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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!"
.. available at suprnova.org.
Debian 3.1 (Sarge) Release Candidate 1 - CD 1 of 12 ...
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Security support for sarge is scheduled to begin today. Woody users may want to consider upgrading to sarge now, testing the upgrade path, and help out with reporting/fixing any bugs they encounter.
Only the md5sum needs to be hosted somewhere official.
http://people.debian.org/~madduck/d-i/screenshots/
Because I love all of you.
Grab a copy and give it a shot!
I've downloaded a copy, burned it on a CD and gave it a few shots.
This is the result.
AIUI the installer is still text-based and looks pretty much like the old boot-floppies, but this time with good hardware detection, aptitude instead of dselect , and streamlined to minimize the number of questions.
However, the installer is very modular and it should be possible to write a graphical front-end. In fact, a prototype exists, but I'm pretty sure it won't be used for the release.
I'm sort of new to this linux thing, but there's this directory on my new install of Debian 3.1 called "/usr/bin". It was all messed up when I first went in there. None of the files had descriptive names, and it took me like an hour to figure out they were executables, since none of them had .exe on the end of them. Furthermore, whenever I double click them, they just pop up a command prompt for a few seconds then go away.
I was gonna delete them, but I got kinda afraid that they might be my kernel, so I fiugred I'd ask. It's ok to delete this stuff, right?
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
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.
Anyone who still thinks that Debian is hard to install, please think again
A big up to Debian developers everywhere!
Co-operation beats competition
If you're using Debian now and want to help decide what's popular, please install Popularity Contest.
Here's the summary of the debian-installer from one of the main developers...
t ive-2004-08-07-19-46.html
//fatal
Joey Hess blog entry: http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/d-i_retrospec
Mods and flamers get ready: I'm about to criticize Debian (even though it's my favorite distro).
The fact that there are 231 screenshots of the new installer should raise some flags. 231!! Excluding a handful of error screens and progress bars, that suggests that in some circumstances the user would have to field more than 200 interactive prompts during the installation process. I should hope that many of these can either be consolidated or eliminated.
I had high hopes (too high) about the new hardware detection; I would be happy if these kinds of prompts disappear from the final build. You know the kind... the ones that require either clairvoyance, a second computer for hardware research, or the degree of advance preparation that only the IRS would demand.
I used an older build to install a system the other day, and I hardly even had to hit the Enter key. (ok, the system didn't work once it was set up, but that turned out to be my fault, not the installer's :) )
If you scan through some of those screens, you'll discover that the reason there are so many is that you can take branches in the installer: for instance, if you choose to set up RAID, you get a bunch of screens about the RAID configuration; if the network can't be set up via DHCP, you get screens about setting up the network. A fair number of the screenshots are also screenshots of progress bars, which are noninteractive. (and a huge improvement over the old installer, where you just watched a message like "Setting up the base system..." while the hard drive churned)
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Yes, yes, parent is a troll. But...
Debian (stable) is geared towards server, the whole Gentoo thing is geared towards desktop or experimental.
Debian has always had the philosophy of free distribution and legal safety, I've seen none of this in Gentoo. I love the Debian philosophy.
Debian is a mature distribution with a strict QA, I still don't believe Gentoo has a decent QA "department" at all.
None of the datacenters/dedicated servers facility that I know offer Gentoo, for each one you mention supporting Gentoo, I can name 25 supporting Debian.
Gentoo has bleeding edge stuffs, that's why I don't want it.
Debian has complete support forum (debianplanet), a portal (debianplanet), ten times the number of mailing lists than Gentoo, local user groups, not to mention SEVERAL newsletters with real content.
Debian has Knoppix, etc based on it.
Debian has at least twice the number of worldwide mirrors compared to Gentoo;
As for "versions", you can upgrade from between Debian versions pretty much seamlessly.
Anyone know which discs are needed for what installation you might want?
For a normal installation you only need to get the first two or three discs. If you have a fairly fast internet connection, you can even go with the netinst image. This installs a base system, reboots, and then you can get every package you want from a local mirror.
j.
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...
When are they getting with the times and making a decent graphical installer?
From http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianInstallerFAQ :