These are my notes/ideas after having done a test installation using the graphical d-i beta. (Under a VMware install using ftp.us.debian.org as the mirror) I'm not subscribed to the list so please cc me on anything you'd like my comment on. I'm happy to test any betas etc to see how things may have improved. As it stands it seems to only be a graphical frontend to debconf, given some of the decisions taken this causes it to be less usable then the console version. Graphical D-I boot notes: 1. Can you use ubuntu's bootsplash or something to hide/pretty up kernel messages. 2. Country choice, maybe a map with highlights would be nice. (Something along the lines of anaconda) 3. It seems that you cannot use keyboard shortcuts in lists (eg mirror list), this forces use of the mouse. 4. Would be nice to have a download speed monitor at the bottom of the screen for those with slow connections, also a calculated ETA. 5. A graphical partitioner is probably the biggest missing peice, I didn't really test how the partitioner came through, just did a "wipe entire disk" and it was still a pain. 6. Pages with just one checkbox (eg the "write changes to disk" page should probably have just "Yes/No" buttons instead of the checkbox and go back/continue buttons (also install grub to mbr) 7. No obvious way to cancel out of creating a new user account (I know that the "go back" button is probably the cancel button from the console installer, but would still be nice to have it there). For people who run LDAP/NIS/etc creating an additional local user account is not just a waste of time in installation, it may need to be manually removed after installation. 8. The installer should give warnings about insecure root/user passwords 9. Would be nice if the main download ran as: -------START EXAMPLE -------- 1. Downloading Packages (gray) 2. Verifying Packages (gray) 3. Installing Packages (black & bold) 4. Downloading Kernel (black) 5. Installing Kernel (black) #######PROGRESSBAR####### -------END EXAMPLE ---------- It would give a better view of how far along things are. (This also applies to the finish installation page)
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