Debian Sarge Installation Slide Show

brunotorres writes "I've made an slide-show, presenting the steps of Debian sarge (testing) installation. I put images of all relevant steps of the installation and a brief description of each one. It's nice to notice that debian-installer is much more straightforward and user friendly in sarge than it was in woody."

Comments

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you end up using it?

Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers?

[FlipmodePlaya]

I've installed Sarge three times with this new installer, it is indeed a vast improvement upon the previous. I find it simple enough to use, but I don't think... what's his face... 'Joe User' would. Partitioning in particular is difficult (as always), and this area is particular well represented and aided by a graphical interface (see: HardDrake). It seems that they may as well adopt an 'easier' graphical installed, and enjoy the recent success of Ubuntu and MEPIS. I believe Novell binded YAST to be used only with the SUSE project when it opened it up, but Anaconda must be viable. Could the next version use it?

Re:Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers?

[dondelelcaro]

Partitioning in particular is difficult (as always)

There is actually an automated partitioner. If you look at the 18th slide you can see where you can select "automatically partition disks" to have the installer do it for you.

As far as the Ubuntu installer goes, you're actually looking at the exact same installer, just with fewer questions asked.

Re:Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers?

[dondelelcaro]

Anaconda must be viable. Could the next version use it?

Unfortunatly, Anaconda does not work on the vast majority of architectures that Debian supports. Progeny currently uses anaconda as it's installer, but they only support i386.

debian-installer has hooks for supporting FD based installers, but as of this moment, no one has written such a beast. [Not that it's all that big of a deal anyway, as you can basically install Debian by just repeatedly pressing enter.]

Anyway, this question is well covered in the D-I FAQ.

Re:Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers?

[Kafka_Canada]

I just installed Sarge yesterday, my first time installing Debian (second Linux install ever, after RH7.2 a few years ago), and I'm no expert but I didn't have any problem. The way I see it, there's really no need for "Joe User" ever to install an OS (especially Debian), he probably wants to buy a computer that's already set up to run, or have a nerdy friend come over and do the installation -- so there's no use for a graphical installer, hiding or dressing up the partitioning process, etc.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with making those changes if there's demand for them, I just don't see it as a pressing need.

(Oh, and I've found Debian really great so far, it's a terrific OS and I'm going to recommend it to everyone and offer to install it.)

Re:Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers?

[MiniOverlord]

I am a Linux user since the times you had to get a wagon load of disks from somwhere to install. So I am pretty familliar with partitioning disks.

That said, I find that the Debian installer is the worst partitioning interface I have ever seen. I don't know why, but it confuses be a lot. I find using plain fdisk easier. When I use it, I alsways have the feeling that I may have selected the worng options. Somehow the partitioning tool isn't able to clearly show me the state of the partitionings.

Well, I am used to do this stuff, but I can imagine that even non-stupid users will have some big problems with the installer.

Looks pretty standard..

[maskedbishounen]

Doesn't look much different from the many, many, many RedHat installations I've done in the past.

Come back with screen shots when you have something to actually show off -- like a pretty FB-based GUI.

Re:Looks pretty standard..

[some_other_nerd]

"like a pretty FB-based GUI"

That's the cool thing about D-i (Debian-installer), it's front-end independant, so that could be done easily without a code rewrite.

Re:Looks pretty standard..

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely offtopic, but I can't help you find a good tabbed unicode terminal if your journal discussion has been archived =b

Re:Looks pretty standard..

[tylertherobot]

A code rewrite would make it much more slashdot worthy though, don't you think? "Here's where I compiled this here thingy to do that there thingar and that's what it done did..." It also makes it cooler if it's done in George Bush (like i done gone and did)

Re:Looks pretty standard..

[some_other_nerd]

"don't you think?"

No, I don't, and while I'm not thinking I might as well say that the woody boot floppies were better than D-i.

Re:Looks pretty standard..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well - Debian isn't Red Hat. Debian is for people who like Linux. Red Hat is for pointy haired bosses.

OT (Re:Looks pretty standard..)

[maskedbishounen]

Ack. I didn't even realize journals got archived as well. Thanks for pointing it out. :)

Knoppix can install debian testing

[dr_leviathan]

When it comes to installing X workstations I prefer to install debian testing using Knoppix which has a very nice graphical installer. It also provides the benefit of letting you know that debian will actually run X on your hardware.

To install Knoppix:

boot with the Knoppix CD
Open a terminal and:

$ su root
# knoppix-installer

and away you go.

Re:Knoppix can install debian testing

[JThundley]

FYI, there's a menu button with a penguin on it next to the kmenu which opens a root shell by default. Less work, more explaining I guess.

Re:Knoppix can install debian testing

[NeoDot]

Mepis trumps Knoppix for an HD install.

LinuxCD ships the burned CD for $3.89.

Knoppix is too different than Sarge for a HD install. Mepis is made for it. Alot more is done after a mepis install than a Knoppix HD install. I've done both.

