Download Anaconda for Debian

hsoom writes "Debian Planet is reporting that unofficial sarge-based ISOs using the Anaconda installer can be downloaded from here. The features developed so far include '...changed the code that installs software to use APT instead of RPM, removed Red Hat-specific configuration hooks, and written a new tool called picax that builds Anaconda-based installation CDs from a Debian repository'. However there are features that are not yet working and it is not recommended for use in a production environment."

Comments

This is good news.

[byolinux]

One of the main 'comments' I get when I recommend Debian GNU/Linux to people, is 'Debian is difficult to install' - a fair comment, and this will be a move in the right direction.

Give it some time.

Knoppix is right now probably the easiest way to install Debian, via knx-hdinstall.

Re:This is good news.

[martinde]

> One of the main 'comments' I get when I recommend Debian GNU/Linux to people, is 'Debian is difficult to install' - a fair comment,
> and this will be a move in the right direction.

And of course, the "standard answer" to this is "you only install Debian one time on any one machine". People who have not used it have a hard time believing this, but it's true barring hard disk failure or some other catastrophe like that. Even major updates happen via "apt-get upgrade", and 99.9% of the time it Just Works(TM) if you're running stable. (Take that down to about 97% for unstable/testing.)

I have a machine that started out around Debian 1.1, as a 486 and has been hardware upgraded several times (to a Pentium Pro and now a 1GHz C3) and apt-get upgraded routinely since those days. I had to reboot due to the recent linux security issue, prior to that this machine had an uptime of 172 days. It's running Debian/stable plus I've done some backporting out of unstable for a few key bits.

Anyways, between Knoppix, anaconda, and the new debian-installer work going on within Debian, hopefully the "it's hard to install" issue is just about a moot point. Enough proselytizing for this morning ;-)

Re:This is good news.

[byolinux]

I don't think we're talking about stupid people, but people need to learn somehow. For example, $JoeAverageWindowsUser should be able to use GNU/Linux to a fair degree of competency in a short period of time, including installing it.

If he can do this on a Macintosh, why shouldn't he be able to do this on a GNU/Linux system?

Re:This is good news.

[doodleboy]

Anyway, to make a long story short, it's outdated support like this that'll never get Debian to be accepted by my coworkers, and I can't say I blame them. I love the stability and easy of maintenance once it's installed, but putting it on a newer machine is sure a pain in the ass. I'll be stuck with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux) from now on I guess for our servers since Debian provided such a poor showing on a workstation setup.

There's a lot of new interest in debian because there's no corporation that will try to monitize its relationship with its users if it becomes more popular. The installer is a problem, but there's a lot of work being done - there's progeny's anaconda port, there's the new installer in sarge, etc. If this happens in a reasonable timeframe I would not be surprised if it made huge inroads in the enterprise space. Easy easy updates and no money to pay, ever, is a powerful combination.

But if you can't wait for debian to ship a modern installer and don't want to fork over $$$ for Redhat Enterprise Linux 3 you can always try White Box Linux (http://www.beau.org/~jmorris/linux/whitebox/), a free version of rhel3. It's at rc2 now and production release is probably only a month or two away. I notice the Dag apt repository (http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/) has rhel3 rpms, so it should be possible to stay up to date with apt.

Re:Single Package / Dep manager

[Saint Stephen]

use aptitude (console) or synaptic (gtk)

I'm amazed that more people don't know this. I used dselect for about a day, then quickly discovered apt+tasksel, then aptitude. Dselect is awful.

Re:Single Package / Dep manager

[The_DOD_player]

Amen to that!!.

Knoppix is becoming Debians default installer on x86 hardware. Its not just more fun than the conventional approach, but it feels safer, since you can SEE it working on your computer before installing for real.

Foolproof installer?

[Trbmxfz]

One of the main 'comments' I get when I recommend Debian GNU/Linux to people, is 'Debian is difficult to install'

I think it can be argued that the Debian installer asks many questions that may not be easy to answer for a Linux newbie.

But, as you say, there is hope: I remember someone saying, a few years ago, that a RedHat had formatted their drives without clearly mentioning that it would be destructive (oops!). Today, Mandrake can be installed after just a few minutes worth of clicking "OK". It generally makes the right choices for the user, clearly shows what partitions will be created, and warns if it's about to blank an existing windows partition. If it finds some unsupported hardware, it mentions what it knows about it, so that the user can simply ask their local guru for help.

I think it's no exaggeration to say that someone who already installed Windows can safely install e.g. a Mandrake.

Re:Foolproof installer?

[gregmac]

I think it's no exaggeration to say that someone who already installed Windows can safely install e.g. a Mandrake.

I think that the Mandrake and Redhat (8, 9) installs (to get up to a working system) are better than Windows at this point. As long as you have relatively common and supported hardware, it sets everything up for you. I used to think that it was dumb of all the distros to include so many other utilities and applications, but I've changed my views on that now.

Once you install Windows itself, you have to run windowsupdate somewhere between 3 and 8 times (rebooting each time) to get it to the point it won't get infected with a virus in the next few minutes (and always do this behind a firewall). Then you have to go download all the things that you need for day-to-day tasks: winzip, pdf reader.. install usually an office suite, mozilla/firebird/thunderbird (well, at least I do.. but I won't go into a rant about how lacking in features IE/OE are). It takes at least two hours to install a Windows system, and most of the time is spent waiting. (And not just hands-off waiting time, either... Windowsupdate .. wait to download.. click install.. wait to install.. click to reboot .. wait to reboot.. repeat)

Taking redhat as an example.. All the interaction is at the start, selecting paritions (formatted later), selecting what to install, etc. Then you wait for it to install, though you do have to change the CD's once or twice (unless you do a net-install, which is handy). Once it boots up, run up2date -u, probably reboot for the new kernel, and thats it. Everything is up to date and ready to go.

anaconda-debian, apt-redhat

[danny]

First they ported apt to Redhat, now they're using anaconda for Debian installs! This is a great illustration of the flexibility of free software.

(Review of The Art of UNIX Programming )

Danny.

Re:Are you an IT specialist or a user?

[slim]

I can understand some people saying Debian, in it's current state is difficult to install.

But I cringe when I hear that from a fellow computer person. I mean honestly, just because it's not using framebuffer and a mouse on install?

Well, dselect could be friendlier: it's not so much that it's text based, but that the interface itself is alien to most people. It's a good interface, like vi is a good interface: but it's not quick and easy to pick up, and if you skip past the instructions, you're in trouble.

But that's not the worst thing about the Debian install. It's been proved that auto-detecting hardware can be done in Linux, yet to install Woody I needed to manually specify an Ethernet driver and select an appropriate X server. That's really not good enough, and would scupper a lot of people, computer professionals or not.

This may be fixed in Sarge: someone reply and tell me.

Re:Are you an IT specialist or a user?

[GigsVT]

Well. Keep in mind that the Woody installer is several years old now.

That seems like a serious problem in itself to me!

Re:Single Package / Dep manager

[wuliao]

Re-read your instructions from the perspective of an ordinary user.

1. Why do I have to hit Alt-F2? Why not a Menu option?
2. The fact that you don't know if it's Ctrl-Alt-F2 or Alt-F2 or if it changes shows a big usability problem right there.
3. Again, typing knx-hdinstall seems completely non-obvious. I'm sure I'd quickly figure it out by reading some docs or something, but why do I need to read some docs or google to figure that out?

Note: I've never used Knoppix, so maybe there are menu options, but those instructions aren't that easy, IMO.