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Installing Debian GNU/Linux using debootstrap
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Comments (16)
> the debian installer is not that bad, really.
I just did a fresh install on one volume of a multi-boot yesterday using the 1st iso of the testing weekly and netinstall. It just gets easier and easier. This time, cups, alsa, smb, and video were all set perfectly with 'no' intervention on my part. Sure it's a text install, but, IMO it's easier than many of the GUI installers, and a heck of a lot faster. If you have 'any' experience with Linux, you will be able to do a Debian install.
> anyone who has trouble understanding the questions of the installer certainly won't be able to understand how to deal with debootstrap.
Absolutely...
I just did a fresh install on one volume of a multi-boot yesterday using the 1st iso of the testing weekly and netinstall. It just gets easier and easier. This time, cups, alsa, smb, and video were all set perfectly with 'no' intervention on my part. Sure it's a text install, but, IMO it's easier than many of the GUI installers, and a heck of a lot faster. If you have 'any' experience with Linux, you will be able to do a Debian install.
> anyone who has trouble understanding the questions of the installer certainly won't be able to understand how to deal with debootstrap.
Absolutely...
"Sure it's a text install, but, IMO it's easier than many of the GUI installers, and a heck of a lot faster."
Having installed Debian on SPARC-2 and SPARC-20 machines through the serial console, the standardized "text" install of Debian makes things sooooo much easier to deal with different architectures.
I'm kind of sad that the Debian developers have bowed to the drive for colour graphical installers, the curses system just plain works.
The combination of debbootstrap and KNOPPIX should be lots of fun. But then, KNOPPIX has (last time I looked) a HD install option for "vanilla Debian".
Debian has "popularity-contest". This is a script which does a dump of what packages you have installed, and when was the last time you used them (if ever). This is compiled weekly, and used to determine the order of packages on the CD and DVD .iso images. So even people who are not using the net install can be sure that what is on CDs 1 and 2 will pretty much be everything they will need to be up and running. Or just DVD 1.
Can you tell I'm pleased with my choice of distribution?
Having installed Debian on SPARC-2 and SPARC-20 machines through the serial console, the standardized "text" install of Debian makes things sooooo much easier to deal with different architectures.
I'm kind of sad that the Debian developers have bowed to the drive for colour graphical installers, the curses system just plain works.
The combination of debbootstrap and KNOPPIX should be lots of fun. But then, KNOPPIX has (last time I looked) a HD install option for "vanilla Debian".
Debian has "popularity-contest". This is a script which does a dump of what packages you have installed, and when was the last time you used them (if ever). This is compiled weekly, and used to determine the order of packages on the CD and DVD .iso images. So even people who are not using the net install can be sure that what is on CDs 1 and 2 will pretty much be everything they will need to be up and running. Or just DVD 1.
Can you tell I'm pleased with my choice of distribution?
Quoting:I'm kind of sad that the Debian developers have bowed to the drive for colour graphical installers, the curses system just plain works.
actually i don't think they have. from what i read about the new installer, it is built in a way that it can have different frontends, text, gui, automatic, as you prefer, with the real work of installing happening in the backend.
greetings, eMBee.
That's right. The default for now is still the ncurses installer.
Good!
WTF is the big deal with a graphical installer anyway? sheesh, people are such babies. :) I bet if you sat them in front of the ncurses screen they'd never know the difference.
> I bet if you sat them in front of the ncurses screen they'd never know the difference.
yes, they would tuxchick. They can't use the evil rodent with ncurses, and they don't know how to use a keyboard... What's a poor noob to do... ;-)
yes, they would tuxchick. They can't use the evil rodent with ncurses, and they don't know how to use a keyboard... What's a poor noob to do... ;-)
jimf, I cry at my own ignorance. So sorry. Poor noobs! **snerk**
"Poor noobs" indeed. Mouse-itus. That is the primary reason for my contention that until pre-installation is common, "Linux On The Desktop" isn't going to burst forth.
I was looking for the "install to HD" process in Knoppix this afternoon, and couldn't find it. That has been about the most "noob friendly" process for installing Linux I've seen, and now it's hidden somewhere. Not a good thing! I guess I'll have to download another Debian base CD (I gave my last one away).
I was looking for the "install to HD" process in Knoppix this afternoon, and couldn't find it. That has been about the most "noob friendly" process for installing Linux I've seen, and now it's hidden somewhere. Not a good thing! I guess I'll have to download another Debian base CD (I gave my last one away).
> the primary reason for my contention that until pre-installation is common, "Linux On The Desktop" isn't going to burst forth.
The thing that really yanks my chain on that one is that all the Windows installs are guess what... Text based. Yet it's always the noobs who are yelling for a GUI install. The truth is that Linux has been ahead of MS in that for years.
The thing that really yanks my chain on that one is that all the Windows installs are guess what... Text based. Yet it's always the noobs who are yelling for a GUI install. The truth is that Linux has been ahead of MS in that for years.
JimF, indeed. 99% of people have never installed Windows either.
> 99% of people have never installed Windows either.
I'd call it more like 80%, but even those will gripe about the lack of a GUI installer in Linux.
I'd call it more like 80%, but even those will gripe about the lack of a GUI installer in Linux.
Probably the same lamers who whine that Open Office doesn't include an email client.
Mandriva's installer has a text-only mode as well, and I'm sure lots of others do too.
The point about MS-Windoze installers is not that they're text (many are, and others are obvious GUI wrappers over a text screen), but that they don't tell the whole truth, and they're getting tangled up in genuineness tests and other in-practice complex agendae.
The point about MS-Windoze installers is not that they're text (many are, and others are obvious GUI wrappers over a text screen), but that they don't tell the whole truth, and they're getting tangled up in genuineness tests and other in-practice complex agendae.
> they're getting tangled up in genuineness tests and other in-practice complex agendae.
Now that's a real MS line :D
Now that's a real MS line :D
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using debootstrap may indeed be a good way to get around some installer problems, but to present this as easier than using the regular installer seems to imply a rather distorted reality.
the debian installer is not that bad, really. anyone who has trouble understanding the questions of the installer certainly won't be able to understand how to deal with debootstrap.
sure, it is explaining how to use debootstrap here, but there are also explanations of the installer which would help a person new to debian just as well...
greetings, eMBee.