Installation
Greetings,
Newbie Installation of Debian Squeeze 6.0.5 i386 Netinstall disc.
We have a fairly typical, hand-me-down box, P4, 2.8 GH, 2 GB of RAM, with
two Debian installs already in situ on sda. The empty sdb, 120 GB ATA,
will be used for the install:
The 'Install' option – no GUI, is chosen.
Language: English
Country, territory or area: Australia
Keymap: American English
Detecting Hardware – No problem. With most boxes of this age & type, there
shouldn't be.
'Loading Additional Components'
Network is detected automagically through dhcp.
Hostname: Debian
Domain name: Something else, as long as it's the same as every other
machine on the network.
I always have the two passwords here – root and user. To me it's an
illusion that root access is a security hazard as sudo gives the user
access anyway, with just the single username access option.
'User registration and password'
Getting the time set
Location: somewhere in Australia
'Loading additional components'
Partitioning: Entire disc selected. Separate /home selected.
In my opinion, the third option of separate /usr, /var, /tmp/ /home here
are wasted, as anybody that is going for that sort of option set are
probably going to go for the more fine-grained approach the 'Expert
Install' option caters to.
Computed Partitions.
/ = 10 GB – Bootable ext3 – I would probably go for a little more than
this, because the newbie appetite wants to try out everything! koffice,
libreoffice, calligra, gnomeoffice along with gnumeric and abiword to see
what they look like and make a preferred selection. Likewise with every
single video player, music player, browser and mail client. They'll pare
everything down after the first six months when decisions are made, but
they need plenty of room initially. I'd be looking at at least 12.5 GB.
Worked out on the percentage of drive space, of course.
/swap = 4.1 GB which fits nicely with the 2 GB of RAM.
/home =105.9 GB ext3.
I wondered at ext3 being the default, instead of ext4, but that may well
be just the time slot that squeeze fitted into.
Finish Partitioning and Write to Disc
At the top is an annotation which says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“This is an overview of your currently configured partitions and
mountpoints. Select a partition to modify its settings (filesystem,
mountpoint, etc.), a free space to create partitions, or a device to
initiate its partition table.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is beyond Double-Dutch to a newbie. If you said 'mountpoint' to your
average newbie, he would be looking round for the horse. Likewise with
'partition' (office furniture) and 'filesystem' (the technique required
to get out of jail when they catch him, now that he has his hands on some
'real' hacker software).
When you need to relay some information to somebody, you need to make an
accurate assessment of the communication level of your audience.
Otherwise, you simply don't communicate. If they aren't in front of you in
order to do this, you assume no knowledge and operate from that
'mountpoint'.
Here's an example – rough, not at all polished:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Partitioning
Partitions are allocated areas on your hard drive, set by the installer,
where different parts of your working operating system reside.
The root (/) partition is where all your programmes will be installed and
must be bootable so that your operating system is accessible after
installation.
The swap partition is an area on your hard drive where process exchange
takes place when your system is working. It is the equivalent of 'Virtual
Memory'.
The home (/home) partition is where all your personal and professional
data will be kept.
By selecting any of these – arrow keys and 'enter', you can adjust the
size of them to suit your particular needs. This automatic partitioning
would probably be most suitable for initial use, however you will still be
able to adjust their size in the future if needed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is absolutely no need to get into $ cat /etc/fstab at this point in
time. Or separate /boot partitions, or any other complexity. They'll get
to that later. What is required now is to convey the simplest of pictures,
but still convey the required information and only the required
information. This provides information, orientation and a jumping off
point for further advancement, without the confusion born of complexity.
So, onward we go....
Approval to write to disc is forced, which is good.
Installing the Base System
Additional CD or DVD = No
Mirror Selection = Yes
Australia
ftp.au.debian.org
Proxy = Blank
Configuring apt and downloading packages
Select and Install
Popularity Contest = Yes. There's more
explanation here than there is for partitioning.
Graphical desktop Environment = Yes
Auto install of 'Grub2' and successful
detection of two other Debian installs
Install to MBR = Yes
This is sufficiently annotated
Installation Complete
Eject and Reboot successfully into Gnome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There might, from a newbie perspective, need to be a short note at the
proxy configure stage. What's a proxy?
But from what I can see, the only major bulwark to a more substantial user
uptake is the clarification of partitioning.
The installer has now reached the stage where everything else is pretty
much self-explanatory.
Thoughts?
Regards,
Weaver
--
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
-- Thomas Paine
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