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Interview with Adam Di Carlo (Debian Boot)
robstah writes: "The installer is the heart of any Operating System, Debian is no different. The mature but ageing boot-floppies installer will rear its head for the last time in woody. In this interview with Adam Di Carlo, one of the lead developers of this system we investigate the past, present and future of the Debian installation system ready for the upcoming release of woody: The next generation of Debian."
--jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
i've always used them to install debian (except when i didn't have a working floppy drive) and i always choose the network install for both the base system and packages. it's so much easier than the cd. you can always get the latest packages and not have to worry about upgrading right away. the only thing i didn't like was the addition of another driver disk with one of the last releases of potato. i got over it though.
please me, have no regrets.
Although it's a necessary component, it's a stretch to call it the heart.
What I'd like to see is more install source options... perhaps the capability to mount Windows shares via smbmount to access the CDROM.
The Spleen of the Distro!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
The Debian installer IMHO, is very elegant, smooth, and has a near perfect balance of functionality for power users and entry level users alike. Power users generally get the flexability they need, and entry level users only need to contribute a little bit more thought than say, RedHat's installer. I say, KISS, and hang onto this installer for a little while longer. The only real problem I've ever seen with Debian's installer was the dselect stage, where most users choke completely. That however, has become an option and users may now run the simple and straight foward tasksel util. If the Debian people are going to try and replace this installer, I certainly hope they keep the existing paradigms around for those of us who love Debian as it is (it's the only perfect distro in my book).
On the other hand, what Debian really needs to do is enhance and extend the aforementions tasksel utility. Tasksel has the right idea, but it doesn't go far enough. It's not very extensive and it'd be nice to break things down into smaller groups without having to jump all the way over to dselect. For example, from tasksel, installing the TeX packages is clear, but maybe I want all the immediately necessary LaTeX components and not all the utilities that convert TeX to every other format imaginable for documents. But make this a hierarchial option that's hidden in tree form under this task. That'll give us more middle ground between tasksel and dselect.
Why bother.
..the birth canal of a distribution
otherwise known as...
ahem...
ah... lets not go there...
More like the breasts... it's hard to get started in life without access to some.
Wah!
Anyone who has tried to install Solaris 8 on Intel will cry tears of joy by seeing any Debian installer ANY time.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
What makes the difference in a distro is the set of policies and procedures that make the distro something recognizable. If those are comprehensive, enforced, and automated enough, it becomes possible to trust the distro from release to release.
The infrastructure of the Debian distro has flowered as the "apt-get" tool and its related GUI applications (gnome-apt, aptitude, deity). Apt-get makes a Debian system far easier to maintain, and keep up to date and secure, than any other. Debian policies and package tools make it possible to use safely. Apt-get without all the infrastructure beneath would be too dangerous to trust.
For more detail on the topic, see the Advogato posting.
If you've ever tried downloading a Debian .iso and install off if you'll find that they intentionally do not provice .iso images to save on bandwidth. However, making 12-16 floppies with all the possible drivers on it was something I was -not- going to do.
.iso that had nothing but the boot * root floppies, base2_2.tgz, and drivers.tgz, burned it to disk and viola. All I needed now was my CD, two floppy disks and I could do a 'net install just fine. If I ever got adventurous I'd have actually made the CD bootable and put the root FS on it but quite frankly It's only once every month or so that I have to do an install so finding the floppies isn't a big deal.
.iso image for download, burn to disc, and have all the tools to do a 'net install off of it? Made my life pretty simple; wouldn't take more than a day to smash together I'd imagine either.
For my first 2.2. installation I put the drivers.tgs and the base2_2.tgz on my existing windows partition then just used the boot/root disks to do the install. This was nice; and I did something similar on two machines which were shipped to me w/ a RedHat installation on them.
But... what do you do when you don't have an existing OS on there? After some thinking I put together my own
How 'bout it Debian team... a ~20MB
Justin Buist
Great work and all that, we really appreciate what you've done. Now, I'd really like to know which boot you put on first thing in the morning, is the right foot or the left foot? Have you ever put your boots on the wrong feet before?
Thanks!.
P.S.: What do you think of RedBoot (It's for embedded devices)?
M0571y H@rml355.
Installers that work by using a boot floppy to access a network image of the install are still one of the best ways to install systems in a large environment:
1) You don't have to configure the machine to boot from CD, then remember to turn that back off in the BIOS when you are done.
2) HTTP or NFS access across a 10Base-T is about equal to a 10 spin CD-ROM - across a 100Base-t its faster than all but the most top of the line DVDROM drives.
