A Better Installer for Debian?

F1re writes "Linux User mag in Germany has decided to include Debian on the mag and wants to make a more user friendly installer. They are looking for help from Debian developers. More info here Linux User"

Comments

beginner friendly

[Fruit]

The Debian installer is already plenty user friendly, just not beginner friendly. Quite a difference if you ask me (and sometimes even opposites!)

Re:beginner friendly

[October_30th]

plenty user friendly, just not beginner friendly

Ah my friend, you're well versed in speaking the official, party approved Open Source Speak.

By artificially separating general user friendliness into arbitrary subgroups so that you can feel elite just because you can use something as horrid as emacs to edit text files is just ridiculous.

Most open source software is not user friendly with programs like emacs which is mother of all the user unfriendly software in general. It is not beginner friendly and it is not user friendly. It might be efficient when you bother wasting countless hours learning how to use it, but efficient still doesn't make it user friendly.

User friendly software is software that's friendly both to powerusers and beginners alike. From the start. Without manuals, FAQs and HOWTOs.

Re:beginner friendly

[yatest5]

The Debian installer is already plenty user friendly, just not beginner friendly. Quite a difference if you ask me (and sometimes even opposites!)

This may be waayyyyyy out of leftfield, but isn't someone installing something by definition a beginner?

Re:beginner friendly

[txtger]

Sorry, but I don't think that is completely true. Users do exist in various subgroups, and thus user-friendliness exists in the same manner.

For example, a friend of mine recently purchased a computer game for his 2 year old daughter. She understood the interface completely. Even without labels, she knew to click on the pencil to be able to color in the various characters and she knew to click on the toilet to hear a gurgling sound, which her laugh.

I, on the other hand, was completely clueless. She handed me the mouse and wanted me to play, and I couldn't figure out one thing about the interface.

On the other hand, I love vi. And I didn't really spend tons of time learning to use vi. I sat down, a computer science professor gave me the needed instruction (press i to insert text, a to append text, etc.) and I started using it. Now I'm hooked on vi, and even when I'm working with text in windows I use a windows port of vi over other text editors.

I don't feel that user-friendly can simply be determined by the friendliness to users, basically. How on earth could my parents, for example, pick up perl with no training. I couldn't do it, and neither could they. Does that mean that perl is not user friendly? By no means. It's one of the easiest languages I've ever dealt with. You have to look at the tool, who it's meant for, and what it's meant to do when you determine user-friendliness.

While I'll agree that the debian installer is a bit difficult to get used to, I must also admit that that's more because I'm not used to it. At the same time, I know people who have had problems using Microsoft Word, simply because they weren't used to it. So, I would agree that the debian installer isn't beginner friendly...but at the same time it is user-friendly. The masses using and loving debian are living proof.

Are you good enough to use debian?

[staili]

I was able to install Debian after only few months of Mandrake, and damn I was glad when I had my linux-box fully configured and running. (After a week of configuring with vim.)
The installer isn't 'hard' it's rather "are you good enough to use debian?".
Userfriendly installer doesn't fit with debian's style. :)

cool

[sydneyfong]

This will give Debian quite a lot of publicity. Maybe enough for it to take off, at least in Germany ;-)

Personally I really wonder why people still use RPM based distributions, is it just because of the installer or the publicity? I mean, *everybody* who's heard of Linux must have heard of Redhat, but no beginner would have heard of Debian. Yeah like this "I'm using Linux 7.2, what are YOU using?"

Seriously I don't see anything potentially bad about making a user friendly installer, the one Debian uses now really could be improved. It's nice that they asked the Debian guys about it though. I wonder if it will get back to the main distribution of Debian if the installer is really as good as it sounds?

Re:Shouldn't be too hard...

[Peter Harris]

dselect is an HCI abomination, even for those who know how to use it.

#apt-get install aptitude
#aptitude

Aaahhh. *That's* better....

Corel Linux installer?

[magi]

Why hasn't Debian project adopted the Corel Linux (nowadays Xandros Linux) installer? It's absolutely best Linux installer there is; much better than Red Hat, Mandrake, or SuSE.

Is the installer non-free software or what is the reason?

IMHO, using the Corel installer would give Debian a big jump forward. Debian's installation, especially the awkward dselect, is definitely its weakest point.

Nothing wrong with Debians installer, but...

[perplex79]

IMHO there's nothing wrong with Debians installer, but it requires some Linux knowledge and is therefore unsuited for newbies. A graphical installer which installs a complete ready-to-use system (KDE, Gnome, Apache, Office apps etc.) with some mouseclicks would certainly give Debian a nice boost. Btw, there exists a very nice Debian-based Live Linux Filesystem named Knoppix (in German). Its hardware auto-detection is better than what I experienced with Mandrake, so maybe whoever wants to build a Debian installer might want to have a look at it.

In my (university) environment I noticed that most start with Mandrake, Red Hat or SuSE and sooner or later realize that RPM is a nightmare for keeping a system up-to-date. Then they try Debian and are blown away by its ease of use (me included).

Re:Misunderstanding

[p3d0]

if you don't KNOW what's in your box, why are you installing on it?

Perhaps two scenarios:

1. You are installing on a number of different boxes, and the labour involved in finding out exactly what is in each box is multiplied, especially if you make a mistake.
2. You know the manufacturer of a device, but not which driver it should use. (eg. does my D-Link network card use the Tulip or VIA Rhine chipset?)

Re:Misunderstanding

[Genom]

Agree as well - the only time there seems to be a problem is when you have some rather non-standard hardware (eg: an older Sony laptop).

I've installed Debian on everything from pre-built workstations, to self-assembled servers, to my laptop, and I'd have to say the only one that gave me a problem was my laptop (mainly because most of the hardware in it needs drivers that aren't included in the default kernel).

