Re: ftp/network install very confusing.
On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, Jerry Asher wrote:
> Hi, Here's a user report. Please take it in the spirit of which it is
> offered: appreciation for your efforts, and some advice on what I found
> lacking. Earlier I sent it to debian-boot, but I understand they're not
> responsible for the text ad cdimages.debian.org.
>
> I'm a debian newbie, but not a linux newbie. In general I'm not a newbie
> with about twenty years of experience with unix, linux and pcs. I've
> installed Red Hat half a dozen times now. (And don't get me started on how
> many times I have to (re)install NT!) I would like to move to debian
> because I am apt, or hope to be soon.
>
> Okay so I'm ignorant, but I'm not stupid. Given reasonable instructions, I
> can usually figure things out for myself. Now I gather that you would
> prefer I install debian from the network and not by first downloading iso
> cd images, and I want to honor that request, but cannot. To help me
> install from the net, you've provided the debian boot-floppy system. Well
> I got to tell you folks, you've tried hard, but you've certainly not made
> it easy to figure out how to do that. I'm reading through a 90 page
> installation manual now. The three page quick orientation guide is
> completely confusing.
>
> In contrast in the background I have very easily located the iso images
> from kernel.org and am now downloading them.
>
> My suggestion (and I know you have limited resources) is to set a newbie
> such as myself down in front of a pc and tell them to install debian from
> ftp and watch what they do.
>
> Another point of contrast is to try the same task with SUSE. SUSE doesn't
> do ISO Intel images (I gather they feel it's too expensive in terms of
> bandwidth.) They do have a floppy/network install and to that end, they
> have on their site, rawrite, and four floppy images. And that's it.
We have rawrite and two to six floppy images (depending on your hardware). And
that's it.
But you're right, the documentation is far from perfect and is almost useless
for Debian newbies. That's why I wrote an extensive Dutch manual that _does_
cover all possible install methods, but still nobody has taken the
time/trouble to translate it to any other language. Too bad. But feel free to
help whereever you can. Write access to debian-doc CVS comes free of
charge ;-)
Regards,
Anne Bezemer
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