Re: Change templates: CD -> installation medium - proposal #2
On Tue, 10 Sep 2019 at 08:36, Justin B Rye <justin.byam.rye@gmail.com> wrote:
> Holger Wansing wrote:
> > I would like to change the term "CD" into "installation medium" in the
> > debian-installer.
> > These days our CD/DVD images can also be used for USB sticks, and virtual machines
> > are also quite common, so messages like "Loading components from CD" no longer fit.
> > I have prepared a proposal (attached) and would welcome a review of the
> > English language side.
>
> The tricky part with this solution is that "medium" is one of those
> words that seems to have been designed to confuse and annoy non-native
> speakers. A medium is something like newsprint or DVD format. An
> individual thing produced in such a medium (a newspaper, DVD, or
> whatever) is a "piece/item of media", not a "medium", but this is so
> clumsy that we usually just talk about (some) "media".
>
> Unfortunately if you Google for this you'll just find people arguing
> about an entirely separate problem: whether "the media" (i.e. the mass
> communication industry) is singular or plural.
Hi readers
This is my first post to this list.
I am not a member of any team, but after reading here I am motivated to
contribute a suggestion for other team members to consider.
If it is inappropriate for me jump in here without being invited, then I
apologise, please forgive me and guide me to a better way to contribute.
I am a native speaker of Australian English. I am not a language expert,
but I am engineer who worked for many years in education and documentation,
where effective and correct communication is essential.
These words "medium" & "media" are very awkward for a few reasons:
1) Contemporary use of the words is such that their "correct" use might
be evolving. So attempting to use these words correctly is annoying and
clumsy.
2) The majority current use of these words by the general popoulation is
technically incorrect, so using them correctly produces a result that is
uncomfortable for many readers and therefore might be considered poor
or ineffective communication style. For example, most people in current
everyday use will not understand that "medium" might refer to a computer
file storage device.
3) Technology has largely moved away from storage devices that actually use
insertion of removable media into a reader device. These days it is much
more likely that the user has a removable *device*, not removable *media*.
For these reasons, I offer a bold suggestion:
Work towards eliminating the words "media" and "medium" everywhere,
except where they cannot be avoided.
Prefer words like "installer device" or "installation device"
wherever possible,
As an illustration, I provide example text below. It is only a hasty
draft to help readers here form opinions, if there is interest then I
can do more detailed work such as proofreading, and patches if required.
Thanks for this opportunity to offer my input. I welcome any responses.
I'm not desiring any particular outcome and I'm not naturally a
"prolonged debater" on mailing lists. I was just motivated enough to
spend half an hour writing this message to contribute to the discussion.
Thanks to everyone who contributes to Debian, using it makes me very happy!
Regards
David
EXAMPLE PHRASES (taken from Justin's message)
"Load installer components from installer device files"
"Failed to copy file from installer device. Retry?"
"There was a problem reading data. Please make sure you have inserted the "
"installer device correctly. If retrying does not work, you should check the "
"integrity of your installer device."
"Detecting hardware to find drives for installer device"
"Detecting hardware to find installer device"
"Scanning installer device"
"Unmounting/ejecting installer device..."
"You may need to load additional drivers from a removable device, such as "
"a USB stick. If you have such a device available now, insert it, and "
"continue. Otherwise, you will be given the option to manually select some "
"modules."
"You may need to load additional drivers from a removable device, such as "
"a USB stick. If you have this available now, insert it now and "
"continue. Otherwise, you will be given the option to manually select some "
"modules."
"installer device detected"
"Autodetection of the installer device was successful. A drive has
been found and "
"it currently contains '${cdname}'. The installation will now continue."
"Autodetection of the installer device was successful. A drive has been found "
"that contains '${cdname}'. The installation will now continue."
"Incorrect installer device detected"
"The found installer device cannot be used for installation."
"The detected installer device cannot be used for installation."
"Please provide a suitable installer device to continue with the installation."
"Please provide a suitable device with installer files to continue
with the installation."
"The installer device does not seem to contain a valid 'Release' file,
or that file "
"could not be read correctly."
"The installer device do not seem to contain a valid 'Release' file,
or that file "
"could not be read correctly."
"You may try to repeat the installer device detection, but even if it
does succeed the "
"second time, you may experience problems later in the installation."
"Detect and mount installer device"
"Scanning the installer device..."
"Scan another installer device?"
"Scan another item of installer device?"
"Scan extra installer device?"
"Scanning your installer device finds the label: "
"You now have the option to scan for additional files for use by the "
"package manager (apt). Normally these should be from the same set as the "
"installer device you booted from. If you do not have any additional files "
"available, this step can just be skipped."
"You now have the option of scanning for additional files for use by the "
"package manager (apt). Normally these should be from the same set as the "
"one you booted from. If you do not have any additional files
available, this step "
"can just be skipped."
"If you wish to scan for additional files, please insert the device now."
"If you wish to scan more devices, please insert another one now."
"The device with the following label has been scanned:"
"The device with the following label has already been scanned:"
"Please replace it now, if you wish to scan another device."
"An attempt to configure apt to install additional packages from the
installer device "
"failed."
"Please check that the installer device has been inserted correctly."
"Please check that the installer device have been inserted correctly."
"Please insert the installer device labeled '${LABEL}' and press enter."
"You are installing from an installation image, which contains a
limited selection of packages."
"An attempt to configure apt to install additional packages from the
installer device failed."
"A network mirror can be used to supplement the software that is included on "
"the installer device. This may also make newer versions of software available."
"The network autoconfiguration was successful. However, no default route was "
"set: the system does not know how to communicate with hosts on the Internet. "
"This will make it impossible to continue with the installation unless you "
"have the first image from a set of installer device, a 'Netinst'
image, or packages "
"available on the local network."
"Check integrity of the installer device?"
"Insert a Debian installer device"
"Insert Debian installer device"
"Please insert one of the official Debian installer device before "
"continuing."
"Failed to mount installer device"
"The installer device '${CDROM}' could not be mounted correctly.
Please check the device, "
"and any cables or removable media, and try again."
"No valid Debian installer device"
"The installer device you have inserted is not a valid Debian
installer device. Please insert another one."
"What you have inserted is not valid Debian installer device. Please try again."
"Opening the MD5 file on the installer device failed. This file
contains the checksums "
"of the installer device files."
"The integrity test was successful. The installer device is valid."
"The file ${FILE} failed the MD5 checksum verification. Your installer
device or this "
"file may have been corrupted."
"Check the integrity of another installer device?"
"Insert Debian boot installer device"
"Please make sure you have inserted the Debian installer device you have "
"booted from, to continue with the installation."
"Please make sure you have inserted the Debian installer device you "
"booted from, to continue with the installation."
"Checking integrity of installer device"
"The installer cannot figure out how to install the base system. No "
"installable installer device was found and no valid mirror was configured."
"The installer cannot figure out how to install the base system. It "
"found no installable image, and no valid mirror was configured."
"Couldn't retrieve ${SUBST0}. This may be due to a network problem or a bad "
"installer device, depending on your installation method."
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