On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 12:29:35PM -0800, John wrote: > Hello! > I recently switched to Debian 6.x from another distribution for my "business" > pc's operating system and am very pleased with it. I had been using Mandriva > 2010.0 with a few upgrades from source, but the leadership of Mandriva, KDE > (v. 4) and Gnome (v. 3) have disappointed me. > > DESKTOP PREFERENCES: I really liked the Gnome 2 desktop and would quit Gnome > altogether if they don't bring back the panel functions and layout of version > 2. Get the date and time out of the center of the panel and let users put > icons there. I hope that you will continue to include Gnome 2 (or it's fork) > in your future releases. Likewise, I was very pleased with KDE 3 and very > much dislike the cycle-wasting useless bloat of KDE 4, and like LXDE as an > excellent light alternative. > > PROBLEM 1: The partitioning code of the installer doesn't do Linux Volume > Manager setup right. The setup should first allow partitions of a disk to be > created or added as part of a Linux volume, and then the volume should appear > as a disk space to be partitioned. The SECOND STEP CANNOT OCCUR the way your > software is presently written. After the desired partitions are assigned to a > Linux volume, the partitioning software complains that the root partition > does not exist. Of course not! It is supposed to be in the Linux volume that > is being created. If the Linux volume were then shown as a disk space to be > partitioned, THEN I could put the root partition and other partitions in that > Linux volume which spans the two disks I would assign to the Linux volume. > See how Mandriva does it in v. 2010.0, first assigning physical partitions to > a Linux volume and then showing the Linux volume as a space to create > partitions like /, /swap and /home in. This is what your > partitioner should do, so Linux volumes can be created without grief.
As I recall, when you configure LVM, it is a submenu of the partitioner, and when you return the LVM volumes show up as partitionable entries. At no point does it complain about no having a root partition defined. > PROBLEM 2: Your hardware setup is generally very good, but recent changes in > video detection and setup by Linux developers mess up in handling older video > cards/chips and monitors. As a result, Debian 7.1.0 has a correct-resolution > correct-refresh setup for my monitor for installation, but sets my video > improperly for regular use. I think the video refresh is set too high. It > produces some "snow" on my CRT monitor and just doesn't look right, and there > doesn't seem to be any graphic tool in Gnome 3 to change these settings. Some > code in the installation to let the user select the desired screen video > settings would be nice. If that isn't available, upgrading to Debian 7 isn't > such a good idea. You can do the right video settings---the installation > display proves it. Just leave it as is if it's satisfactory. X setup is pretty much automatic these days and doesn't even need a config file anymore unless you want to override what X does automatically. Not an installer issue anyhow, since that is managed by X. > PROBLEM 3: The boot code should set up the firewall according to user choices > during installation, and then should run automatically, with an > administrative tool to change those settings if desired. The following is a > minor inconvenience to me, and there may even be a good reason why you do it > this way. The firewall I've been using is Firestarter, nice and simple, but > required to be run manually by a regular user after logging in and entering > the root password. A user who starts Firestarter (and has automatic rights to > run other root-only programs) can't simply log out, but must re-enter the > root password to log out or shut down. This is silly. On a multi-user system, > a person should be free to log out, and if there's only a single regular user > who started Firestarter as root, that user should be free to shut down the > whole system. Well you could install and configure shorewall. It has no problem starting at boot. The Debian installer sets up a minimal system. A firewall hardly qualifies as a minimal system thing. -- Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
