woody installation
Not trying to start a flame war, but I have a legitimate question that has
been kicked around a little, but not to my satisfaction :). What are the
chances that the installation procedure will improve in woody versus what is
currently in the potatoe distribution? I am a very new debian user, but I
have have been using and abusing linux for a long time. I have used a
half-dozen distributions before this, and it is safe to say that it
(potatoe) is much stabler and easier to update (just love apt-get) than any
other dist. BUTTTTT...here it comes..and I know..ONCE you get it installed
it is the best right? True, but why can't the install routine be improved?
It shouldn't be an obstacle course to the newbie...I have installed
literally hundreds of servers (I work at a large ISP) and I even had a
little trouble with the install. It found my network card but didn't
install the dhcp client for some reason. I had to manually do that to get
things running. Can't imagine what a first time user would say..other than
something to the effect of "Stupid bleeepin linux..guess I will just keep
using Windoze". Just because they can't do the install. It simply
shouldn't be that way, and you can't expect them to be "smart" enough to use
the mailing list and resources on the Internet. Most users won't do that at
the beginning. Most users want to see a login prompt and some type of GUI.
Not to much to ask in my opinion. I also think it is a fairly safe
assumption that a full blown gui environment like Gnome or KDE would be
good. I ended up with Windowmaker on my setup. Options would be
nice.......... Now I know I can apt-get the packages for KDE, but why not
an option during install to install it? Or Gnome, or whatever. Yeah, I
know, KDE has strings in the mind of many deb users, maybe it really does,
but why not Gnome? Take a look at (shudder) RedHat. The install options
run somethink like this...
Gnome Workstation
KDE Workstation
Server
Custom
Upgrade
That is from 6.2. Now, why can't something similar be done for debian? I
had two install options simple and advanced. Not quite the same (as above)
in my little opinion. Thinking from the "newbie" perspective...this would
be more difficult than needs be. Yes, as "power" debian users we want to be
able to select and deselect to our hearts content, but it is so nice to see
Gnome Workstion or Server or WindoMaker Workstation or whatever. Custom is
where the power user goes. The newbie gets pre-selected partitions,
pre-selected packages, a much easier install experience. Also, I see a
great need for work to be done in network card identifciation and X Server
card identification. Deb is the first distribution in a LONG time that I
had to manually select the kernel module for my network card and mess around
with the XF86Config file to get Xwindows running......why is that?
I have ranted on long enough. I am really interested in hearing what other
people think about this. Maybe I am really off base here, but I don't think
so.
(Ducking for cover...)
Brian Murphy
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