RE: Just my opinion
I have just been through this process having decided to switch over from
SuSE to debian. i must say that the install system is fine until dselect
with a multi CD set. I actually reinstalled SuSE and nearly gave up before
deciding not be overcome and going ahead and trying. Eventually mount the CD
manually and doing the install from a mounted FS.
I am a relatively experienced user of Linux since the early SLS
distributions but struggled with some of the intricacies of the debian
install method as a debian-newbie.
However, after installing the packages, I then needed to upgrade X to cover
my TNT card and apt-get worked fantastically and is clearly a very powerful
and simple-to-use tool.
So I agree, once I got the system up, I realise how powerful it really is.
However, dselect is user unfriendly and is unfortunately most users' first
exposure to debian. A new Linux user, which all probably agree should be
encouraged, would really struggle to get the system up and running IMHO.
>> thing is that the initial installation is important to a newbie because
>> that is what they are focused on at the start. The fact that it will save
>> them hours and hours down the road in maintenance once they DO get it set
>> up is not very important at that stage.
>Indeed - one of the things that most impressed me about Debian was that
>once I'd done the install, pretty much all the services I'd installed
>support for were set up and working. With previous distributions, I'd
>always had to spend far too much time figuring out what I'd installed
>and working out how to configure it. One of the most challenging
>problems for the new admin/install tools will be keeping this while
>making things easier for less experienced users.
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