Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?
On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 11:48:15AM -0800, Jim Lynch wrote:
> But I have performed many debian installs with the boot floppy setup,
> and I found that it still suffers from problems. One problem faced
> by all dists is that of teaching people about partitioning and backing
> up. At least the installer says "don't do this unless you're backed up".
> debian-installer might solve that problem by offering to make all the
> partitioning decisions.
I don't see how automated partitioning avoids the need for a backup.
Things can still go wrong. The power could go down at the wrong time and
take the partition table with it. The software could be buggy in some
circumstances, or the kernel is, or something.
You certainly shouldn't assume that nobody wants to partition their disk
manually, either.
> dselect, for all its use once a person gets used to it, is not suitable
> for a new person. Its interface is hostile in friendly clothes as well
You are not forced to use dselect during the boot-floppies installation
process.
> By comparison, boot-floppies looks like kludges atop and beneath other
> kludges, and I get the impression this is not easy to change without
> affecting other aspects of the installer. I think that unless boot-
That may be a correct impression from the code, but it isn't my
experience as a user of the process. I find it quite smooth;
predictable, certainly. Easy once you've done a few.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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