an abstract question: bootstrapped into debian, having never extensively worked with any other Linux distro, i've had the pleasure of using and maintaining debian systems for the past two and some years. in the first two or so years, all the debian installs i performed went smooth as a hot knife through butter.
in the past two months, however, i've installed debian on several systems (both dells, funny enough) that did not take to it like the proverbial fish to water, and i also utterly failed to install it on a friend's old (wall street model) powerbook. one install[1] took two solid weeks of investigating frambuffer oddities and grokking the kernel; the more recent took only two days, but required that i do a knoppix chroot install[2] (thanks, greg & karsten!). i don't resent either of these installs -- i've learned a lot through both, and it's both fun for me and useful for my work that i know about the issues (basic networking; LKMs; &c.) that i ended up understanding (better) in the process. however, something like knoppix, based on debian yet compatible with everything i've ever slipped it into, makes me wonder why the initial debian install process can't be easier than it currently is. the company i work for uses primarily redhat on their linux boxes, first for ease of installation, and second because they've gotten to know it best because of its ease of installation. i'm putting debian on the servers i'm bringing up right now (because i can, haha -- and also because i'll be maintaining them, and don't want to deal with RH), but i'm getting flak from colleagues about the difficulty of the install. and just sliding the knoppix CD in and watching it recognize all my weird hardware in both the laptop & server cases, makes me wonder why the woody & sarge distro CDs can't behave more like that. don't misinterpret -- i'm not saying i want to take control away from the person who's installing -- that's why i switched to linux in the first place, to get that control on all levels! but it would be nice to have the option of functional auto-detection of more hardware than i've recently seen distro CDs recognize. i'm wondering what the philosophy behind this do-it-yourself (and by "it" we mean the kitchen sink) install is. klaus knoppix himself is quoted recently as admitting that debian is his favorite, but only after a difficult install[3]. a recent thread on another LUG i subscribe to advocated RH to a new user, for ease of installation, and then recommended that they switch to debian after they get fed up with RH. surely this isn't the kind of linux philosophy we want to promote? i'm wondering, then, what is ... and how the installation plays a role in this. curious, </nori> [1] http://www.maenad.net/geek/di8k-debian/ [2] http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DebianChrootInstall [3] http://www.pctechtalk.com/view.php?id=1239 -- .~. nori @ sccs.swarthmore.edu /V\ http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~nori/jnl/ // \\ @ maenad.net /( )\ www.maenad.net ^`~'^ get my (*new*) key here: http://www.maenad.net/geek/gpg/7ede5499.asc (please *remove* old key 11e031f1!) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
