Re: debian cd image download website

[Maximilian Haeussler]

Maximilian Haeussler,+33612827616


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:45 AM, GONG Jie  wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Maximilian Haeussler
>  wrote:
> > the debian website is horribly complicated for beginners who just want to
> > give debian a try.
> >
> > One example: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
> >
> > (...) There needs to be some minimal advice on the
> > website (directly, not in the FAQ or some obscure manual) which image to
> > select for people that do not know all processor architecture names by
> > heart, i.e. most of us who are not experts in the history of the Intel
> > family and the whole chip industry. It is simply not very straightforward
> to
> > select AMD if you just bought Intel.
> Please read the installation guide before you are doing installation.
> [1] http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual


No. It is the other way round: One has to SELECT your architecture to read
an installation guide. Users who do not know their architecture do not know
which installation guide they should read. They will definitely look into
AMD if they bought Intel. This architecture problem is bugging me since the
introduction of IA64.

Read the Debian ports page [2], if you are use other then i386.  This
> page do have a note in the IA-64 section.  IA-64 is not EM64T.
> [2] http://www.debian.org/ports/

a) There is no link to the ports page from the downloads page. So users
cannot easily find it.
b) Thanks, but I can read wikipedia myself. It did not have a question. It
was a suggestion for future improvement of the debian website.

Here are some discussions on forums and debian-user of people that ran into
exactly this problem. Please note that all these discussions could have been
avoided by adding one single sentence explaining that most users with a
modern processor should choose AMD64.

http://osdir.com/ml/*debian*-user-*debian*/2009-05/msg01471.html
www.nabble.com/Which-*Debian*-for-*Intel*-Core2Duo-td19611014.html
link
See also this bug:  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=421338

So the debian installer developers are aware of the problem. I admit that a
double-architecture torito CD is one (technical) solution. But the problem
could be solved so easily with just 1 or 2 more sentences on the website!

 >BTW, debian-cd@lists.debian.org is not the proper mailing-list for
>this question.  You may send to debian-am...@lists.debian.org or
>debian-u...@lists.debian.org.
No, debian-user is for questions on debian. I did not have a question.

It might be possible that debian-cd might not be the right mailing list.
But if the mailing address in the footer of a page is not responsible for
this webpage:
Can anyone tell me how to reach the people that manage this part of the
debian website?

Thanks
Max


> --
> Regards,
>
> GONG Jie (龚颉)
> Email: n...@mamiyami.com
>

Re: debian cd image download website

[Frans Pop]

On Wednesday 16 September 2009, Maximilian Haeussler wrote:
> > Please read the installation guide before you are doing installation.
> > [1] http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual
>
> No. It is the other way round: One has to SELECT your architecture to
> read an installation guide. Users who do not know their architecture do
> not know which installation guide they should read. They will definitely
> look into AMD if they bought Intel. This architecture problem is bugging
> me since the introduction of IA64.

The installation guide _does_ mention this though. It can be seen both in 
the architecture table
   http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en#id2756248
and in the section on CPU support just below that:
   http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en#id2756691

I've just added an explicit caution in the version for IA64.

Cheers,
FJP


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Re: Bug#542241: simple-cdd: Deal better with non-official codenames

[Frans Pop]

On Monday 14 September 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Well, as a debian-cd co-maintainer, I thought about this too, but I
> didn't like the idea very much. It would mean 2 supplementary variables
> that should be used instead of $CODENAME or $DI_CODENAME in various
> places and that should default to $CODENAME $DI_CODENAME.
>
> Ccing debian-cd@lists.debian.org to get the input of Steve (and maybe
> Frans) but for now I think that simple-cdd is a good place to implement
> this. I consider the fact that we can put supplementary directories
> in those places as a relatively official interface of debian-cd.

It seems a bit strange to me to have a derived distribution as CD release 
that's not backed up by it's own archive, and thus mirrors.
I'd say that if you want to use different codenames, you should start by 
creating an archive that has those codenames.

If you do not have a separate archive, I fail to see the rationale for 
changing the Debian codename. Are users not allowed to install additional 
packages or get (security) updates from the Debian repositories for some 
reason?

If you have such an archive, it also seems trivial to me to create the 
needed configuration files (if you like as symlinks to files/dirs for 
Debian codenames) needed for Debian CD. (I'd recommend using git-svn and 
creating a branch for the derived distribution.)

