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Debian

Debian Sarge Installation Slide Show 35

Posted by michael from the easy-does-it dept.
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."
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Debian Sarge Installation Slide Show More

Debian Sarge Installation Slide Show

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  • Aren't There Some OSS Graphical Installers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FlipmodePlaya ( 719010 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @09:02PM (#10993531) Journal
    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?
    • Partitioning in particular is difficult (as always)
      There is actually an automated partitioner. If you look at the 18th slide [brunotorres.net] 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.
    • 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. [debian.net]
    • 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.
    • 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

    • 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

  • 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.

    • 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.
    • 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
  • Is it just me or is this the same exact installer that Ubuntu uses?
  • It looks like a well done install procedure, though the hardware support is still lacking, particularly with the video drivers.
  • As a long time debian user, I have to give my hats off to you for documenting the latest installer.
  • 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? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sesse ( 5616 )

      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? (Score:3, Informative)

        by brunotorres ( 837110 )
        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... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RootObject ( 624838 )
    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 [brunotorres.net] 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 on
  • 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.
  • ...am I the only one put off this distro by the lame origin of the word Debian?
  • 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.

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