Compiling a custom kernel fixed the problem. Packaging it with kernel-package (very easy) and saving it away makes any required reinstall a breeze.

Now, as we move towards a newer distribution (Woody is supposed to be released "real soon now"), this may not be a problem, as the default kernel *may* support my hardware - but I'm sure there will alwayx be people who have something exotic that doesn't work out-of-the-box (so to speak, when there is no real "box"...). The same troubles hold true on the Windows side of things as well, when things don't work right off, and you need a driver download, although their proprietarity allows them to pressure paranoid manufacturers into only supporting their OS (but that gets into another issue entirely...), so more drivers are generally available from the get-go.

Would it be nice to have a pointy-clicky Debian installer? Sure...as long as I can type -expert at the prompt and get to the one I'm familiar with. Redhat did that transition right, IMHO - you can always start up the text-based installer instead of the graphical one if you prefer, but the graphical one is the default, so people who equate "graphical" with "user friendly" are taken care of. I wouldn't be upset if Debian did something similar, just wrapping their text installer in a graphical shell, while allowing the user to use the medium of their choice.

Sorry for rambling - need more coffee!

YES!

[brunes69]

Finally someone who doesn't want to re-invent the wheel! For all the inherent benefits to Open Source and code reuse, the amount of code-duplication (and therefore time and effort wasted) in the Open Source world amazes (and disappoints) me.

And no I am not talking about Gnome vs. KDE. I am talking about things like having 10 different ICQ clients, all with different implimentations of the protocol. Sure, a different GUI and different features is worth making a new program for. But why not borrow the code for the network stack from someone else who already has that part tackled? Same with filters for MS Office. What is the big deal about KOffice, Abiword, and OpenOffice coming together and making some nice libs that translate .DOC into an XML format they can all interchange?

Simmilar things can be said about other softwares as well. Let's work together people! No need to re-invent the wheel!

Re:YES!

[metacosm]

As a developer, I completely agree with the comment on code reuse.

As an open-source user, I totally disagree with the statement that "code-duplication" is "time wasted", just because it doesn't produce something YOU use, doesn't mean it is "time wasted". That is how people learn, and having multiple "ICQ clients" just makes our platform more robust, because someday, someone will tweak, change and/or mangle the ICQ protocol, and 1 or 2 of those clients will be able to easily adapt to the new one, and 8 or 9 will not, and then some new coders will get interested and produce some new ones! I think multiple code bases that do the same thing function as a survival tool! :)

(Note: the aim protocol has been mangled multiple times, a couple of the text based aim clients made it thru the changes, many did not ... same thing for gui clients)

Re:Misunderstanding

[BlueGecko]

Who are you targeting?

I appreciate that complicated (yet perhaps intuitive) individual package selection interfaces may be really easy for you to use. But I promise you that they're not for Joe Sixpack. If you want Linux to pervade the desktop, you're going to have to compromise at least partially and go with what will be easy for the average user. Look at Mac OS X: the install process consists of clicking "OK" about eight times. If you want more fine-grained control, you got it (click "Customize"), but for the average user, he clicks OK six times or whatever and the entire install process is done for him. For 98% of users, this is exactly what's needed. For the remaining 2%, who are geeks and network admins, you can get the customization through the button; you can modify an existing OS X install and then burn an image to be copied onto a few thousand workstations of that; or you can use a utility such as Pacifist to select individual files of a package. I fail to see how an approach such as this would compromise your setup, yet clearly see how it would help the newbie.

And to those who say, "well, Joe Sixpack should learn more!" Recognize this: he's not going to. So you need to make the decision of whether you would rather he remain in ignorance on Windows or install Linux via a stupid, prettily colored interface. Your call.

The INSTALLER?!?

[rlangis]

I really don't understand what all of the hubbub is about the installer program. If it works, and gives you a workable system with a shell prompt, who cares how 'pretty' it is?

Granted, Debian's (current) installer isn't very user-friendly. However, it wasn't an issue for me, really. I've been through numerous RH installs (pre 6.2) and IIRC the installer wasn't much different from Debian's. RH6.2+ might have changed, but I've never used them, so I don't know.

But hell, I installed an OLD version of Debian - 2.0 - and apt'ed up to Sid without a hitch. The installer is only a very miniscule part of the picture. After the system is working, do you REALLY tell yourself, "Boy, that was a really froody installer," or do you amaze your friends and family with apt-get?

Why I use an RPM-based distribution

[Isaac-Lew]

I've been using UNIX & Linux for about 4 years now, and I'm often asked why I still use Red Hat instead of Debian or Slackware. Here's why:

• Familiarity with RH (yes, it was the first distro I used, and I have tried others)
• Consistency between work & home (RH is the only distro allowed on the servers, and I like being able to keep more-or-less the same setup between home & work)
• There are LOTS of software packages in rpm format, and it's not difficult to build your own rpm package (either with a source rpm, or from a tarball)- as for the dep problem, you would still need the same dependencies on another distribution so IMO that arguement is invalid
• There are loads of documentation for both Red Hat and rpm in general (www.redhat.com & www.rpm.org are good sites for looking things up - as the website for a linux-related channel states: "You can lead an Red Hat user to documentation, but you can't make him/her read" or words to that effect)
• Personally, I don't like the attitude of a lot of Debian users, they really turned me off of even wanting to try Debian anymore (constantly bashing other distros while ignoring the faults in your own is *not* good advocacy)

You do know that a lot of rpm-based distros have good tools that are under the GPL or other open licenses...maybe if Debian would consider using these or similar tools I'd think about giving it a try again at home...after all, there is apt for rpm now, so maybe there is hope that the different distros could play nicer with each other :).