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

There is one - PGI

[trh]

Progeny Debian Linux was a GREAT distribution, when it existed. It had great hardware detection, a very simple installer and some other features. Some of the best parts of it are now available.

You can use Progeny Graphical Installer (PGI) to install a nice Woody release, or download the package and create your OWN customized installer with it. This thing is GREAT. Check it out - they are pushing hard towards the 1.0 release.

http://hackers.progeny.com/pgi/

It is very nice, and has a text-mode and X-based installer (you can even do the X install remotely on another machine). This thing is great, and I use it for all of my installs right now. Thanks, Branden Robinson and team for keeping this great part of Progeny Debian Linux alive...

Shouldn't be too hard...

[Bozar]

I recently switched from Redhat to Debian linux. I used the network install (because i have a fast connection) and i found that the most obscure part of the install was finding which NIC model i had (because they went by manufacturer code instead of human-readable names) If a prepackaged installer simply had something that detected your NIC automatically, with some simple instructions to read along with each install stage (easy ones found at www.linuxnewbie.org), then it would be a much less painful install. As a seperate note, something must be added to automatically configure USB optical mice, because as it is they are not (a huge pain for a user with limited skills).

dselect is already a good tool for choosing packages to install and seeing what is out there to install. Its interface could be improved somewhat (always going past help screens becomes a pain, and collapsable trees should be in to reduce clutter(and if they are already, why aren't they obvious))

This should put user-friendliness in, while maintaining most of the customization available in the regular install (after all, you could always ignore the advice...)

Misunderstanding

[CAIMLAS]

I'm sorry, but when did "I can click on it" equate user-friendlyness?

Debian's current default installer consists of a group of sub-menus with descriptive explainations of what task each menu item would perform.

If this is an arguement of asthetic or practicality, then it should be thrown out. The only way this arguement for a better Debian installer could possibly hold water is if we're talking about the detection of hardware, which is marginally frustrating (I had no problems the first time I installed debian).

Are all distros for beginners?

[Publicus]

I use Debian, I absolutely love it. I don't think the installation process is that bad, but I should not fail to mention that I didn't get it right the first time I tried it.

Of course, it wasn't the first Linux distro that I installed. I started with Redhat 6.2. I got frusterated with that because I couldn't figure out how to compile a kernel in Redhat, and all of the docs I found that were Redhat specific said don't recompile your kernel unless you ABSOLUTELY know what you're doing.

Then I tried Mandrake, and after using that for awhile I managed to compile my first kernel, but I still wasn't completely happy because I found it hard to configure.

I tried Slackware, and oh did I like that. The config files in /etc were super easy to modify, but the package management system left a little to be desired.

This whole time I was learning, and becoming better at using a Linux OS. I was seeing the different types of packages out there, rpm, tgz, and the one I hadn't used yet, deb. So I had to give debian a try. Like I said, I didn't get it right the first time, although the installation is easier than Slackware. Once I did though, and I discovered apt-get, I was hooked. I now have three machines running woody and one running potato and I'll never switch to anything else.

It's not the distro for beginners. It doesn't have to be. It's a good distro, perhaps the best, and it's not for beginners. There is nothing wrong with that.