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First Look at Debian's Next Generation Installer
An anonymous reader writes "Over at LinMagAu There is an interesting look at the new beta version of the Next Gerneration Debian Installer. Putting aside the fuss around Ian Murdock, Progeny and Anaconda, this is how Debian is constructing the future of what is known to be it's Achilles heel. It's a well done beginning." While still not a graphical installer (and the article does a good job of explaining why that's not a priority) the installer now autodetects hardware, streamlining module selection, which was previously one of the more confusing parts of the install for newbies.
How about getting someone who has done some human-computer interaction work, or even joe doe from the street, to go trough the install screens and say "no" to the Debian developers. Really, a screen for configuring dvorak or a zillion other layouts, hmm.... "No, let's drop that".
Really, this work seems to bring the Debian installer up to around Red Hat 7 functionality. Can I do FTP installs? How about over VNC? 1 CDR, then FTP for rest of the discs? Does it look nice?
So Anaconda doesn't work on 11 architectures. That's a pretty crappy reason for holding the dominant arch down. Debian needs to take an attitude like Linus has to the archs and the Linux kernel; if some some arch can't keep it up with x86, though shit, maybe the next version will work better (if you submit the patches in time).
I don't really see the logic. Linux in general used to get beat up severly because of installation difficulties. Over the years many distros heard these complaints and addressed them by developing better and better installers. Today, there are numerous distros available that have such excellent installers that installation is a moot topic, except for Debian, Slack and Gentoo.
Most, if not all, of these better installers are open source GPLed programs. It seems to me that "logical progression" would be Debian taking one or many of these better installers and adapting them to Debian. Instead they choose to reinvent the wheel and have produced a crude installer whose interface was passe years ago. Where is the logic?
I love the FreeBSD and Slackware installers, simple curses based menus, anyone with half a brain can install FreeBSD or Slackware, this is what debian should be aiming for imo, graphical is not needed.
-Fork for architectures: i know lots of people don't like to wait for upgraded packages because they break on different architectures. This is what's happenning with xfree 4.3 not being available. If there were a debian-x86 fork, it would use optimization and wouldn't be behind other distros in package versions.
/dev/null. The debian installer was never the problem. It isn't harder than slackware, but dselect really, really sucks.
-Dselect needs to be sent to
-Loose the restrictions a little bit: why mplayer is missing and xine not? Mplayer has been 100% gpl since 0.9 and it was rejected from getting a package because of ffmpeg, which xine also has.
-More customization: the USE variable of Gentoo is really powerful, and it would be great when apt getting source packages. I want package X, and it wants me to install package Y that is optional and i dont want.
-Updated versions! Slackware is current, and it's stable.
-Re-do the stable, testing and unstable package list: they should only contain base, critical packages. So i want to run the latest kde with my stable setup? Is kde 2.2 more stable than 3.1? The security bugs fixed between them say no (yeah, i know they backport, but those packages never get the same QA) User-level desktop apps which aren't critical shouldn't be restricted in the same stable, testing and unstable trees, or at least they could mix and match.
And lot of other things i can't remember...
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Your failure to do a Debian install is hardly a personal failure. I'm as good at installing Operating Systems as just about anybody. I've done some really hairy installs like Xenix on a TRS-80 and OpenBSD on a Dec/MIPS workstation. I've even done a number of successfull installs with older versions of Debian. While I eventually succeeded at installing a recent version debian on each of the four computers I regularly use, it never was easy, and usually required me to take at least one heroic measure, and typically far more. Moreover, each install was difficult in it's own special way. Anyone short of a wizard could not make a current debian install go on current hardware.
It would have been easier if debian had just supplied a tar-ball of the minimally installed system and left me to create the filesystems, install the boot loader, etc...
Lazy, hell. You don't really believe this, do you?
I don't go to every machine I manage, I use shell scripts. When the machine boots, init configures the system. Hardware configuration is part of the entire scheme. If it fails, the user (not an admin) should then get someone else to fix it as it's not thier job to know how. If the hardware configuration software is worth it, there should be few situations where it does indeed fail. Kudzu (Red Hat's) is damn good. If the Debian folks want to reinvent the wheel, they can.
Getting the proper modules loaded automatically is exactly the kind of task that software does well. Looking up hardware details and slogging through kernel notes is an entirely automatable process...and automation is why we have computers in the first place.
I used to fiddle around with modules every time I upgraded the kernel -- either from source or from a new distribution. Kudzu (also used in Knoppix BTW) does an amazing job of auto configuration...so why not use it or something like it?
It doesn't make you any less special that the system figures out something that you also can figure out. Yes, experts should know how the system works. Tinker with modules.conf if you like. I personally would like to fiddle with other things beyond the base hardware configuration since I already know how it works.
That said, if you're a professional let me put in a plug for InstallBase. This is a TK-based, cross-platform installation program; Solaris, Windows, and Linux. It provides a good balence between simple and detailed configuration, as well as a silent mode. Currently, I'm using it to bring sanity and automation to a mismanaged network.
Here's something you likely agree with. The network management document I'm writing says -- up front -- installation is not running an install program. I'm a strong believer that If you don't know what the answer should be, using a computer to tell you is an act of trust in something that has proven itself untrustworthy; it is foolish.
InstallBase (the tool) is used becuase it meets the goal of automation, though to use it or any other tool properly you have to know exactly what it is you want it to do. That takes concerned effort. The result eliminates needless work and inconsistant human mistakes that happen when each machine is managed a little differently. (If done wrong, you get consistant mistakes...so, there you go!)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
So in otherwords you like bending yourself over backwards to do tasks that could easily be automated.
Keep in mind, this is for the initial installation. Most people like the system to be up and running after an install, not partially functioning with a pile of kernel modules that need to be downloaded and compiled (like I was last time I tried Debian.)
The USER wants to use their system. They shouldn't have to manually configure every little bit of the OS just to get it useable. No other OS forces this (not Wwindows, not other distributions of Linux.) That's generally because doing so is like saying "we don't want anyone but the elite using this" which is a problem Debian faces.
I gave up on Debian because Debian's installer gave up on me before my system was up and running.
I'm still on windows though. Linux has other problems that need solutions before I move over (and I really wanna ditch XP.)
The easiest Debian installer is Knoppix.
You boot from a Knoppix CD, and all you have to do is install a base system and apt to your hard disk, and you've got a Debian system that's already configured.
They should acknowledge this fact and officially support Knoppix as an install method for desktop users. Then they can still focus their installer on people who want to install Debian on an Alpha over their serial line.
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