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Holy kay-rap, youse guys are starting really, really to get on my nerves! I blew a half a hectobuck on your eight-disc CD set (6.0.3, 32-bit) and when I was getting ready to load the #1 disc I noticed a silvery spot on its data side, fully a 16th of an inch in diameter and visible at a distance of forty feet to a one-eyed wino. I tried to test it via a full copy of the disc to my hard drive and didn't get any errors but, sure enough, when I tried to install it it failed, saying it was unable to load the installation data. Biiiiig surprise, eh?
So, summarizing:
I have made four or five attempts with your single CD, which turns out to be catastrophically incompatible with your online updates.
After my first few CD failures I tried downloading the installer online, but that refused to load directly to a CD and I was never instructed how to convert the CD I transferred it onto into a boot disc. So I spent a few hours trying to figure that out, and a few more hours trying to "trick" it into installing after I booted separately. No instructions about this from the netsite, just "choose the version you want, download it, and install." Thanks a lot -- I had to give up and go back to the CD.
And now I have the (far from free) eight-CD set and it's totally freaking useless!
Meanwhile, through all this, I'm fighting a complete lack of useful instructions, getting apparent inactivity without progress bars, rotating cursors, or drive-light activity, wondering whether I'm supposed to do something or not, getting hung out to dry over and over again, being offered options with no idea of what the answer should be, and generally wasting two weeks of effort on software that simply isn't designed for people who don't already know all the answers.
Incidentally, for your information, I have a master's degree in computer science and more than three decades professional experience in programming embedded systems and automated QA systems. I'm not fully acquainted with PC systems, but that never bothered me when I was dealing with suppliers who had the maturity to look at their product through the eyes of their users and provide a usable package. So, Debian is free (but not for me, it turns out) and one should be patient? Well, I've just been through a half a month of patience, and I'm afraid I'm fresh out....
I'm done with Debian, so Ay-Dee-Ose!
B
(Don't waste any time flaming me back, because I'm putting you on Chrome "mute" and I won't even see you go by.)