Package: installation-reports
I'm at the debconf, I've been testing the latest build against the
hardware provided for us. This is a Pentium IV of 2.00 GHz. with 2
network cards, 40 Gb Hard Drive, and some other nice stuff (sorry for
not pasting cpuinfo and lspci, but the machines had no network).
So, here come my comments:
Network
=======
If no network is detected with the DHCP thing, the next thing that
appears is a "Input your IP" dialog. I think this is quite bad, since
the user might not know what to input there and be stuck. I think the
good thing to do would be to ask: Do you want to set up the network
manually? And if not, well, no network is setup...
When there's no network, no network should be used. This is to say that
if no network was detected or configured, it makes no sense to inform
the user that "security" could not be reached, and that kind of stuff.
Partition Manager
=================
About the partitioning system, well, it's pretty awful, but anyway, I
think the "multi-user" setup is not properly named... Maybe "Safe
Partitions", or "Advanced Partition Separation", or something.
Or, if you really mean to call it "multi-user" because of the size of
the /home, it would be nice to have a "Storage server" flavor, with a
big /var and a small /home.
Also, about this multi-user flavor, I was using a 40GB drive, and my /
was assigned 148Mb. This is not very wise, since we are having /etc,
/boot, /root, /bin, /sbin and /lib in this partition... I would say
maybe 256Mb would be wiser.
Of course, you already know that the design of this debconf dialogs is
difficult to read. I have a couple of suggestions to make it a little
bit better:
* Please add GO buttons in all (or almost all) the screens. Instead
of an option "Finish and proceed" that's mixed up with the other
options.
* Please don't make the user have to type the name of the unit (like
GB or MB), it's error prone and confusing. A sign saying "enter the
value in MB" or something would be better.
* The Tamagotchi is confusing and scaring. It took me a long time to
find out that there was HELP about the meaning of those. I think
the HELP button should be just in the middle of the Back button and
the OK button I'm asking for in the first point.
* "Guided partitioning" should be "Restart with guided partitioning".
Countries, Localization and Stuff
=================================
The second question of the installer is the keyboard selection. This is
a good improvement over the previous installation that just assumed the
keyboard. But I've noticed that in the English installation, keyboards
DO have names, while in the Spanish installation, keyboards are
identified by the layout name (la, es, br, etc). In non of the cases is
there an alphabetical order. I think they SHOULD be in alph. order.
When selecting the timezone, I selected "America", and then I had a long
list of cities... It would be nice to have "America" divided by
countries... I know this means adding a new debconf screen and new names
to translate, but it's really not nice to be looking for the city I'm in
the middle of a mess of cities of the whole continent.
Tasksel and Aptitude
====================
There's no going "back" from Tasksel... I selected tasksel only to see
which tasks I had available, but thinking of using aptitude to do the
proper install, and then I had no back button. Just finish or cancel.
==============
That's about it for now. I hope someone will read and do something
about this things... :)
--
Love,
Margarita Manterola.
Subject: Re: Bug#251295: Long report - Many things
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 17:43:09 -0700
On Thu, 27 May 2004 17:43:45 -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> If no network is detected with the DHCP thing, the next thing that
> appears is a "Input your IP" dialog. I think this is quite bad, since
> the user might not know what to input there and be stuck. I think the
> good thing to do would be to ask: Do you want to set up the network
> manually? And if not, well, no network is setup...
Really? If you're using beta4, yes, this is the case.
The latest version of netcfg presents a friendly message to the user
asking whether he/she would like to continue w/o configuring the network,
configure statically (what you saw), try DHCP again, or reconfigure the
wireless network if that is applicable.
If you want to look at this new way of doing things, try a daily image;
Joey should be able to toss you one.
> When there's no network, no network should be used. This is to say that
> if no network was detected or configured, it makes no sense to inform
> the user that "security" could not be reached, and that kind of stuff.
This is possible, but needs work with base-config.
--
Joshua Kwan
Subject: Re: Bug#251295: Long report - Many things
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 08:30:23 -0300
clone 251295 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8
reassign -1 netcfg
retitle -1 Should skip network configuration step is it fails when using a netinst image
reassign -2 base-config
retitle -2 Should not add entries for security.debian.org if the network has not been setup
reassign -3 partman-auto
retitle -3 the "multi-user" recipe name is confusing
severity -3 minor
reassign -4 partman-auto
severity -4 wishlit
retitle -4 Please add a "storage sever" recipe with big /var and small /home
reassign -5 partman
severity -5 normal
retitle -5 Partman main menu is confusing. Please gather all choices together and use a OK button
reassign -6 debconf
retitle -6 Should sort translated choices alphabetically
severity -6 wishlist
merge 169868 -6
reassign -7 cdebconf
retitle -7 Should sort translated choices alphabetically
severity -7 wishlist
reassign -8 tasksel
retitle -8 Should allow to Cancel in the tasks selection screen
thanks
(a lot...)
So, now for the analysis of marga's work....
Quoting Margarita Manterola ([email protected]):
> Package: installation-reports
>
> I'm at the debconf, I've been testing the latest build against the
> hardware provided for us. This is a Pentium IV of 2.00 GHz. with 2
> network cards, 40 Gb Hard Drive, and some other nice stuff (sorry for
> not pasting cpuinfo and lspci, but the machines had no network).
>
> So, here come my comments:
>
> Network
> =======
>
> If no network is detected with the DHCP thing, the next thing that
> appears is a "Input your IP" dialog. I think this is quite bad, since
> the user might not know what to input there and be stuck. I think the
> good thing to do would be to ask: Do you want to set up the network
> manually? And if not, well, no network is setup...
>
> When there's no network, no network should be used. This is to say that
> if no network was detected or configured, it makes no sense to inform
> the user that "security" could not be reached, and that kind of stuff.
I think you're right as long as the CD is a netinst one (which is able
to install a full base system without the network).
So, we probably need to change netcfg so that it skips network
configuration when DHCP fails....or so that it offers the user a way
to refuse network configuration in the case the CD is a netinst
(businesscard CD *need* working network)
We also need, in base-config, to just added commented entries for
security updates if the network has not been setup.
>
> Partition Manager
> =================
>
> About the partitioning system, well, it's pretty awful, but anyway, I
> think the "multi-user" setup is not properly named... Maybe "Safe
> Partitions", or "Advanced Partition Separation", or something.
> Or, if you really mean to call it "multi-user" because of the size of
> the /home, it would be nice to have a "Storage server" flavor, with a
> big /var and a small /home.
Alll these are great ideas, imho, so turning them into bugs against partman-auto.
> Also, about this multi-user flavor, I was using a 40GB drive, and my /
> was assigned 148Mb. This is not very wise, since we are having /etc,
> /boot, /root, /bin, /sbin and /lib in this partition... I would say
> maybe 256Mb would be wiser.
Hmm, well, I'm not sure the calculation process may be made smart
enough for this. The very minimum size is 50MB. I, myself, am used to
quite small root partitions, being born to Linux in those days a 20MB
hard disk was enough for a whole system..:-)
>
> Of course, you already know that the design of this debconf dialogs is
> difficult to read. I have a couple of suggestions to make it a little
> bit better:
> * Please add GO buttons in all (or almost all) the screens. Instead
> of an option "Finish and proceed" that's mixed up with the other
> options.
> * Please don't make the user have to type the name of the unit (like
> GB or MB), it's error prone and confusing. A sign saying "enter the
> value in MB" or something would be better.
> * The Tamagotchi is confusing and scaring. It took me a long time to
> find out that there was HELP about the meaning of those. I think
> the HELP button should be just in the middle of the Back button and
> the OK button I'm asking for in the first point.
> * "Guided partitioning" should be "Restart with guided partitioning".
We hit a very serious point here. Margarita, Joey and I had a really
interesting discussion about these design issues (I wish there is one
debconf per month)....
For sure, the current partman main menu is confusing with options both
at top and bottom of the screen (Steve Langasek also agreed on this).
So, the first thing to do seems gathering all these at the bottom of
the screen together.
The rest of the design problems are more tricky because we use debconf
"select" template for something is hasn't be designed for (be a kind
of menu).
As this is a select, one choice is surely to be choen in this menu for
doing some action, hence the "Proceed...." choice. We should maybe add
again an "OK" button for doing the same thing.
> Countries, Localization and Stuff
> =================================
>
> The second question of the installer is the keyboard selection. This is
This is indeed the third but Margarita choosed the "en_ES" entry (BTW,
why didn't you choose the "en_AR"?), so the countrychooser step was skipped.
> a good improvement over the previous installation that just assumed the
> keyboard. But I've noticed that in the English installation, keyboards
> DO have names, while in the Spanish installation, keyboards are
> identified by the layout name (la, es, br, etc). In non of the cases is
> there an alphabetical order. I think they SHOULD be in alph. order.
The keyboard having just codes in spanish is because the spanish
translation for console-data was not complete in the image you
used. It should be now (but it seems some strange things happened to
console-data recently).
About the sorting issue : well, this is a common issue and well known
limitation of debconf and cdebconf : translated choices are not sorted
alphabetically according to the translated name but according to the
original name (in console-data, this is the keyboard code).
For debconf, this is #169868 which even Denis Barbier couldn't find a
way to fix....
For cdebconf, we need to keep track of this, hence yet another
BR...:-)
> When selecting the timezone, I selected "America", and then I had a long
> list of cities... It would be nice to have "America" divided by
> countries... I know this means adding a new debconf screen and new names
> to translate, but it's really not nice to be looking for the city I'm in
> the middle of a mess of cities of the whole continent.
This is mostly a consequence of the initial choice of en_ES while you
indeed are in South America. I you don't mind, I won't turn this into
a bug as the new languagechooser/countrychooser will be more likely to
lead you into choosing Spanish first, then Argentina (or Brasil) and
thus, the timezone selection will already be pre-seeded with the
correct value.
> Tasksel and Aptitude
> ====================
>
> There's no going "back" from Tasksel... I selected tasksel only to see
> which tasks I had available, but thinking of using aptitude to do the
> proper install, and then I had no back button. Just finish or cancel.
And Yet Another bug report....:-)
I believe that the latest netcfg gives the user the option
to refrain from configuring the interface if the initial
DHCP attempt fails.
Template: netcfg/dhcp_retry
Type: select
__Choices: Retry network autoconfiguration, Retry network
autoconfiguration with a DHCP hostname, Configure network manually,
${wifireconf}, Do not configure the network at this time
Default: Configure network manually
_Description: Network configuration method:
Network autoconfiguration failed. This may be due to a slow DHCP
server on the network, so you may want to retry. If your network does
not use DHCP for autoconfiguration, you can instead configure it
manually. Also, some DHCP servers need a specific DHCP hostname, so
you can choose to enter such a hostname before retrying DHCP.
Notice the "Do not configure the network at this time" option.
Does that adequately address issue #251412?
--
Thomas Hood
Hola Thomas Hood!
> I believe that the latest netcfg gives the user the option
> to refrain from configuring the interface if the initial
> DHCP attempt fails.
>
> Notice the "Do not configure the network at this time" option.
>
> Does that adequately address issue #251412?
Indeed. You can close the bug.
Has this been passed to the sarge daily images, yet?
Love,
Marga
On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 02:10, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> Indeed. You can close the bug.
OK.
> Has this been passed to the sarge daily images, yet?
I believe so.
--
Thomas
Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained
from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.