Re: Problems with debian-installer
On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 03:26:25PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Frans Pop wrote:
> > The netinst CD _does_ contain all packages needed to install the base
> > system. When installing using a netinst, you do not need a network
> > connection until after the reboot.
>
> Of course if we do away with base-config that distiction will become a
> very fine line.
>
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > This is a serious communication problem we have, as many many people seem to
> > be stumbling on this problem. netinst is an very unintuitive name for this, as
> > it is less networked than both the businesscard and the netboot.
> >
> > One solution would be to rename them to base-installation (baseinst), which
> > would be more logical, but probably a technical or documentation nightmare at
> > this time ?
>
> Only more logical to people who understand that Debian has a base system
> that you might want to only install. To most users the netinst is a
> small CD image that then goes and downloads most of Debian from the
> network.
Well, the point is that it doesn't need a network to get a functional base
system.
> I think we should look at whether the businesscard images actually have
> any benefit over the mini isos and netinsts, and if not, drop them.
> Remember that the businesscard CDs will be the first things from etch
> beta1 to break, probably, since they contain the udebs without the debs.
> Alternatively, if we can't keep the netinst's size within the limits of
> its intended media, we could drop it.
I disagree with this, both of them are useful, even if the businesscard is the
first to break, it is also less fragile to debian-cd breakage. The netinst on
the other hand is usefull for quick downloads and installs, and even if they
reach 240MB on powerpc or some other arch, they are still smaller than a full
CD1. I think that the limitation of the intented media is superfluous, and i
dare say that more than 99% of those netinst or business card isos are burnt
on real CDs, not the smaller ones, which also usually come at a much higher
cost.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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