On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 05:05:01PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > The point of decoupling installation and configuration is to let the admin > choose which of these scenarios happen, instead of the distribution or > the maintainer. The first is appropriate if you're doing installs of many > systems (work out how you want it to look, then slam it onto all of them > automatically), the second if you're doing an upgrade from aptitude, and > the third if you've blatted a standard install from a magazine cover-CD > and need to do some final configuration.
Yet another reasons for wanting to decouple installation and configuration is if some hardware company (such as VA^H^H Emperor Linux) wishes to ship Debian pre-installed on the system. In that case, installation happens at the factory, and not when the user receives it in his/her hot little hands. - Ted