So, IMO debian-cd already has all the functionality needed to support 
derived distributions using different codenames. Or am I missing 
something?

Cheers,
FJP


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Re: debian cd image download website

[Maximilian Haeussler]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Frans Pop  wrote:

> On Wednesday 16 September 2009, Maximilian Haeussler wrote:
> > > Please read the installation guide before you are doing installation.
> > > [1] http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual
> >
> > No. It is the other way round: One has to SELECT your architecture to
> > read an installation guide. Users who do not know their architecture do
> > not know which installation guide they should read. They will definitely
> > look into AMD if they bought Intel. This architecture problem is bugging
> > me since the introduction of IA64.
>
> The installation guide _does_ mention this though. It can be seen both in
> the architecture table
>   http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en#id2756248
> and in the section on CPU support just below that:
>   http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en#id2756691
>
> - The architecture table does not say what EM64T is though being the first
and only document that someone who is installing debian will consult.
  The architecture table should mention that AMD64 is the currently most
common form of processor. Something along the lines: "When in doubt..." /
"You probably want..." / "If you don't know what to select here, please read
... ") ("if you have a non-Itanium processor..."

- The section on CPU support does not say that all new Intel desktop
processors are EM64T. It does not explain EM64T.

- But: There is whole PARAGRAPH + a FOOTNOTE on stupid 386 processors that
really no one cares about since 10 years!
>However, Debian GNU/Linux lenny will *not* run on 386 or earlier
processors. Despite the architecture name "i386", support for actual 80386
>processors (and their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) release of
Debian[2 <#ftn.id2756732>]. (No version of Linux has ever supported the 286
or earlier >chips in the series.)


> I've just added an explicit caution in the version for IA64.
>
Thanks for the caution.  It seems that this caution used to be there some
time ago already from what I can see from the forum discussions.

I  think a similar caution would be also important on other pages:
- http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual should link to a page
where the different architectures are explained ("If you do not know what
these acronyms mean, see xxx...")

A simple use case:
You are a new user and type debian.org.
You click on "Getting Debian".
You think "Easy!".
You click "Download an image".
Bump. You're stuck.
No mentions of what to select then.
No link to an explanation of the different architectures.

cheers
Max

Re: Bug#542241: simple-cdd: Deal better with non-official codenames

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Frans Pop wrote:
> It seems a bit strange to me to have a derived distribution as CD release 
> that's not backed up by it's own archive, and thus mirrors.
> I'd say that if you want to use different codenames, you should start by 
> creating an archive that has those codenames.

We have that.

> If you have such an archive, it also seems trivial to me to create the 
> needed configuration files (if you like as symlinks to files/dirs for 
> Debian codenames) needed for Debian CD. (I'd recommend using git-svn and 
> creating a branch for the derived distribution.)

Well, I don't want to have to maintain a debian-cd fork, I generate images
with simple-cdd which in turn uses debian-cd. My feature request is to 
have simple-cdd create symlinks in the temporary debian-cd directory that
it already uses so that the tools/boot/$CODENAME/ scripts that are called
actually exist even when $CODENAME is not an official Debian codename.

Now, the alternative is to not create the symlinks and have a way to tell
debian-cd “well CODENAME is foo, but for boot-enabling scripts, please use
those of lenny”.

> So, IMO debian-cd already has all the functionality needed to support 
> derived distributions using different codenames. Or am I missing 
> something?

Yes it has (if you consider normal to have to duplicate the codename
specific directories inside it to match your own codename).

I think it's a reasonable assumption but still wanted to ask for more
opinion.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog


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Re: Bug#542241: simple-cdd: Deal better with non-official codenames

[Frans Pop]

On Wednesday 16 September 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Now, the alternative is to not create the symlinks and have a way to
> tell debian-cd “well CODENAME is foo, but for boot-enabling scripts,
> please use those of lenny”.

I agree that as simple-cdd is the wrapper here that has the goal of making 
things easier for the user it should take care of such things itself. 
Especially as I can well imagine taking this one logical step further: use 
these files by default, but drop in that custom file. That would have to 
be managed by simple-cdd.

I see no need to complicate d-cd for this.

Just my private opinion.

Cheers,
FJP


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