Hello, Wouter Verhelst, on jeu. 16 nov. 2017 12:53:16 +0100, wrote: > I can't help but notice that their current installer is extremely easy > to use; and that, as compared to ours, it seems like a huge step > forwards: > > - First screen of the installer allows to select a language > - Second screen has three sections: "Localisation" (which has a button > for selecting the keyboard layout, one for language support allowing > to select additional languages, and one for time/date settings), > "Software" (with a button for the installation source and their > equivalent of tasksel), and "System" (which has a button for their > partitioner and one for the network configuration) > - The partitioner defaults to "automatic partitioning", but you have to > enter it and confirm it by selecting the proper hard disk (presumably > so you can't accidentally overwrite your data) > - Once you make the correct settings in that screen, you click on "Start > installation". The next screen will cause the actual installation to > start (i.e., the installer will partition & format hard disks, start > downloading packages, and install them). It also has two buttons for > user settings (you can enter a root password and/or create a non-root > user). > > ... and that's it.
In Debian, using netinst, we have - language - country - keyboard - hostname - domain name, which we could arguably make expert-only, I don't remember having to use it. - password - username - timezone, for countries which need it - confirmation for automatic partitioning - disk selection - partitioning layout - confirmation then the base system gets installed, then - prompt for additional CD input - mirror selection, perhaps we could just use deb.debian.org by default, I don't know if that works nice enough nowadays. - http proxy (yes, one just can't skip it in quite a few places) - package installation poll (we do want to ask the question) - task selection - bootloader installation (we really can not avoid this step, it poses too many problems). and that's it. That's a bit more items, but not by so much. > e.g., we could write a udeb which asks > the user as many questions as possible without moving on, and then uses > preseeding to preset settings for the current udebs. I don't really see the difference between that proposal and what we are already doing except for the questions which are asked after base installation. > Such an installer wouldn't support *every* use case, but that's fine; The problem is that some questions really have to be asked, because no default can really be sanely set, e.g. username. > since, in essence, we'd just be providing an alternate UI to the same > installer, people who need some of the more advanced options can ditch > the hand-holding UI and switch to the advanced UI. We could add a > button "skip this screen" to make that easier, if needs be. That actually triggers me another thought: the installers you are talking about ask basically the same set of questions, not so much less. The main difference is that they are asked together in a dialog box. I can understand that this can be less stressing for inexperienced users: it's easier to leave things as defaults when it's all preset in a dialog box and you just click "ok" than when one has to answer questions one after the other, which can be stressing. I can understand that *that* can make a difference, and that could be implemented indeed, to preseed the rest of questions. The difficult part is to make sure that all such questions will be preseeded. Samuel
