It is difficult to know which branch of this thread to re-enter. I'm happy to have started an interesting discussion, and to hear various personal histories on the way. But I was initially trying to suggest a much smaller-scale intervention. I hope you'll all forgive me if I recap.
It is obviously true, as several people have said, that tweaking and managing a Debian system can require technical skills and time. However, I have been surprised how often the new installer does succeed in getting a working system with X-windows and KDE/Gnome. Sometimes the maximum screen resolution is missing, but at least it runs and boots reliably. I agree that when this does not work, a newbie is best advised to begin with a Knoppix/Mepis/Ubuntu/schmoobuntoo install, and later will be able to migrate to pure Debian. In fact I did this myself, as Knoppix was the only distro I could find that would operate all my hardware 'out of the box'. Now, considering that success is not really unlikely with the new installer, but that it is oddly easy for a newbie (or even an experienced user) to fail to select the 'desktop' option and to install a perfectly good but X-free system, and seeing that this evidently is happening to a lot of newcomers to Debian, I was suggesting what I thought was a simple device to offer friendly help to those that fell into this trap and had no idea how to get out. Any regular on this list will have no problem with the command line at the end of the install -- we each have our favoured route forward, and know where to look for information on what we have and have not installed. But an ex-doze or even an ex-suze user can be completely at a loss when faced with '[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ' and nothing more. Hence my suggestion that a special first-time message for the command line could be used to soften the blow. I do also agree with other suggestions for making this more unlikely, such as marking 'desktop' for installation by default, and offering a page of explanation and a choice of desktops. (BTW, I used to think that Gnome was quite hostile and a really bad default, but the latest versions are far better IMHO, and not such an auful default as it used to be. Not that I would ever choose to use either of the obese twins for my own box any more.) As to the cases where the X-server cannot be correctly configured by a newbie, it is difficult to see how the installer can offer more help. It can hardly be expected to recognise the X-server error messages and give a message saying "If you are new to this, get a Knoppix disc and see if it solves your problem." Or perhaps it could... -- richard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
