On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 06:14:47PM +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote wise
words.
tl;dr: sorry for bothering you
Over the past several hours I've spent quite a bit of time thinking
about this reply and trying to express myself more clearly. I hope this
message better reflects what I actually meant.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the rather flippant tone I used
earlier in the discussion. I think I had different expectations about
the kind of answer I was hoping for. In my mind, I was hoping for
something along the lines of: "Grub configuration is generated by tool
X, which lives in repository Y under path Z, and these are the templates
it uses." Saying "it's in the configuration files" is, of course,
factually correct as well. I initially assumed that reply was meant a
bit tongue-in-cheek, which is why I answered with "duh", smiling while I
typed it. I'm sorry if that came across differently than intended.
I'd also like to apologize for reacting defensively to someone I
couldn't immediately recognize. I have since looked through the mailing
list archives and realized that "John Doe" has in fact been an active
and useful participant here for quite some time. Please forgive my
initial reaction. One thing I find difficult about mailing lists is that
I often don't have the real-world context that helps me place people. It
is so much easier to read between the lines when you know the person who
wrote them. I've known many Debian contributors for twenty years or
more, and whenever I attend a Debian event it genuinely feels like
coming home. Many people in the Debian community have become friends
over the years, and I suppose I unconsciously expect the same sense of
familiarity everywhere.
As for the installer itself, I'd like to explain where I'm coming from.
From my perspective, the Debian Installer is a large and rather
intricate code base with a lot of moving parts, all interacting with
each other one way or the other, and understanding how everything fits
together is not always straightforward for someone approaching it
That isn't meant as criticism of the people maintaining it today; it's
simply my impression as a newcomer trying to find my way around.
The reason this matters is that, from the outside, the installer project
looks like something that could really benefit from additional
contributors. I had genuinely been considering spending more time
helping with the installer, but at the moment I feel that I'll need a
bit of guidance from people who already know their way around the code.
What I found surprising is that, while people do take the time to answer
questions, the overall experience still leaves me with the impression of
a well-established group where a newcomer can easily feel like an
outsider. I'm quite sure that isn't the intention, but it is the
impression I came away with. As someone trying to get involved, it's
difficult to tell whether I'm simply asking the wrong questions or
whether I'm expected to figure more out on my own first. The Installer
is probably the most architecture dependent part of Debian, and people
coming new to the installer can be confused by the huge amount of
differnet boot methods that the Installer has to cater for.
I imagine I'm probably not unique in that regard. Someone who is already
motivated to contribute can easily conclude that they are getting in the
way rather than being welcomed. That would be unfortunate, because every
long-term contributor was once new, and lowering that initial barrier
would probably make it easier for people to become involved.
If there is a recommended path for new contributors to get up to speed,
I'd genuinely appreciate being pointed to it. I did find documentation,
lots of it, but as someone approaching the installer for the first time
I often struggled to determine which parts are still current, which are
historical, and where the authoritative information lives. The
documentation was clearly written by people very familiar with the code,
the processes and the toolchain, and such documentation is usually hard
to understand for a newcomer since the crucual first 15 % are missing.
In many cases I found myself having to read the source and reconstruct
how the pieces fit together. Getting snappy answers at this point it
exactly the point where a motivated and talented newcomer might shrug
and walk away.
That may simply be the nature of a project with such a long history.
Nevertheless, I think it also contributes to the impression that the
barrier to entry is higher than it needs to be, and that can be
discouraging for people who would otherwise be interested in
contributing.
I'll probably come back to the technical topic in a few days. First I
need to step away for a bit, and then I'd like to think a bit more about
whether I can achieve my goal of better scriptable and preseedable
storage setup without having to understand quite so much of the
installer's internals (and the technical debt that is in the code) so
that I don't need to bother you again. And, to be honest, I'd also like
to let things cool down a little. I've already spent more energy on this
today than I should have.
In any case, I hope everyone has a wonderful week, and thank you for
taking the time to read this.
Greetings
Marc
--
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Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany | lose things." Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421
