Jonathan D. Proulx wrote: > Debian allows for configuration during package installation, so you > don't have to poke around so much to figure outwhat needs tweeking to > make your nifty ne app working.
This is a great feature and (besides automated upgrades) one of the main reasons I started using Debian. I don't want to read the man page for every little piece of software I install package configuration at install time often enables me to skip man pages. I love this feature, but I also hate it! At work we use almost exclusively RedHat because of the kickstart install option. I can make a kickstart file, put configuration information in the post install (of the kickstart) and with one press of the button, RedHat is installed, configured and running. That is not exaggerating (for those who haven't done it, press enter at the boot prompt, it installs ... press enter when it's done and it reboots and works. It would be extremely useful if dpkg had a --default-config option or something like that ... some way to ensure that packages install with absolutely no prompting. Is there any way to do this now? If there were it would be very easy to script a Debian install similar to kickstart. Don't get me wrong, I love Debian it just doesn't let me do the mass, reproducible installs like kickstart. I know about the replicator package but that from what I recall it needs a preconfigured system to duplicate. Have I missed something or is there a way to do this ... it would obviously need major hacks to the boot floppies but it seems to me that Debian would fail even at the package install level because of the interaction. Any ideas? Thanks, Fraser