Robert Millan wrote: > When I saw that we provide desktop environment choice via alternate "CD 1" > ISOs, I thought the fact that there isn't a single "CD 1" that supports > multiple DEs was just a design issue rather than a conscious decision. Seems to me that netboot installs, netinst iso, and full DVDs are easy counterexamples.. > win32-loader provides choice of desktop environment _only_ when run in > expert mode. This is similar to the scheme used in CDs in the sense that > in both cases user has to get out of their way to enable a DE other than > the default. > > BTW, the implementation is also somewhat buggy. Some failure modes > > and potential issues: > > > > * win32-loader running from a CD that does not have kde on it, and yet > > still offering kde. > > [...] > > * win32-loader being used for a derived distribution that does not have > > kde or gnome tasks (ie, debian-edu), and yet still asking which to > > install. > > [...] > > * tasksel being changed to default to kde -> win32-loader will still > > assume it defaults to gnome. (An added gotcha for derived distros.) > > Ah, right. So this should be a win32-loader.ini parameter, and behave in a > similar way to isolinux.cfg. I could add an option in win32-loader.ini to add > arbitrary parameters to Linux cmdline. Does that suit you? I'm sure that could be a useful option. Are you looking at it as a way for users to preseed tasksel/desktop? > > * Preseeding interface=auto, thus forcing d-i to use the first available NIC. > > Even if that's not the right one and even if it doesn't have link. > > IIRC, the default is not the first available NIC but the first NIC that has > a link. Would this justify lowering priority? You're right, it tries to do link detection. I tend to forget about that since link detection often fails. We've discussed this before and opted not to rely on link alone w/o user confirmation. > > PS: If there are many cases where tasksel's existing heuristics don't > > default to selecting the desktop task on installs started from > > win32-loader (though this seems unlikely), we could add a preseed hint > > that win32-loader could use to tell tasksel the system used to run windows. > > Tasksel could factor this into its heuristics to make a better decision. > > Good idea. How about "bootloader=win32-loader" ? It'd need to be tasksel/bootloader or some such. But I'd rather first hear of some cases where tasksel doesn't make a good guess without it. The only time it seems likely to not default to installing the desktop is if win32-loader is used to start d-i from a rackmount machine. In that situation, there's probably not a good default and defaulting the task to unselected, which is currently does, is probably the sanest option even. -- see shy jo
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