Re: Installing Buster (improvements)
On 6/30/20 11:29 PM, Peter Ehlert wrote:
On 6/30/20 1:36 PM, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
Hello,
today I installed Buster on my laptop.
It would be very helpful to know which of the many install ISOs you used.
debian-10.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso
As usual it ran very well (at the end). But I would like to suggest
the follwing improvements to the Graphical install:
a) At some point the process informed me, that a firmware module is
missing and asked whether I would like to supply it from a disk, a
USB stick or from the net. As I had this module from another
installation on a USB stick I stuck it into the laptop. The install
process did not even look at it; it was looking only for network
devices.
How do we know that "The install process did not even look at it"?
I assume it would have told me that the module itself or the debian
firmware-package (both were on the stick) are not usable, readable or
something like that.
BTW: in the future if you expect the need for firmware I suggest
using one of the many unofficial non-free firmware ISOs.
I know.
I have installed the various versions of debian since 1995(?) providing
all the partitions, including swap, as required. This time I wanted to
find out what debian does when you provide just one big partition.
b) Before I started the installation I defined a partition of 150GB
on the disk (SSD) for Debian. At some point in the process the
system informed me that I did not provide a swap partition (I had
hoped the installation process would allocate that automatically
from the space provided) and asked whether I want to define that
partition.
This is normal, you have many options. Sometimes swap is not wanted.
Accepted.
As there was some room left on the disk I was ready to do it. The
system asked for the data of where that partition should lie in
terms of 'cylinder/sector/head' (or something like it). Now usually
I am not concerned with this type of data and even more so as I was
installing debian on an SSD. As there was no way I could solve this
problem directly I had to abort the installation, define the swap
partition and restart the installion process.
It is unfortunate that you did not read any of the Debian Wiki
install manuals and tutorials before you started.
I suggest you start reading here:
https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/installmanual
My point ist that when you have the possibility to allocate the missing
partition in the process then the information expected from the user
should be in terms that are generally used in this context: e.g. size,
free space before/after the new partition. Do you know how much space
you are talking about when you specify the space e.g. from cylinder
30312/sector 301/head 45 to cylinder 30800/sector 20/head 4 on an SSD?
Couldn't that be done more user friendly? Especially in view of the
fact that I assume that Graphical Install is not supposed to be an
Expert installation.
That was a poor assumption. Again, the install manual covers that.
OK, my fault.
c) When entering the passwords for root and for the user there are
always two lines: one for entering the password, the other where one
clicks if one wants to see the password.
I suggest that these two line be switched: the first for the
selection for seeing the password, the second for entering the
password. Again a little increase in user friendlyness.
There are tons of ISOs and methods. Best of luck next time.
I have no problem with the "normal" ISOs, like the one I mentioned above.
--
K.D.J.
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