It's not a question of *me* not wanting a GUI. I'm asking whyinhell *anyone* would want one. What does it enhance? What's the design goal? So far the only thing I've ever seen in print is that it needs to be done because the lamers want it. Debian strives for technical excellence. So supposedly, adding a GUI to the installer improves things somehow?
Unfortunately, we live in a GUI point-and-click world now. If we expect to see Linux on the desktop really take off, this is something every distro will need to implement.
You are right, though, that a GUI installer will add nothing in terms of functionality. But, the "technical elite" (if that is what you want to call them) can still use the CLI and CURSES interfaces when available.
In my case, I use GUI tools just because I have only been using Linux for 6 months and haven't learned everything yet. For example, last month I got DSL but I haven't learned iptables yet. So I installed firestarter and voila. Now I am up and running until I can learn the intricacies (which I want to). But, if I decide to not learn iptables the thing still works.
A GUI interface is not mutually exclusive to technical excellence. I think that Linux needs to be marketed to the average user. When more people start using it more third party apps get written and more current apps get impoved causing an overall improvement. The ultimate design goal should be overall improvement of the product. The GUI will help achieve that in a roundabout way.
Roberto Sanchez _________________________________________________________________Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail