On Tue, 2003-05-27 at 19:33, nate wrote: > Kevin McKinley said: > > > Many who are accustomed to Debian forget how hard it can be at first. > > count me as one who will never forget installing debian 2.0 and > wading through dselect for probably 4 hours choosing packages and > resolving dependencies(my first debian install after using slackware > for about 2 years). > > ..never..forget.. > > nate > First install for me was most of two weeks with Slackware, which never did complete, followed by two days with Debian 1.3 that got the o/s installed, but X never quite made it. After a few weeks of not trying, I went back, tried Slackware again with the same failure, and then RedHat 4.2, which worked, but looked quite limited. I got an updated set of CDs, tried Slackware from there with no further luck, but I'd already decided, I wanted Debian. Went with that, and other than dselect offering WAY TOO MANY choices to work through at once (and that was with 1.3.1,) and there still needing to be some hair pulling for X at that point, it did install with most working right away, and the rest coming up to speed over a couple of weeks of finding the right documentation. I've installed all manner of operating systems over the years (about 20,) some of which didn't work, and when I bought computers or put in a new desk machine at work, I insisted on doing the installs myself to be on top of what is going on. There is some complexity in installing Linux, but the Debian installation doesn't have a direct path through the installation - there are a number of items listed as choices for "the next step" which you *could* want depending on the type of system you are creating, but it leaves you wondering if you have covered off everything you need. I did an install of Debian 3.0r1 a couple months back, and I was still confused, and in the end, I skipped out of dselect just to have a booting system, and then went back into it with apt to put what I knew was needed into the system. From what I've seen of the screenshots of the new Debian installer, the same structure appears to be planned, which I admit concerns me. It may be easier to maintain than boot-floppies, but it will be no easier, apparently, to work through for a new user by its current direction. That said, I am hoping that it is the same approach as with apt, where apt-get is one of a number of different utilities, such as aptitude and synaptic, to implement the user interface, and a better structured, more intuitive installation interface is developed on the Debian installer base. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
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