Re: [vox] Ponder, ponder... perhaps a silly notion

[Rusty Minden <clownsinc@attbi.coMAPSm>]

I used Libranet and liked it back in the 1.9.2 release. I have to 
say why not just use Debian and if you like the Libranet tools 
add libranet to your apt.sources list. I did and set up sound 
using it :-)

The next IF would be a good place to bring your computer to have 
Debian installed :-)

Rusty


On Wednesday 08 January 2003 11:56 pm, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Henry House (hajhouse@houseag.com):
> > What about LibraNet? A copy for the library (donated by the
> > LibraNet company) arrived yesterday. I have not tried an
> > installation yet, but the promise of a Debian-compatible
> > system with easy hardware autodetection during install is
> > very appealing.
>
> I like the _beta_ of that Libranet version a great deal,
> having retrieved the ISOs while it was still freely available
> on the Net. (I've not tried the subsequent release version,
> which is available only in a retail boxed set, of which the
> library obviously just received a copy.)  I gave Pete copies
> of the ISOs, for the beta.
>
> Some people don't like the non-graphical (ncurses-based)
> installer, ditto the fact that it scrolls past you huge
> amounts of information as it does "dpkg -i" and "dpkg
> --configure" on each package installed. Other installers (PGI,
> Xandros) are all-GUI and have less of the scrolling-messages
> displays that apparently bother some of the more skittish
> desktop users.
>
> Note#1:  Knoppix's hardware autodetection during bootup (and
> thus during optional installation to HD) is difficult to beat.
>
> Note#2:  Hardware autodetection during installation is very
> much a mixed blessing, which is possibly why the plain-vanilla
> one for Debian doesn't do much of it without the user's
> involvement.  The biggest problem is that aggressive
> autoprobing can cause installers to seize up, with the result
> that some distributions are (avoidably) not installable on
> some systems.  To pick a hypothetical example, suppose an
> installer were to always autoprobe for my on-board sound
> chipset, and that the chipset happened to react badly and
> cause seize-ups.  (This _sort_ of thing does happen, though my
> specific example is invented.)  In that case, having automatic
> autoprobe during installation would be a bad thing.
>
> The aim of the vanilla-Debian installer[1] is to support
> enough of your hardware to complete installation on the
> broadest possible range of hardware, using the widest possible
> choice of installation methods -- floppy, ftp, http, NFS,
> PLIP/laplink, SLIP/serial, ZIP drive, CD-ROM, tftp/bootp, or
> files prepositioned on a hard drive partition.  _After_ that
> necessary first step, there are extensive Debian packages for
> hardware autodetection.  Quoting my Debian tips file:
>
>
> Hardware-recognition (and related) packages:
>
> discover
>   hardware identification system (thank you, Progeny Systems,
> Inc.) mdetect
>   mouse device autodetection tool
> read-edid
>   hardware information-gathering tool for VESA PnP monitors
> sndconfig
>   sound configuration (thank you, Red Hat Software, Inc.)
> hotplug
>   USB/PCI device hotplugging support, and network autoconfig
> nictools-nopci
>   Diagnostic tools for many non-PCI ethernet cards
> nictools-pci
>   Diagnostic tools for many PCI ethernet cards
> mii-diag
>   A little tool to manipulate network cards
>
> Don't forget that lspci and pnpdump will list installed PCI
> and ISApnp devices, respectively.
>
>
> But, people who nonetheless honestly want Debian via an
> installer with hardware autoprobing during installation have
> lots of options:  Xandros Desktop OS and Knoppix are the ones
> that come to mind, aside from Libranet.
>
> [1] Which comes with several different kernel/driver sets, to
> let the user either have the widest possible driver support or
> some subset of those to finesse around problem hardware
> components that seize up other installers.

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