[plug] Installations-from-hell (was: ComputerBank)

[Christian]

Michael Hunt wrote:
> I'd have to agree with those that say Debian is hard to install, but
> everything else I here makes it one of the best distro out there (at least
> in my books) for ease of admin and using. Its just no good if I cant get it
> happening on the system in the first place.

Actually... I don't think Debian is hard to install...  I know a lot of
people have problems with it but I don't really see why (no offense to
those people).  I've found when coming to install each system (out of
the Linux's, I've only done Slackware, Red Hat and Debian) that it works
in a slightly different way but basically asking the same sorts of
questions.  It might take a little bit of adjustment to the way those
options are presented but that's really all IMHO.

Anyway, if you want to talk about hard to install then my recent
experiences with Solaris and OpenBSD make any Linux distro look like a
walk in the park.  After trying for several days to get Solaris to
install onto the nice partition I'd made for it on my disk, I find out
that the obscure error message ("slice extends beyond end of disk" -
it's all in the FAQs *sigh*) it gives me indicates that it won't install
onto any partition that it hasn't made.  So I delete the partition
leaving free space there and try again - it now tells me I don't have
enough space.  I figure that's because I'm installing onto a 13 GB disk
(Solaris can only handle 8 GB at a time) and it's adding up all the
space for the other partitions and they total >8GB so it thinks the disk
is full.  So I try installing it onto a partition on a 3.2GB disk.  Same
message.  I try moving the free space - at the start of the disk, at the
end, in between the other two partitions.  Same message.  I change the
IDE port the disk is on (primary/secondary, master/slave).  Same
message.  In desperation I take my Linux install off it's 1.2GB disk in
the same machine and transfer it to a partition on the 3.2 and install
Solaris on the 1.2.  Works perfectly first time.

OpenBSD was nowhere near as painful although it wasn't altogether
pleasant either, ironically for the opposite reasons to Solaris. 
Instead of Solaris' glitzy menu-based, auto-detecting wizz-bang boot
floppy (with X11 interface once you have set up your video hardware),
OpenBSD uses what is probably the worst-designed (or maybe just least
thought-out) interface I've ever had the misfortune to use.  All
text-based (not a bad thing really) but with awkward menus which seem to
almost guarantee that the information you need can't be displayed on the
same screen as the prompt (and there's no shift+pageup like in Linux). 
Then you make one change and suddenly find you need the information you
need was just removed off the screen. (Tip for anyone installing it for
the first time: write down *every* little detail - particularly
partition sector offsets).  The defaults the programs present you with
are mostly wrong and it doesn't really explain what some of them mean
and hence give you any idea what you should choose.  Menu keys are
completely inconsistent - in the fdisk program 'q' closes the program
and writes the partition table to disk while 'x' just exits without
saving, in the disklabel program (similar thing but hides additional
partitions underneath the main partition - really cool idea, Linux
should have it) 'q' quits without writing and 'x' saves then exits.  I
also found once I had made up my subpartitions and went to mkfs them
that the options I'd chosen when making the partitions weren't
appropriate (for some reason) and I had to start the install right over
again.  It never really explained why they were wrong (or even explained
what the options were - thus giving me a chance to choose a sensible
value) but thankfully it suggested alternatives (which worked, although
it still complained about something or other).  Anyway, at least the
OpenBSD installation software actually did what it claimed (unlike
Solaris) - it was just as obscure and esoteric as possible about doing
so.

I'm sure other people have installation-nightmare stories to tell...

Regards,

Christian.

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