There has been a lot of descension over the past couple of weeks about
DI and what it could do to be better.
I think it is important that I join that debate with a couple of
requirements for any replacement / enhancement:
(1) Must work on all architectures supported by Debian
(2) Must work on all platforms supported by Debian
This (1&2) means that DI must provide a UI on any machine that can run
Debian.
It must attempt to discover what interface the user has chosen to use
during the installation. This could be a keyboard, mouse, and screen,
equally it could be a serial device (UART, USB, Ethernet etc)
There may be any number of these possible interfaces and any combination
DI must also attempt to detect all of these devices, and configure it
correctly - Some of these devices (laptop screens for example) may or
may not correctly report their "console modes". DI may also have to
probe around in order to configure the display back light and turn it
on... there may be several of these as well. DI must determine which
controller is associated with the display.
Of cause it also means that we must be able to install from various
different boot media, support different network and storage methods
(some of which may need non-free firmware/drivers to work correctly)
DI must work with different boot processes such as BIOS / EFI and the
different and poor implementations that exist on different machines.
(3) Must be accessible
What do you mean you can't read English? What do you mean your language
doesn't use a 'Roman based alphabet', read top left to bottom right
etc. DI must still work...
Blind? DI must support audio and TTS or brail 'screens' - this means we
need to be very careful of layout, windowing, pop-ups etc.
Sight problems? Large font sizes, high contrast colour schemes
(different colours for different users)
Other conditions? Typically these have a specialist interface for the
user, but these *normally* present (or consume) the same low level
interface to the compute system - meaning that DI doesn't need to do
anything special
Accessibility issues may limit the number of interfaces that we *can*
present a UI in a suitable format to the user
(4) Configurable
We must also remember that Debian is open to all, DI may well be the
first interaction that the user has with Debian, that user may equally
well be an 'old hand'.
This installation may be for a desktop, a server, a deeply embedded
device, a mobile device, a VM, the list goes on...
This may be a local or a remote install.
What about automated installations?
What about distribute then configure on first run? (AKA OEM
installations - with or without a recovery 'partition')?
DI may not be able to do all of these things, it may not do all of them
well at the movement. If, however, an overhaul of DI is to happen then
we should start by deciding what it must be able to do BEFORE deciding
on how to go about this. And for me that also means that the above
points MUST be demonstrable in any prototype / first offering because
experience has shown me that unless it is all baked in from the
beginning such features are often impossible to add later.
/Andy
On 24/06/2019 06:15, Marc Haber wrote:
On Sun, 23 Jun 2019 23:10:29 +0200, patrick.dre...@gmx.net wrote:
Proposition: Simlify the Installation. Dosn't have 2 Installation options.
..., Graphical Installation.
Rebuttal: I work with Debian every day, and I have not seen the
graphical installer in a decade.
Not everything that works for your should be default or even the only
option.
With kind Greetings!
Ebenso.
Grüße
Marc
