Re: Installation
I'm probably going to regret this...
On 09/17/2012 09:31 AM, Camaleón wrote:
On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:42:03 +0200, lee wrote:
Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com> writes:
That's absurd. You are not going to install an OS in the middle of
nowhere, dude, so you print the manual (or just the sections you are
interested in) and you can read it while installing.
1.) I don't have a working computer to find and print manuals with. First I
need to install Debian (or have that working system).
Then you better stop here and solve this step before going any further
How?
In order to go from "no working computer" to "a working computer", at the very
least, someone has to install an operating system. If you're the only one
available, and the OS whose install media is available is Debian, then the only
way you're going to get a working computer is for you to install Debian.
How can you solve the step of "don't have a working computer" without performing
an install? The only options I can think of are A "borrow someone else's
computer" and B "get someone else to do the install for you", neither of which
is always available.
I suppose there's also C "install another OS which is easier to install", but
that's just dodging the issue, because what we're trying to do is make *this* OS
just as easy as the other one - if not more so. It also doesn't help if no
installers for any other OS are available.
("Use a computer which has already been installed" is not an alternative, since
it would fall under one of A or B.)
If I've been following things correctly, the proposal at hand is to provide D
"make it possible to access a working system from within the installer", i.e.
allow the installer to spawn a functioning (if minimal) LiveCD-esque
environment. That may not be ideal from an efficiency or streamlined-install-UI
perspective, but it *would* seem to solve the described problem.
It's absurd to assume that people have another working computer at hand,
that they know what manuals to print in advance ...
No, it's not. I find quite normal to expect a minimal working environment
before installing any operating system. Otherwise it would be like saying you
don't have a power outlet to connect your new frigde yet still you want it
delivers ice cubes.
That analogy doesn't hold water.
If you know what you're doing, it's perfectly possible to install an OS on a
computer without having an already-installed-and-working computer available.
Conversely, under known laws of physics, it's not possible to have a
refrigerator work without plugging it in to power.
Look at it in the context of bootstrapping. If you need to have a "minimal
working environment" before installing an OS - or rather, if that minimal
environment needs to include another, already-working computer, with its own
already-functioning OS - then how does the first OS get installed on the first
computer?
--
The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.
Every time you let somebody set a limit they start moving it.
- LiveJournal user antonia_tiger
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