Debian's daunting installation

Debian. Neophytes run for their lives at the very mention of the distribution. This is hardcore stuff -- the install from hell. You must have Biblical familiarity with every IRQ and device on your system to even dream of installing Debian. Better to stick with Red Hat, SuSE, TurboLinux, or Caldera than to risk stubbing your ego on a Debian install.

Hey, a lot of people think that. When I saw the boxes of Debian GNU/Linux that VA Linux was giving away at the LinuxWorld Expo, I decided it was a challenge I could no longer ignore. Of course, I wasn't sure if I would ever write about the experience -- especially if I failed. But here it is, the story of one man's rite of passage and the toughest install Linux has to offer.

I slid the removable IDE drive containing SuSE 6.4 and Soldier of Fortune from my system, then replaced it with a brand new 20-GB Fujitsu. I was as ready as possible; I knew the hardware fairly well, having installed SuSE and Red Hat multiple times on that same box over the past few months. I changed the BIOS to boot from the CD and began my journey to the Promised Land.

LinuxWorld.com links LinuxWorld.com home Best of LinuxWorld.com The Legacy Files The Penguin Brief Version Control Linux links Linux forums

I thought it strange that the first screen to appear following the boot announced, "This is the Debian Rescue Floppy." But I ignored that and pressed onward. I selected Color as the type of display, and qwerty/us as the keyboard. It would take more than qwerty/dvorak to throw this hound off the scent.

Then it was time to hack the new hard drive. I created a 128-MB swap partition and gave the rest to root. I answered yes to the "Check for Bad Block" query, but regretted that decision; it takes a long time to check a 20-GB drive. It eventually completed, though.

Hey, maybe this wasn't going to be so tough after all. After saying "yes" when asked if I wanted to mount /dev/hda2 as root, I got into the nuts and bolts of the installation. First, I was asked to choose a source for the kernel and modules; naturally, I chose CD-ROM. Then it asked what type of CD interface I had, and presented me with a long list of possibilities. I chose the ATAPI (IDE) hdb option, which the installer said was the second drive on the primary IDE controller. I wondered why the installer didn't already know what my CD interface was, since it had been reading from it for several minutes.

The installer then asked me to enter the path where the Debian archive resides. Luckily, it suggested the default of /debian and I guessed that was it. Then it asked me to either select the Archive path from a list of choices or enter it manually. When I chose the list option, it searched the CD for the file; the results comprised the list I had to choose from. Luckily (since I was shooting in the dark), the search returned only one item, so I was confident I would pick the right one.

Then came the fatal step: Configure Device Driver Modules. The installer asked me to go through several categories, indicate which modules my system required, and configure the modules if necessary. The types of modules were block, cdrom, fs, ipv4, misc, and net. I dutifully went through each category, often unsure of whether I needed something, especially modules like ip_masq_cuseeme and ip_masq_quake. I actually needed only one module (it was from the net category): a driver for my network interface card. That was the good news. The bad news: it wasn't there.

I have an RTL8139 Ethernet card. It is supported by Debian -- at least, the good folks on the #debian channel on irc.openprojects.net told me it is supported by the 2.2.17 release. Unfortunately, the CD was for 2.2.12 and there wasn't an RTL8139 driver in sight. This wouldn't be a critical failure if I had a floppy drive in the box, but I don't. Without either Ethernet or sneakernet, I was up the creek without a driver.

But I forged ahead relentlessly. Next I had to configure the network; nothing mystical or unusual. I just had to know my IP address, network mask, broadcast address, gateway address, and DNS address, as in most Linux distributions.

Next came the installation of the base system. The installer asked the same questions about the source of the installation and the type of CD-ROM. I still wondered why it didn't already know this. Again, it asked me to either choose from a list or manually enter the location of a file needed to install the base. Again, I chose list; it searched the CD, found the proper file, presented the path to it as my only choice in the list, and all was well.

Then came the final tweak before rebooting: configuring the base system. Debian tried to browbeat me into using GMT, but I resisted and told it the hardware was set to my local time zone. Did I want to make Debian bootable from the hard drive? Yes, and putting the MBR on /dev/hda was just hunky-dory with me. I did skip the final step, making a boot floppy, since I don't have a floppy drive. Then it was time to boot from the installed system.

Immediately after the first boot, Debian asked me to set the root password. It also set up a normal user account for me and shadowed the password file. Noting that I had no need for PCMCIA, it asked if I wanted support for it removed. It was one of the few signs of intelligence I detected during the install. I said yes.

Then came the fun stuff (or so I thought): selecting the actual packages to install. I chose the work_std package, which builds a typical workstation installation. The installer complained about being unable to find a file it needed for the package installation, and it gave me the choice of telling it to scan for the file or simply specifying none. Since I had been lucky with the list option twice before, I felt I could safely go with Scan. Wrong. Nothing was installed; the two subsequent scripts in this section of the install promptly barfed when they ran. The second time through I chose None, and it flew right through the rest of the package installation.

A seemingly endless scrolling console appeared as the installer tuned, tweaked, and "byte compiled" various bits and pieces. At apparently random times, it would stop to ask a question. I often had no idea what the correct response was, and simply chose the default. My favorite question was about gpm, the mouse event server. Without even cracking a smile, Debian said:

Current configuration: -m /dev/ttyS0 -t ms -l "a-zA-Z0-9_.:~/\300-\ 326\330-\360\370-\377"

Then it blandly asked me, Do you want to change anything (Y/n)?

After I stopped laughing, the answer came to me in a flash. But I didn't see a way to opt out of the Debian install and pick another distribution. The scrolling resumed. The installer asked me half a dozen times which window manager I wanted as my default; it also did this for X server. I never changed my answers; I guess Debian just wasn't sure that I was sure about the install. That was the second time I noticed intelligence in the installer.

Debian is now "installed" on my test box. I can't use or even configure the mouse. I can't connect to the Net -- not even to the server sitting just inches from the Debian box. And of course, I can't run X. I'm sure I could resolve each and every one of those issues and install Debian correctly. But I'm not sure that I want to.

I know. I can't be critical of Debian because it is an all-volunteer effort and all of the software used is pure, free, and unfettered. Sure, installing it may be a little harder than learning to speak fluent Manchurian in three weeks of summer school, but hey, it's no problem for a real geek, right?

Wrong. The Debian install sucks. This distribution is supposed to be the poster child for free software; it should be on an FBI Most Wanted poster. It's horrible. It is the worst OS install I've ever seen. It may be great once it's installed, and APT may be the world's finest tool for adding and upgrading applications, patching the kernel, and keeping up with security issues. But I can't say -- I can't get that far.

When I returned to the #debian channel on IRC and sheepishly observed that the Debian install was horrible, a regular told me I should punch the guy who forced me to use it. I agree that it would be less painful. If the Debian team wants to keep its pure, unsullied distribution alive, I believe it needs a 12-step program to get past the denial and learn about things like ease of use and installation. A good example to follow would be that of the GNOME project, where developers actually want people to use the software they've created. Free software isn't really free when the barrier to its use is as high as Debian's.

Resources

• Debian homepage:
  http://www.debian.org
• #debian on IRC:
  http://irc.openprojects.net