Re: tech proposal to make manoj somewhat happy.
On Sun, 26 Jul 1998, Petra, Kevin J Poorman wrote:
: > Petra> 1: a totaly redone install procedure, with a optional newbie
: > Petra> install with help screens detailing exactly what is hapening
: > Petra> and what informaion is needed so that complete newbies can
: > Petra> install debian.
: >
: > Firstly, where are the current boot floppies falling short? I
: > just installed on a laptop (my current install test machine), and I
: > was pleasantly surprised. Why is a complete rewrite required? Where
: > is information not sufficinet? Which boot floppy version have you
: > looked at?
:
: I addressed where the the boot floppies are falling short in another
: e-mail. please referance that. secondly, I'm sugesting a complete rewrite,
: because as far as I can tell, the install process has not changed in
: method since I first installed rex. I've been working with the latestet
: set that was on the cd I got from netgod. 2.0.8_1998-06-23 is the version
: I've been looking at while in this .... discussion.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has no idea how the boot floppies are
falling short. Just because you've decided to be rude to Manoj doesn't
mean you can't repeat yourself for the benefit of the rest of us.
I've seen many comments from others here who feel that the base floppies
are doing their job, and have improved greatly. I share this opinion -
my first Debian install that lasted was rex, and the whole process has
come a LONG way.
: > Secondly, I think complete newbies should be pointed to
: > documentation before they install any version/flavour of UNIX; since
: > maintenance of a UNIX workstation is not a task for absolute
: > newbies. A certain modicum of expertise is still required.
:
: I dissagree with you completly, a complete newbie given a clean install
: with good docs, will learn to do things the right way instead of how
: someone else showed them.
Documentation IS how "someone else" did whatever it is being documented.
I would agree that documentation could always be improved, particularly
where the process is not intuitive. On the other hand, if you're asking
the user for an IP address and they've never heard of IP, should we
refer them to a Stevens book or something??
: > Petra> a: the gui system for install should probably be based on w96 (a
: > Petra> small 2 color windowing system)
: >
: > Why? What is wrong with the current approach used by APT? Have
: > you compiled a kernel, and looked at what make menuconfig does? what
: > is w96? Do you have a URL? how does it compare with dialog, slag, and
: > ncurses? What are the advantages? Why should we switch to a totally
: > new windowing system?
:
: yes manoj, I have compiled a kernel, MANY of them infact... and I know
: what slang, newt, dialog, make menuconfig and ncurses are and what they
: do... thanks for the credit. w96 is a 2 color 640x480 windowing system,
: that is small, and quick. w96 can be found by a simple search on the linux
: applications web page, (sounds like someone didn't do there homework). and
: as to your last question. 1: why not. 2: it's time for a change.
When hawking new wares, it's generally considered polite to provide some
documentation (!) so that others can see what it is you're talking
about.
IMO, we should stick with what Marcus calls a "text based GUI" for
installs. Two good reasons are serial consoles, and older hardware
platforms. I'm also not comfortable with graphical tools since these
aren't always available on the other architecture ports.
: > Petra> b: a port of apt to w96 or whatever gui chosen should be looked
: > Petra> into.
: >
: > What is wrong with the current approach used by APT? I think
: > Jason has researched the GUI part of APT quite well. What does your
: > approach have which is so much better that we are prepared to throw
: > all the code that has been written away?
:
: I never said throw it away. again your twisting my words to the point of
: completely skewing there meaning. I said a port should be looked into.
:
: >
: > Petra> c: the console install should be completly rewriten to
: > Petra> include better error handleing and faster base install
: > Petra> suport... mabye move from a tar archive to a cpio, or ar, or
: > Petra> even zip archive...
: >
: > Umm, where do we use a pure tar archive? Do you know what the
: > .deb format uses? What tar archive are you talking about? Why should
: > we move to zip, which is an encumbered format, when we have gzip ang
: > bzip2? Have you compared the compression ratios achieved? Do you know
: > that zip is not the most efficient?
:
: the deb format consists of a ar archive of 3 files. control.tar.gz,
: data.tar.gz and debian-binary. I never said that we use a pure tar
: archive. however we do use a tar.gz archive for the base install. I'm
: sujesting we look into other archive formats to see if a speed improvment
: is to be had. ie: a gz of a cpio archive... or whatever.
Most of the speed penalty incurred by the unpacking of the archive would
be the unpacking, I imagine. Also, bear in mind that most of the
binaries available on the rescue disk are bare-bones, minimalist
versions. I know tar is, and dd, for example.
[ snip ]
: > Petra> debian should also work to switch from the archaic man page
: > Petra> format, by provideing as standard packages, the packages that
: > Petra> will allow man pages to be served as html pages. useing lynx
: > Petra> or kfm, netscape... ect.
: >
: > I find the man program to be faster than lynx, and less likely
: > to cause problems. I find it easier to search, create bookmarks, than
: > with lynx (I use less as a pager). For short looks, to refresh my
: > memory, nothing beats the man program. HTML has too many options to
: > be as useful; the complexity of hyperlinks is undesirable for quick
: > peeks at documentation.
:
: Not everyone uses less, or likes less. yes man itself is great for quick
: looks, however for the beginning person, man is confusing, and rather hard
: to use, however lynx is easy to use, and well documented.
Neither man nor lynx is available during the base install, as the
initial dselect run needs to occur first.
It could be pointed out to the installer that dwww will provide a way
to browse on-disk documentation ...
: > For longer tutorials, the HTML format is not as good as the
: > info format; I can do greps across multiple info pages, which is hard
: > to do with HTML without investing time and effort in external
: > indexing programs.
:
: lynx allows you to do a text search useing /
... but this only searches the existing page. It does not traverse the
hyper-links and search the subsequent pages.
: > Petra> I fail to see how this could be a compromise either...
: >
: > It is. HTML is a really poor choice, though I know it is our
: > preffered doc format.
:
: and as our preffered doc format, we should make it standard that man pages
: be veiwable useing a html browser.
I think we do this already.
: > Petra> as for error loging and handle ing all errors should be writen
: > Petra> to a file and then tailed on a empty vt for console isntalls
: > Petra> and to the root window for the gui/newbie install.
This sounds like a good idea. FWIW, I usually modify my systems so that
one VT is a syslog terminal ...
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