IMHO Mepis is where you start. This way, you have many options for upgrading.

I use mepis 2004.4 and it's 2.6 Kernel.

http://www.mepis.com

Ubuntu

[JThundley]

Is it just me or is this the same exact installer that Ubuntu uses?

Re:Ubuntu

[corrosive_nf]

considering ubuntu is based on debian, yeah. But the newest verisons use anaconda.

Re:Ubuntu

[tooth]

Ubuntu is based on debian, and the answer is yes, it does.

Re:Ubuntu

[Sesse]

Ubuntu doesn't use Anaconda, you must be confusing it with Progeny.

/* Steinar */

bruno's root password

[me98411]

Yummy, he has given out his root passwd in one of the images. It is ******. Let's go hack his machine. :p

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I've made an slide-show

"a slide show".

Hardware detection still lacking

[m_evanchik]

It looks like a well done install procedure, though the hardware support is still lacking, particularly with the video drivers.

Thats nice.

[zbowling]

As a long time debian user, I have to give my hats off to you for documenting the latest installer.

Installers Should Not Say "Partioning"

[reallocate]

Your point about partioning is well taken. Windows and OSX suffer from the same problem when installed from scratch.

Here's the problem: They all assume the person doing the install knows what "partioning" means. That's an invalid assumption. Users are faced with dire warnings about the destruction of your hard drive and numerous unexplained option.

Some Linux installs try to avoid this by simply offering to "take over" the entire drive. That's a brute force approach that isn't attractive to many people.

Perhaps a middle approach might be to offer an "expert" option, but to present mainstream users with a display that simply says "Your disk(s) have ___ free space. How much of it do you want to use for Linux?" Some distros come close, but everyone I've seen still calls it "Partioning" and still displays scary warnings easily misinterpreted by users.

Expert mode?

[Sentry21]

Is this slideshow from expert mode? It seems to me that, while easier to use for the average linux guru, this installation doesn't seem the least bit regular-user friendly. Even having used Debian for years myself, I'd really rather not have to go through this installation, from what I've seen. I'd rather have it pick some sensible defaults, ask me some natural-language questions, and just go about its buisiness.

Oh well. One day.

Re:Expert mode?

[Sesse]

No, it isn't from expert mode -- OTOH he's consequently picking the manual route where he could have gone for automatic behaviour (at least in the boot process and the partitioning). Most of the screens are non-interactive or can normally be answered by pressing "enter" anyhow, so it's not really that hard :-)

/* Steinar */

Re:Expert mode?

[brunotorres]

Yes, I've gone into manual steps, because I wanted to show them. But you really can install it only pressing enter, and making very little options by yourself

A Good Start...

[RootObject]

I think the Debian folks have done a wonderful job so far; the auto-detection is a godsend. That being said, I think that the UI could still use some work. The one thing that caught my eye while going through the instalation was that I would have no idea how to use the screens presented. As an example:

On the second step of the installer, it asks you to select a region. On this screen, there appears to be perhaps a menu and then a <Go Back> button at the bottom. When I first saw this screen, the only thing I could think to myself is "How do I select the region? I don't see a radio button, I don't see checkmarks and the only action related button is it go back - How do I get off of this screen?"

It seems that there is a mixture of UI techniques. Either the entire installer should be menu based, in which case the <Go Back> button would be integrated into the menu or they should go with a wizard approach in which each screen has buttons for <Go Back> and <Go Forward> and each select list is turned into perhaps a radio or check-mark based list. I think that the pure-wizard type solution would be preferable as most user's have gone through wizard's before.
Along the same lines, when the term "select" is used in a text based installer, it should be clear HOW an item is to be selected? Do I hit enter? Spacebar? Am I supposed to be able to use a mouse? If so, why doesn't mine work etc etc etc.

Well, thus ends my two-cents worth. I hope that anyone reading this doesn't take this as an insult towards the installer team: they are doing wonderful things and they should keep in mind that thing about UIs is that opions on them are like arseholes: everyone has one.

more Debian-Installer slide-shows

[linuxbeta]

Debian-Installer RC 2, Debian-Installer pre-rc2, Debian-Installer pre-rc1

A view from the side

[Fallen Andy]

I've always liked debian, but it seems a little uh historical at times vs other distros. Sometimes, I like that conservatism, but I think it loses lots of street cred because it is so behind...

Question is: how can we all help you guys keep up to o speed?

Please flame me. Passionate discussion is good.

courtesy of deborah and ian

[nofpu]

...am I the only one put off this distro by the lame origin of the word Debian?

Re:courtesy of deborah and ian

[rbochan]

...am I the only one put off this distro by the lame origin of the word Debian?

Apparently, yes.

Thanks but no thanks

[eneville]

Thanks,

It's as though you think we already don't know how to breath!

You efforts would have been better spent documenting the OpenBSD installer, although, thats already done in their website.

Slightly off topic, how about making the installer work fully over the serial port, that would make my monitor switching from workstation to new server much less frequent as I have a null modem cable that I can use only post install.