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Debian Installer RC1 Is Out
rekt writes "The Debian crew has just announced the release of debian-installer RC1.
You can find versions of it for 11 different architectures at the d-i page.
This is one of the most flexible, modular installer architectures out there. As we near the release of sarge (debian 3.1) next month, it's important that we find and work out any bugs in the installer. Grab a copy and give it a shot!"
Looking at the screenshots I miss one thing compared to YaST from SuSE: On the left side YaST has a pane with lots of help text for every dialog. The really big advantage is that it's very helpful for newbies or people who never have bothered about that part of a setup but at the same time doesn't get into the way of experienced users. Just perfect! Documentation whenever you want it and streamlined installation for the know-it-alls.
I nonetheless are very eager to try the new installer.
Hey, the main problem I had with woody was that I never got X to install. Did they get that fixed?
Anyone know which discs are needed for what installation you might want? I would assume that a few of those are for different platforms, or maybe include all the source packages. But I am just a normal i386 user who doesn't have any need for source packages, and also don't really feel like downloading 4-6GB worth of data to figure out which. Any information on which discs to obtain would be great.
- gcc 3.4 with incompatible abi on some arches
- amd64 inclusion / multi-arch
- removal of gfdl-licensed documents and other controversial non-free stuff
anything more?I've done four installs with a just-slightly-pre-RC1 netinst snapshot, and in all cases the installer produced a working system with a functional KDE desktop (yes, working X out of the box).
The X settings were pretty conservative, but they were functional.
This was such a shock to me that I really believed I'd burned too much karma and was likely to be hit by a bus on the way home.
I can actually recommend using the native installer instead of Knoppix to do a Debian install now.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
...for the upcoming release (and mostly for the new installer), I have observed that a few of the Debian developpers have been less than responsive to major bug reports (like, big common average things not detected automagically as it is with other distros). This, with the fact that Joey Hess quit as release manager just recently, i.e. at a critical stage of the Sarge release, has me starting to wonder about Debian's future.
Has Debian hit the ceiling in terms of what a volunteer org. can acheive? I mean, are projects of this size be developped and delivered successfully by orgs such as Debian?
It took *forever* for Sarge to come out and my impression (I hope I am wrong) is that the installer will compare negatively with other distros installers. This and other config/post-install details that are bad in my mind make me truly wonder if Debian can continue in its current shape.
Is it because of the incessant splitting of hairs on "political" issues or what, I don't know. But to push Joey Hess to quit, something bad must be happening at the core of Debian.
Maybe I'm overly pessimistic because I'm transposing my personal non-tech feelings on everything today (I am in the doghouse with the girl-friend, long story), but the bad vibes I got when learning of the resignation of the Debian Sarge release coordinator do pre-dates my current predicament.
I wonder if Joey Hess did say anything (interview, somewhere?) about all of this. Joey, if you are reading this, can you comment with some insider's perspective?
I thought Woody still uses 2.2 kernel? Doesn't a jump to another kernel series merit a major version upgrade?
Be careful what you wish for. The best Windows installer IMHO was the one for NT. After that they started trying to detect too many devices that would hang the whole process.
I think the original plan for this Debian release was for a graphical installer, but to be honest I'd rather have one that JUST WORKS, producing a bootable system that can be tinkered with to deal with anything that's not perfect. The new installer, from my experience has improved the detection of devices, reduced the number of questions asked of the user. Once all these things are perfected (or nearly so) I suppose making it graphical will be a nice way to, um, slow down the whole process like Windows does. I can live without it.
Unlike Windows, the Linux install process is not a monthly maintenance task, so I hardly think it matters how it looks.
No, the new one just looks identical to the old one. It can have a GUI thrown over the top, though, by anyone. Debian just hasn't done it because it's low priority and most Debianites are of the opinion that it's perfect as it is (I agree).
The new features are hardware detection, auto-partitioning, and hooks for a gui. Some people have worked on one... not sure what links to give you because I don't personally care.
I'm with the crowd that thinks graphical installers are ridiculous: they have higher hardware requirements, increase the chance of "killer" errors by several hundred percent, and they change nothing except appearances and the input device. Instead hitting the down arrow a few times and then Enter, you move a pointer down with your mouse and click Yes. All the same questions have to be asked, in the same order. The practical implications are so overwhelming compared to the aesthetic ones that it's just no contest, in my mind. For example, no graphical front-end to the installer will work on all 11 architectures that Debian could be installed on. Just expensive eye candy...
I want to gunzip the boot.img.gz directly onto my usb drive and then boot from that. As per the instructions at: http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apb.ht ml
But how the hell do i get the boot.img.gz onto the usb drive? I could do it if I was already running linux apparently, but I'm not. Any ideas? I can gunzip it fine, but I need to write it directly to the usb drive. From what I can find, there's no program which can currently do that in windows. Th e catch 22 is that i would need linux first to do it. If anyone can please,please help tell me how to write the .img to a usb drive using windows then please please do! That's currently the only thing stopping me using linux.
The commentary accompanying the screenshots is both amusing and to the point. I've installed Debian so many times now that I hardly read the screens any more (Windows installs are the same way by the way... why are all home Windows machines on a workgroup called, uh, "workgroup"?)
Maybe a future version of the installer should leave the prompts as-is, but take the text for the prompts from a separate file that can be edited by a less technical newbie to eliminate the voodoo element of the whole thing. A world of good could come from just having more explanatory text in each prompt.
Anyone know if this installer supports the ARM architecture?
I want to use Debian, but not on x86.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
While Debian is my favorite distro and I run testing as my primary desktop, my one problem with it has always been setting up ALSA drivers. On the current setup I have now, I just stuck with the OSS drivers, setting up ALSA was too much of a pain in the a$$. anyone know if the stable release of sarge will include better alsa-driver compatability?
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series