I have just been through this process having decided to switch over from SuSE to debian. i must say that the install system is fine until dselect with a multi CD set. I actually reinstalled SuSE and nearly gave up before deciding not be overcome and going ahead and trying. Eventually mount the CD manually and doing the install from a mounted FS.
I am a relatively experienced user of Linux since the early SLS distributions but struggled with some of the intricacies of the debian install method as a debian-newbie. However, after installing the packages, I then needed to upgrade X to cover my TNT card and apt-get worked fantastically and is clearly a very powerful and simple-to-use tool. So I agree, once I got the system up, I realise how powerful it really is. However, dselect is user unfriendly and is unfortunately most users' first exposure to debian. A new Linux user, which all probably agree should be encouraged, would really struggle to get the system up and running IMHO. >> thing is that the initial installation is important to a newbie because >> that is what they are focused on at the start. The fact that it will save >> them hours and hours down the road in maintenance once they DO get it set >> up is not very important at that stage. >Indeed - one of the things that most impressed me about Debian was that >once I'd done the install, pretty much all the services I'd installed >support for were set up and working. With previous distributions, I'd >always had to spend far too much time figuring out what I'd installed >and working out how to configure it. One of the most challenging >problems for the new admin/install tools will be keeping this while >making things easier for less experienced users.
