Re: Ideas

[Philip Charles <philipc@copyleft.co.nz>]

On Sun, 27 Jun 1999, Steve McIntyre wrote:

> 
> I was talking to Ian last night on the way back from the Linux99
> conference about the current state of the install process, especially as
> it relates to multi-CD. We came up with a couple of things:
> 
> The problems people are having with the multi-CD install could be helped
> in a very simple way. (I assume that people have noticed confused posts to
> debian-user.) People are not seeing the README on each disc that explains
> about inserting the last binary disc first for Update in dselect. I'm
> going to patch the dpkg-multicd method to insert a message in the Update
> step itself, so people should now no longer be able to miss this. And to
> fix the other source of confusion, I'll also add a warning that in many
> cases a simple install will never use any disks subsequent to the first
> one... 

Anything to make the first install easy for a newby.

> 
> The second thing is a way to make the CD install more powerful. I know
> that Ben (Collins? Gertzfield?) has done a lot of work on a framebuffer
> install setup so we get a prettier/more luser-friendly installation. Other
> people have complained that the boot/root floppy images are very tight for
> space. The obvious solution is to start using a "live" fs image on the CD,
> which should give us a lot more space, making life easier. Obviously we
> still need to keep up the boot-floppies for those people who don't
> have/don't want to use CD-ROMs, but for the vast majority of people out
> there now we can make life a lot easier. We can make an installation CD
> that has (effectively) the base system installed on it, plus some more
> rescue tools, and also a bigger/friendlier installation setup that
> hopefully won't scare people so much. 

Is there any reason to limit the boot/root disks to 1/2 disks?

I like the idea of simplifying the initial setup.  What I would like is an
easy stand alone setup option for "dialup", this is the system I recommend
people use for starters if they are new to Debian -GNU/Linux.
 
> Anyway, I'm looking at dpkg-multicd right now and I should be submitting a
> patch this afternoon. In terms of the live fs stuff, I'll be looking at it
> more during the next couple of weeks. If you've got any comments /
> suggestions on these fronts, let me know please...
> 
Phil. 

Philip Charles; 39a Paterson St., Abbotsford, New Zealand; +64 3 4882818
I sell GNU/Linux CDs.   See http://www.copyleft.co.nz