Bug#384248: installation-report: Almost successful Etch installation with di-beta3
Christian,
On 8/23/06, Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org> wrote:
CC'ing this also to Marco, current eciadsl maintainer. Marco, just
skip to first mention of eciadsl. I think you should be informed as
well.
> Despite the fact that network was not configured and there was no way to
> get accurate time from ntp server, and despite UTC=no setting in
> /etc/default/rcS, d-i changed hardware clock to a wrong value (a few
> hours ahead), although the clock was set correctly to local time before
> the installation.
During default installs, D-I does not ask the question about the
hardware clock being set to UTC or not. So, if you want to have an
hardware clock set to local time, you should use medium priority.
I used default priority on purpose - in the past I encountered
situations when Sarge D-I hanged in the middle of the installation.
Therefore, I simply didn't want to answer all those detailed questions
not being sure I could get through the whole installation procedure.
As for clock, I think you didn't get my point. I don't complain about
what installed system thought of my clock (whether they were set to
UTC or local time). I just want to say that hardware clock must have
not been changed in any case without reliable response from NTP
server. Debian has to show local time according to selected timezone
and UTC setting in /etc/default/rcS, but it doesn't have to touch hw
clock at all when hw clock is the only more or less reliable time
source.
> I selected Russian key-map during installation,
[...]
> Also I couldn't read Russian text in UTF-8
> encoding on console which should be UTF-8 enabled AFAIK.
This is on the installed system, right?
Right.
For Russian, console-cyrillic should be installed.
I know about this package, but shouldn't it be installed automatically
by D-I if I select Russian key-map then?
> I have various USB devices connected to my PC. Logs about some of them
> always appear after "bor login:" prompt. Looks very unprofessional
> although I'm used to unexpected Linux kernel messages on the console.
This has nothing to do with the installer, I'm afraid. BTW, I also
don't like Linux kernel messages at the console. Probably something to
set in syslog stuff, which I never succeeded to find. I agree this is
pretty annoying.
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-tips.en.html#s8.6.8
But IMO users should not bother about such things.
> Besides that, backspace key stops working after invalid
> username/password combination, and it becomes possible to move the
> cursor over the whole screen.
Nothing to do with the installer. Please investigate it,
Will do. Just added for the sake of complete picture.
All the remaining does not really belong to the installer and should
be reported against the relevant packages.....
Well, D-I is D-I itself + the integration of various packages, and I
think D-I team should pay attention to the smoothness of this
integration and the final result. D-I + installed system is the first
impression about Debian for newcomers, and if it (or some package used
by it) causes severe problems during the installation or initial use,
this makes the whole picture look bad. I don't know, is there any
other team that could look at the whole picture in general, and report
usability issues to proper maintainers. It is often easier for
experienced users to just fix the issues, and don't bother reporting
them, but somebody should take care of newbies too.
BTW, who decides what packages are included on netinst CD?
> Configuring USB ADSL modem (via eciadsl, for the first time in Linux)
> was a real pain for me.
[...]
> I believe average non-technical PC users had no chances to overcome this
> major obstacle of conecting Debian to the Internet via USB ADSL modem.
What could be done here? eciadsl (is this the only available package
for USB DSL modems?) + pppoe + dependencies should be included on
netinst CD. eciadsl documentation should be improved, and D-I should
detect DSL modems automatically. Ideally, (from the user's point of
view), all firmware and other binaries for the package should be
included as well, so that Internet connection could be set-up during
the installation without the need to manually download packages from
foreign sites. I know this is controversial topic, which is currently
discussed on some Debian mailing list.
> /etc/apt/sources.list was not updated with any Debian mirror line,
> (presumably due to failed network configuration). So I had to search it
> in apt documentation examples, and guess correct domain name of the
> nearest mirror.
[...]
> I wish I could configure console "beep" sound during installation so
> that my wife didn't get angry about "beeping" through filesystem at 2am,
> and I needn't look for 2 year old notes with magic escape sequnces for
> the "beep".
From my point of view these basic issues should be handled during the
installation. Who else but D-I team should take care of these? When
the whole system is being installed I don't know what exact packages
provide what functionality. So for me as a user any issue not directly
associated (in my mind) with particular package looks like
distribution flaw. And if the number of such issues reaches some
critical mass, a user will choose to try different distribution
instead of spending time on filling numerous bug reports.
--
...Bye..Dmitry.
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