3) Start one install, as soon as the machine boots remove floppy, insert into next machine, and repeat.
Don't get me wrong - I like CD installs for single machine environments. But I ALWAYS have the latest copy of RedHat exported from my server in the basement - makes it a lot easier when rolling a firewall/scratch machine/whatever.
www.eFax.com are spammers
More like the breasts... it's hard to get started in life without access to some.
And then, once started in life, you never need/want to see them again.
Dinivin
I quite like the Debian installer as well, however it suffers from the same problem that all Linux installers seem to - it doesn't consistently get X configuration right. For a server that's not a problem, for a desktop machine it is. Support for graphics cards, monitors, input devices etc in XFree86 seems to be pretty good now, but configuring it is still a nightmare. Installers (or better X) need to automatically detect the settings required and just work.
In fact, that's probably the biggest reason Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Once you get a system set up and configured right, it's fairly easy to use, particularly with KDE and GNOME these days, but if you can't get your system to that point then it's all for naught. Remember that not everyone has a local geek and Linux pretty much never comes preinstalled.
The installer is the heart of any operating system? Ummm... ok. I wasn't completely sure about that kernel thing... glad you clarified it for me. Thanks.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Yes, go to the Gdkxft site and download/install the 1.4 tarball. Then:
$ LD_PRELOAD=libgdkxft.so mozilla
Enjoy a jaggy-less web experience!
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
In the latest Linux journal copy I received, Debian has been elected the less usable Linux distro. Wanna why? Well, just try to install stable on some less than 1 year old hw or unstable (woody) instead. Use their mailing list to ask for help, because the installation is all fscked up. The next thing you want to do after reading the answers you get are getting is ordering your copy of SuSe
(looks quizically at the article title)
I blame mozilla!
F0 07 C7 C8
From my vast experience with this distro, on a high-bandwidth connection this is the easiest way to do an install.
:-D )
1. Download and write to floppy the image-1.44/compact disks (rescue, root, and driver-1).
2. Boot with Rescue in.
3. Follow the directions.
DHCP makes this a blast and you're into Dselect (or tasksel if you want) within fifteen minutes at most. You end up download much less than an entire ISO in most cases, and it's better because you're always going to get the latest packages.
If you have to do an install on multiple machines, download the entire tree for your distro onto one machine, and set it up as a server with FTP or somesuch so that APT can access that local machine as a repository. Over 100baseTX, it takes no time at all to do an install (after all, a fast hard drive over ethernet is probably faster than your cdrom drive is anyways
There are also ReiserFS boot disks available now that will let you get up and running with a great journalling filesystem from scratch, with the selection of one simple option.
I found the Debian installer much easier to use than Red Hat's, and much more powerful than Mandrake's.
Give it a try! You won't go back!
I've been an assistant at a half dozen installfests: a couple where mostly Red Hat got installed, a couple with mostly Mandrake, and a couple with mostly Debian. Unless Debian's installer has improved by orders of magnitude in the last 9-10 months, it is by far the most newbie-unfriendly of the lot. Even people experienced with other distributions needed to be walked through a Debian installation process beforehand to try and prevent any unpleasant surprises.
Debian is a wonderful distribution (even for new users, now) once you've got it running, but if you think any "entry level users" can sit down at a Debian installation and have the slightest hope of getting through it successfully, you're deluding yourself.
It's also the first thing you notice when you're checking out a new distro, and it's the only thing at all that shallow reviewers pay any attention to.
Yes, but only for FreeBSD and NetBSD.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
You may have a point there.. After all, the nipple is the only real intuitive interface :-)
:)
Actually, I can think of one other, but I'll keep slashdot clean
karma capped
Good thing we dumped it in favor of aptitude then, huh? :)
And please make the CD bootable
They _are_ bootable generally.
Michael
A lot of debian users are very comfortable with debian's installer as it is. Most debian users I know, install just the basic OS, then use dselect to install the packages of their liking. Very minimal and effective. Will this option still be around for us experienced users?
As for me, I won't use Debian because the adsl package is fucked beyond belief.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
1. Download and write to floppy the image-1.44/compact disks (rescue, root, and driver-1).
You forgot 0. Buy a floppy drive. Many computers I encounter have broken floppy drives that damage disks.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In other words, we'll see a graphical Debian installer around 2010 or so?
2.2r4 is the latest official CD-image. It's potato release 4, not woody (potato = 2.2, woody = 3.0). When Debian say "the stable version", that's what they mean... their aim is to get each release to all work together nicely, and they don't release that often. woody contains XFree86 4, gcc 3 and other newer goodies, but it hasn't become the stable distribution (it's still classified as testing) so there are no official ISOs.
