I tried it on a MacPro G5 (64-bit) with the "netinst" CD. At the "boot:" prompt I entered "install desktop=xfce", then answered the usual questions and watched it happily install xfce.
So that works.I have an xfce-CD1 CD that I intend to try with "install desktop=gnome" and see which desktop (xfce or gnome, or both?) it installs. The problem that I foresee here is the the yaboot.conf file on the xfce-CD1 already has its own clause <append="desktop=xfce --"> which may conflict with the user's.
I'll report on that later.We may have to figure out how to only include the extra instructions (about desktops) on the netinst CDs, which would be no real loss, because all the other desktops have dedicated CD1's of their own.
I haven't tried it on a G4 (32-bit) machine yet. I'll report on that later, too.
Thinking about 64-bit vs 32-bit, I don't think the code that prints the "boot:" prompt (and the preceding boot.msg file) is aware of the bit-width of the hardware. So we may have to either make the added text more comprehensive to warn the user about "install desktop=kde" vs "install32 desktop=kde", or find some other way of dealing with the problem.
Which raises the question of do we dare make boot.msg any longer? It may already be too long -- long enough that most folks won't bother to read all of it, and miss something important.
An alternate approach would be to refer folks to the appropriate section of the installation manual, where there should be a fully comprehensive discussion of the available boot options and why you might want to use them. Something like this:
The following desktop environments are available:
gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome.
If you prefer a different one, append
"desktop=<your choice>"
Details are discussed in the installer manual at
<URL>
Enjoy!
Rick
On Mar 7, 2013, at 11:55 PM, Rick Thomas wrote:
OK, Sounds great! I'll give it a try on a couple of old Macs over the weekend. Enjoy! Rick On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:16 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:49:54AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote:# cat /proc/cmdline # in the F2 console during the installation ro ramdisk_size=10240 desktop=kde -- It installed kde as expected. I'm not sure what the "--" is all about. It was not present when I installed with the "netinst" CD and typed expert desktop=xfce at the "boot:" prompt. As noted, that installed xfce4. So the -- may not be strictly necessary. Take a look at the stuff in /install/yaboot.conf on the install CDs. I think that's where all this is originating from.OK, cool. Thanks for confirming. I've taken your text, tweaked slightly, and added it into debian-cd. I've also added some code to work out the default desktop so we can list that. I'm building a weekly powerpc set right now with the changes in - please test and make sure all works OK?I can see the code looks ok from here, but I don't have easy access toa powerpc machine to be able to check that text fits on screen correctly, silly things like that... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.-- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-REQUEST@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org Archive: [🔎] A1DF3E26-E920-405A-B729-40B4B1F5FC46@pobox.com">http://lists.debian.org/[🔎] A1DF3E26-E920-405A-B729-40B4B1F5FC46@pobox.com