[Glastonbury] ive become debbied

[tim hall]

Last Friday 24 September 2004 22:39, Martin Wheeler was like:
> On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, Kelvin McNulty wrote:
> > Does Debian install itself like SuSE does? or do you still have to make a
> > list of all the hardware first?
>
> Depends.
>
> If you've got the all-singing, all-dancing new installer -- yes.
> In about 6 key-clicks.  (Says Andy.  Of course, he could be lying.
> But as he is trained in law, it's difficult for him to distinguish
> between outright mendicity and creative use of language.  Sigh.)

Is that like a more creative version of mendacity then ?;-]

I've been using the modified Sarge installer that AGNULA uses, it's a little 
over simplified for my tastes, but basically does autodetect your hardware in 
the majority of cases and does the job in less than an hour with the minimum 
of user interference. It still doesn't use X, which is a Good Thing IMO. I 
know people love to moan about the Debian installer, I don't understand why, 
I suspect people equate pretty graphics with ease of use. 

Installing Debian is (now) easy. Personally I find configuring things like 
CUPS and dial-up modems a _lot_ more trouble in comparison. The difficulties 
lie only if your hardware relies on non-free drivers, like nvidia graphics 
and and certain sound cards. I think the arguments about Debian's lack of 
user-friendliness may already be a thing of the past.

If you really need to interface with a lot of proprietary solutions then you 
may still find Debian frustrating. IMO this is also a Good Thing. ;-)

> Otherwise no.   :-)
>
> [And btw -- it's *always* advisable to have a list of your hardware to
> hand, *whatever* distribution you're installing.]
>
> Andy -- how do we get Kelvin a copy of the new installer version?
> One that comes with cast-iron guarantees not to blow up his screen or rape
> his hamster?

Well, I was, of course going to recommend my hobby-horse distro AGNULA, but I 
looked in the small print of the Gerbil Protection Licence and noticed the 
'except Kelvin' clause, so no promises. (sorry, it's been a hard day)

AGNULA/DeMuDi comes on a single CD and installs a basic GNOME or fluxbox 
environment. (That means when you finally reboot after installing all the 
packages you want X actually works first time, or thereabouts, usually) - You 
don't have to install all the DeMuDi packages and could easily apt-get 
anything else you wanted from the Sarge repositories. Of course I would say 
that, I don't have a lot of experience of other installers to compare it 
with. Never felt the need to try them and let's face it, the great thing 
about Debian is you only ever have to install it once. :-)

If they fix the AGNULA server before Wednesday I'll download and burn one.

My extremely biased opinion.

tim hall