to put them in sources.list manually, as well as security updates.The APT line for security updates should be added automatically. non-free is not added by default anymore - it's only asked at a lower debconf priority. This is because most people don't need non-free software.Also, I had to hit cancel to get out of the apt configuration area.Which apt configuration area? Why do you have to press cancel?I'm going to try it on my regular machine.Can you try the new beta4?