Bug#418708: installation-reports: Dialogs difficult to use on gray-scale monitors
Package: installation-reports
Severity: normal
-- Package-specific info:
Boot method: network
Image version: http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/main/installer-i386/current//images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz, build date 2007-03-10
Date: 2007-04-10
Machine: x86, DFI K6BV3+, AMD K6-II/450, 320 MB RAM, 9" grayscale monitor, Matrox G200
Partitions: <df -Tl will do; the raw partition table is preferred>
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot: [O]
Detect network card: [O]
Configure network: [O]
Detect CD: [ ]
Load installer modules: [E]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Clock/timezone setup: [O]
User/password setup: [O]
Install tasks: [E]
Install boot loader: [O]
Overall install: [O]
Comments/Problems:
Some dialogs like "Software selection" and "Download installer components"
are difficult to use, as they have no visible selection bar or cursor on my
gray-scale monitor. This is true for both framebuffer and text mode console.
The only way of navigating these dialogs is by blindly scrolling or moving
the cursor up and down and then hitting the space bar to toggle an item to
see where the invisible cursor is.
On the installed system (text mode), running "tasksel" with different values
for the TERM variable results in:
# echo $TERM
linux
# tasksel # cursor invisible
# TERM=vt320 tasksel # cursor invisible
# TERM=vt220 tasksel # cursor visible
# TERM=vt100 tasksel # cursor visible
# TERM=vt52 tasksel # dialog completely unusable (lines shifted etc.)
Maybe it would help if the installer would ask whether there is a color,
gray-scale or monochrome monitor attached (just like my old SuSE 7.x did)
and set the TERM variable (or whatever is evaluated by dialog/tasksel/
whatever during and after the installation, respectively) to something
appropriate.
(Bug occurs on a sytem other than the one I use for reporting it, so no
hardware info here)
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