On Sat, 2003-06-21 at 02:24, cr wrote: > On Saturday 21 June 2003 10:52, Jamin W. Collins wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 03:36:19PM -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote: > > > On Fri, 2003-06-20 at 13:56, Vineet Kumar wrote: > > > > Most reviewers seem to believe that users want a system that installs > > > > easily. They run the installer, review it, and call it a review of the > > > > distribution. > > > > > > If a user can't install then there's no point reviewing the rest of the > > > system. > > > > So, review the install. However, to stop there is silly. User's don't > > normally install a system and then fdisk it only to start over. There > > is more to an OS than it's installation. > > Well, popular reviews are usually aimed at 'new users', or intelligent > amateurs, and from their point of view the install is a major consideration. > (Professionals probably won't be reading that sort of reviews and the > 'just-buying-it-to-play-games-on' crowd won't be reading any reviews anyway). > I honestly wouldn't recommend Deb to a new-to-Linux user. Knoppix maybe > (not that I've used it), or Red Hat, and maybe graduate to Deb when they have > a handle on what Linux is like. > > If I didn't have the familiarity with what was going on, gained from maybe > half-a-dozen Red Hat installs / setup sessions, I think Woody's installer > would have baffled me. Knowing roughly what to expect is 99% of the battle. > As it was it took three install attempts before I got one (with X and PPP > working) that was good enough to switch to.
My first ever Linux install was done with Potato a year and a half ago. The only experience I had had with anything remotely linux related before then was using cygwin for a few months. So essentially I knew a few basic bash commands. I knew nothing about the kernel, the filesystem, or anything. I had no real idea what modules were, and the whole "sources" thing baffled me. And, worst of all, I didn't find out about this list until AFTER I had a working install. :) But I pulled out an old Pentium 133 I had lying around, and started trying to install Debian on it. After my 2nd try, I had a working installation. One more wipe and reinstall and I had the basic hang of the installer. Then it was time to repartition the disk on my actual desktop machine and get to work. 3 months later, every last semblance of Windows and proprietary software had been wiped from my hard drive. (I've since had to install a few closed-source Linux programs/drivers, but I'm maintaining a relatively free system. I never thought twice about "stealing" software through the use of cracks while I was using Windows, but now the very thought of it makes me feel dirty. Both the stealing aspect and the fact that I had a REASON to do it. Free software literally lets me sleep better at night. :) And, just so I can join in the foray of the auto-detect flame-fest here, if a user doesn't know his hardware well enough to be able to pick it from a list he shouldn't be installing an OS in the first place. Besides, if a user is converting from Windows, just how much trouble is it to grab a pen and paper and go into Device Manager? (Took me about 10 minutes a year and a half ago. Barring some odd time-distorting anomaly, it should still take roughly that long for John Q. Public to do so.) Auto-detection would be nice, but if I have to choose between manually selecting hardware or having an installer hard-lock my computer like the Mandrake installer did a few months ago, I'll go the manual selection route anyday. :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837
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