Re: About that List?
On Sunday 07 Dec 2003 5:47 pm, Luis M wrote:
<sinp>
>
> 1. have a mini CD with a graphical install and bootable in any system
> x86 with 300 Mhz and up (this is a desktop anyway, we don't want to
> support the oldest hardware in the planet and the newest) -- besides, if
> somebody still uses a 200Mhz system he/she probably knows what to do to
> get Linux on it ;-)
> 2. This mini CD is a knoppix like disk that presents a graphical
> installation with everything pre-selected (base packages and things like
> that, no servers, etc...) Then ask the user whether they want KDE or
> Gnome (or both)and proceed detecting and installing anything necessary
> from Debian unstable/testing repositories. So, if the CD detects a CD
> burner, installs Xroast or something like that (plus cdrecord and the
> like).
I think the best installer for a desktop linux box would be a system that
booted up off the cd into a desktop, let you play around with it for a couple
of hours and then you could click an icon to install.
It would then present you with a list of what it thought your hardware was and
what software would be needed to use it fully. so if you have a dvd drive you
would get xine, a cdwriter you would get xroast, and so on and so forth. It
would also load the correct kernel modules and produce a good XF86 config
file.. Most importantly, it would tell you what was not working and where to
find help.
it would then take you though partioning your hard drives and would show how
much of your space in both MBs and as a percentage would go to linux. It
would be able to resize NTFS and FAT so a person could keep an existing
windows system.
It would then install a base system and what packages you had asked for and
the packages it thought you should have.
> 3. Installs the meta packages needed for a eye-candy desktop "gnome" and
> the extra themes and fonts (no xfs please) and have FAM be started by
> "root" not by inetd (by inetd it creates problems).
> 4. Sets a regular user that will be logged in automatically and reminds
> the user to create users as needed and to set passwords for "root" and
> that other account. Heck, root account should be disabled (with an
> impossible password) and install "sudo" and allow this newly created
> user to do everything on the box (superuser rights). Let the users know
> that they must enable root by changing it's password and also to update
> the password of this user. Call this user "debian" or something like
> that.
One of the good points about linux is the fact it has proper perrmissions. Any
desktop distro has to keep that, if nothing else but an anti-viris method, In
fact, teaching some basic sysmin to new users is something that is not done
all that well and should be done better. When I think of the number of times
I shot my foot off when I started with linux, and all users must have such
stories, then I think it is pretty important.
> 5. After reboot, congratulate the user for doing such a huge number of
> steps all by him/herself! LOL
after reboot give a fast tour of the differant pieces of software and what
they do.
<snip>
> > What is your opionion ... If there is anyone reading this list ...
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Florian
> >
> > --
> > http://www.reichertnet.de
>
> I hope this starts a long thread of ideas...
> I'm more than able and willing to help in building a solution like this.
--
Peter Nuttall peter@nuttall.ukfsn.org
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