Re: What about a Debian Instalation Quick Guide
On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 06:02:56PM -0800, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 05:27:00PM -0700, Chris Tillman wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 10:13:55PM -0600, Adam DiCarlo wrote:
> > >
> > > I agree that the quick install manual should be an early chapter in
> > > the full install manual. That seems more maintainable to me, and just
> > > as good for users. Kinda like a "quick start" chapter. YOu could
> > > have links into sections for the full story...
> >
> > That seems like a good idea ...
>
> <AOL>
>
> If it is X86 system, I think assuming following standard hardware
> configuration may help stream line the situation for quick install.
>
> Before install
> /dev/hda = ide HDD
> /dev/hda1 other OS (Win Me/98/95, DOS, ...)
> /dev/hda2 unused or scrapable partition
> /dev/hdc = IDE cd-r/w
> NIC = single PCI based one (Pick Tulip as example) in LAN
> IP through DHCP
>
> After install
> /dev/hda = MBR (Debian) (For NT case, leave as is and create Boot
> image for the NT boot loader which will be saved in NT partition. This
> is not in short version)
> /dev/hda2 = lilo installed (or GRUB)
> /dev/hda3 = extended
> /dev/hda5 = swap
> /dev/hda6 = /usr
> /dev/hda7 = /home
>
> All deviation cases can be marked out for short version.
>
> I think mentioning FB console on/off is good.
>
> Also point out NT/XT dual-boot, tftp-boot, PCMCIA, SCSI-RAID, ... things
> are described in full documentation.
Thanks for your comments, Osamu. I looked at the documents Romel
Palomo and Clinton de Young did, which were referred to earlier.
I think these are worthy efforts, and Romel, I would be happy to
spiff up a translated version's English - at the least, you could
post it on your site.
The rub is this, though. Debian has so many options, and supports so
many niches. It's impossible to make a quick-start guide that begins
to work for even 10% of the audience. Right off the bat, everybody
assumes i386 with Windows installed - I'm a powerpc user, why leave me
out? Yes, I realize the majority fall in that camp. But there is no way
to define a quick start guide that actually helps a majority of users.
Take a look at Osamu's comments. He suggests assuming an IDE drive,
with given existing and target partitions. Even just at that point,
I bet I've lost 50% of the audience. They want one partition, not 7.
They don't have an unused partition. Etc. If we could really make
those assumptions, we could build a Mandrake installer :-)
I like the idea of providing pointers to sections in the full doc.
But - that's what the table of contents does, and very nicely.
As I said, the guides that are out there are good. They are both 15-20
screens of info, taking a very specialized approach in order to
simplify it. They must necessarily leave big pieces out, for example
Clinton's leaves it to the reader to come up with a blank partition,
something that 2 chapters is spent on in the manual.
The only thing that I think it's useful to do, is to provide a
collection of links to these documents as people build them, maybe
indexed by system type and assumptions. There are these two for i386,
I know of at least 3 sites for iBook, there are probably many many
others.
OTOH, then you get into the problem of pointing people to information
that hasn't been tested, may conflict with our information, yadi yadi.
As you can tell, I am in a throwing-up-the-hands posture. Any ideas?
--
"The way the Romans made sure their bridges worked is what
we should do with software engineers. They put the designer
under the bridge, and then they marched over it."
-- Lawrence Bernstein, Discover, Feb 2003
Reply to: