November 15, 2003
Debian Installer
Shortly after installing Fedora, I came across an article with a first look at the new Debian installer - or "next generation" as it's referred to in the article. It's a review of the work being done on the Debian installer. Historically, Debian has always suffered from the install - although it is simple (often just requiring the user to hit Enter at the appropriate points), it never looked the part.
So, the new installer. What can I say? It's not what I'd call next generation. Take a look at how it compares to the Fedora/Redhat installer:
 |  |
| Debian installer | Fedora installer |
|---|
The screenshots show Debian and Fedora at the point where you are asked to select what language you want to install with. It's the easiest like-for-like example I could find.
I'm sorry, but if Debian is ever going to get mainstream acceptance, they need to sort this out. Command-line installs are a great fallback position, but they really need a slick, visually-appealing installer to bring themselves up-to-date.
There seem to be a number of initiatives to do this, such as GTK frontend, but that seems stalled. And as the Debian wiki says: too little, too late.
I think Debian is still one of the best operating systems for a server, as the package management is second to none. It seems to me that Debian won't be seen on the desktop for very much longer as it's being obsoleted by SuSE and Fedora/Redhat. That's worrying, because less users will inevitably reduce the quality of Debian throughout, making it less viable on the server too.
Posted by savs at November 15, 2003 3:01 PM