My first linux was debian, i just sat down and did it. YMMV, i guess
The coffee god lives!
they just need to get out there and see how """normal""" people think.
Last time that I checked, we were normal people. Unfortunately, Debian isn't like the "other guys" in that we don't have either people with extensive UI design background nor have we consulted with expensive usability experts (and I use that term loosely...hence the expensive argument).
I, myself, am rather tired of people taking shots at the installer without providing specific feedback on how to make it better. All that I ever hear is people saying such constructive comments like "it sucks" or "it's confusing", which do not help improve the situation. Perhaps one of the critics should sit down with someone from the install team (or the whole team via phone) and hammer out a better UI for installation. Hell, consider this a challenge to anyone who doesn't like Debian's installer to improve it with us.
I've been in this field for too many years to count at this point, and I have never been confused by Debian's install process. I'm not ignorant enough to think other should be like me, but I do feel that the apparent complexity of the install process as it is today provides folks like me with more options and let's us get our system installed the way that we like it the first time (rather than having to go back and remove or upgrade 75% of the packages like I have to do with some RH systems that have been in my charge professionally). I'm all for providing a simpler interface with an option to get more advanced for people like me, but until someone steps up and helps streamline the process rather than waiting for the existing Debian folks to fix it without input (and criticise when things don't change enough for their liking), then you may be waiting a very long time.
Bear in mind that the entire Debian distribution is produced by volunteers, not some company with investors and/or revenue. Most of what we get accomplished is done without corporate support at all (95% of the potato alpha distribution, for example, compiled on my personal system that I paid for and keep on the net at my own expense). Donations usually only encompass hardware, which is made available to the developers as a whole and rarely (if at all) include services such as UI design or development assistance with regards to hardware (hardware docs, etc).
In short, I'm no huge fan of our installer, but it serves its purpose and does it well with very few bugs that the user sees (behind the scenes is another story...it's a pain to add new archs to the existing system). Hell, I personally thank Adam for doing such a good job given the flawed initial design of the boot-floppies system.
1) I had woody on all my servers since febrary, maximum uptime, not problems with the packages, etc..
2) There are Woody ISO'sp hp?sid=207
Go see http://www.debianplanet.org/debianplanet/article.
http://securityportal.com.ar
When i first tried debian i also had great problems with dselect, it does have a steep learning curve. If you cant remember all the keys, its slows you down greatly to constatly refer to the help screen.
Once you get to know it its really good, there are probably 4 or 5 alternative GUI's about, but i still use dselect 90% of the time, sometimes even over apt-get (more info).
# make install
I spent 1/2 an hour fiddling with the Debian pppoe package, and concluded it was a much better idea to punt over to David Skoll's original version.
I did a make install , answered the questions, and my firewall has been up 64 days since the last time I moved the machine, and it works like a charm.
Considering the entire distribution as worm-fodder just because one package hasn't turned out well is about as logical as deciding Windows is wonderful because the BSOD is a particularly nice shade of blue.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I've been at linux for the past 6 years, and I've never looked back from the day I started off with Slackware. The distribution is always stable. Even, the -current version, is mighty stable, when compared to testing/unstable. If I could get it installed as a 13 yr. old kid 6 years ago, anyone can. The installer hasn't changed over time. It still gets the job done:
/. article http://slashdot.org/developers/01/09/21/1730210.sh tml
t s-user-linux.tar.gz
:)
1. Partition
2. Setup Swap
3. Select packages
4. Install
5. Configure fstab/gpm/timezone/etc.
Yes, dependencies are something that never existed in Slackware, but I never found it difficult to deal with. http://linuxmafia.org is a big help to get the binaries, in case u aren't in the mood to get on to a compilation spree, immediately, or are just in a hurry to get a package.
The FreeBSD ports system is great, and I think i heard someone mention it for linux in an earlier
which can be downloaded from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gnu-darwin/por
Slackware is getting better and better by the day, and I've seen very few Slackware users, that I know, who've switched to any other distribution, lately. The install follows the KISS philosophy, and its as fast as it gets, and relatively easy to the newbie, and more importantly gets the system ready, for more hacking.
Perhaps one of the critics should sit down with someone from the install team (or the whole team via phone) and hammer out a better UI for installation. Hell, consider this a challenge to anyone who doesn't like Debian's installer to improve it with us.
I'll promise to send at least a case report the next time I install Debian (probably the latest 2.2r4), although I'm not a Debian virgin anymore...
Aptitude is definitely much nicer than dselect, but still not intuitive enough, in my opinion.
Generally, I'd recommend at least mimicking the UI of other installers and package managers. Not that any of them are really good, but they are at least much easier to use than dselect, aptitude, or *eek* command-line apt-get. You don't have to hire a horde of UI specialists if you just borrow the work of Microsoft's/Redhat's/SuSE's/Mandrake's horde. Copying UI concepts is what made MS Windows, KDE, and many others very successful. Stealing ideas is good. It's building on other people's work, exactly what the basic idea of Free Software is.
Graphical UI would help a lot, as you can make it much more eye-friendly with colors, fonts, and graphics, and have more freedom in doing the layout.
When upgrading packages, I'd recommend to make it totally non-interactive (at least by default).
I really like Debian because of the relatively well working package system, and will definitely install it also as my next workstation distro, probably quite soon.
OK, then: the heart of my new NetBSD system would be tar(1), because that's about as close as I got to an installer while setting it up.
Yeah, OK, I meant it's not called the stable distribution :-) and there aren't official ISOs. I hadn't realised there were Sid ISOs too, though...
(I'm using unstable at the moment, the only serious instability I've noticed is the nvidia X driver which Debian have nothing to do with)
ok so they are making a better installer for debian but why dont they make it easier to actoually install programs in linux. thats what I hate. I know you can just double click on a RPM on some distros and install it but they should have some type of install shield for linux that makesit easier than ever to install software. thats the number 1 reason why I dont use linux that much. I would rater stick with double clicking icons than compiling my programs that I can not get to work 90% of the time.. maby it is just me but my life is aready to busy.
Daddy would you like some sausage?
Debian CDs are bootable, assuming your hardware supports that. In i386, in fact, there are 3 bootable CDs for the different flavors (you should probably be using the 2nd or 3rd CD to boot rather than the first, see the docs).
What I'd really like to see in a new installer is the ability to actually install the thing from a serial port. I always find myself hauling around a spare monitor from box to box when rebuilding my 3 boxen. It would be quite nice to remotely control them all from my desktop with a standard terminal emulator, just like I do with the big iron at work.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Debian installer? I think I maybe remember that, a long time ago...it's been so long. Never really understood why such an emphasis is put on it though...with Debian you only need to see it once...not like SuSe, Mandrake, Red Hat etc...where migrating to a new version usually takes a reinstall.
if you're not sharing the habits of the inner gang that designed the software
:)
/. is a sign that the software is being used, anyway.
Yum, I'm a gang now?
I guess getting armchair criticism from an AC on
Cheers,
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Aptitude is definitely much nicer than dselect, but still not intuitive enough, in my opinion.
:)
:)
:)
:( (because of conffile handling)
The most useful definition of "intuitive" I've ever heard is "whatever the speaker or writer of 'intuitive' likes"
*eek* command-line apt-get
apt-get is a very useful tool, for what it's meant to do. There's nothing majorly wrong with it, except that it's not intended to browse the full set of packages, which is what most of us want to do sooner or later
(I wouldn't put "eek" before mentioning how hard it is to drive nails with a screwdriver, personally..YMMV (of course, there aren't any mobs of screwdriver fans roaming the streets telling you to drive nails with them, but I digress))
Graphical UI would help a lot, as you can make it much more eye-friendly with colors, fonts, and graphics, and have more freedom in doing the layout.
Adding a graphical UI to aptitude would require a near-complete rewrite, unfortunately, and there's a very practical need/use for a text-mode package manager that doesn't scare young children above the age of, say, 3.
I've thought from time to time about doing a GUI apt frontend, building on what I've learned from aptitude, but I've decided that I'd have to either (a) give away aptitude or (b) get a full-time job before attempting it.
I've heard synaptic is rather nice. I wasn't terribly impressed, but they have implemented one of my long-standing todo items, visual construction of filter terms. Newbies would probably like this more than typing ~b~D(~vhelix)
When upgrading packages, I'd recommend to make it totally non-interactive (at least by default).
Yes, this would be nice in many circumstances. Unfortunately, dpkg needs to be redesigned a bit first AIUI
However, proper use of debconf should severely cut down on interaction (emphasis on "proper")
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I dislike the current installer. Not because it is text-based, but because the existing text is not optimal.
Many dialog boxes I have seen do not have a clear objective: you need to read thru the entire text of the dialog box before you understand what your options are. The dialog boxes really should have a clear question as a heading, then a paragraph explaining which option you might choose, then buttons allowing you to select an option.
The current installer has a distinct feel that the text for each section was written by a different person. For a distribution that has the most stringent standards on most other topics (keybindings, file hierarchy, and so on), the installer should have clearer guidelines.
(Most of my experience is with potato.)