New install.txt
Sorry I'm late in getting back to you with comments on your new
version of install.txt. I think this is a big improvement over
previous versions. A few minor points to consider:
Under "Information You'll Need", you should tell the reader that
he doesn't need the network information for a dialup ppp connection,
so he doesn't start looking for it before he comes to "Configure the
Network". (I don't mean that you should take it out of the latter
section.) This is important information, and I have always been
troubled that it hasn't been available in the past.
Under "Boot Device Selection" should you mention the possibility
of booting from a CD. (This is covered later under specific
installation directions.)
Under "Installing from floppies", in the "Base Disks" section
"HREF="base12-1.bin">" looks like a misplaced HTML tag.
The last sentence under "Configure the Network" says has a
spurious "B". "(On a Debian system, daemons are started by scripts B
in /etc/init.d .)" ^
Under "Setting up PPP" you advise reading .gz files with zless.
IIRC, less is not on the base disks, but more and zmore are
available. Also in this section you advise the user to edit some ppp
config files. For the benefit of true newbies, you should mention
what editor is available (ae, I think), and how to invoke it.
"Setting up PPP" is a badly needed addition and should help to
reduce the traffic on debian-user. (Maybe I'm overly optimistic in
assuming enough people will read it.) However, I still wish the
pppconfig package were included in the base disks.
Under "Floppy-disk Reliability" you say:
"If you are having the installation stall at a particular floppy, the
first thing you should do is re-download the floppy disk image and
write it to a different floppy."
I believe the user should be advised to attempt rebooting
multiple times before making a new download or using a new floppy.
There has always been too much emphasis on bad disks and not enough on
the random nature of these errors.
During the bo testing period, I made one set of installation
disks from brand new virgin disks, and one set from recycled AOL disks
(I still get at least one a month in the mail). I made in excess of
20 installations from each set. I recorded the number of dots showing
in the installation message to get a rough idea of where in the
progress failures occurred.
I found that the failures were totally random, and that the
recycled disks performed slightly better than the new ones (probably
not statistically significant, however). In one test, I had five or
six successive failures with one set, followed by six or seven
successive successes. Therefore, I am convinced that downloading a
new image and making new disks on the first failure is a waste of time
and effort.
Bob
--
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|_) _ |_ Robert D. Hilliard <hilliard@flinet.com>
|_) (_) |_) Palm City, FL USA PGP Key ID: A8E40EB9
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