I have been using Debian on and off since Sarge and it's not as long as most people but since I can remember, the installer has always had some issues and I was wondering if you guys who use Debian religiously could answer these questions for me:

1. Difference between "Netinst" & "Business-card" besides the size being smaller? It seems like the Netinst installs two different kernels. One dated kernel to get the system up and running and then it downloads the latest one where I think the 'Business-card' ISO simply downloads the latest kernel and nothing more which seems preferred. Am I wrong?

2. After I install using "Netinst", why when I immediately perform an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' are there multiple packages to upgrade? I thought the whole point was to install fresh updated packages, no?

3. Why has nobody fixed the installer progress bar from hanging on 33%? As far as I have been using / installing Debian, the installer progress bar is always stuck on 33% & it still installs fine but never shows the user it's exact progress. I would think the developers would have resolved this after 4 years by now...

Some thoughts.

1) See the third question on this page. The net install being a slightly larger CD has room for some additional packages. Therefore the available kernal will be the one used at the time the image was made. The BC version needs to fetch all packages so will always end up with a newer version. Which ever you use, you should end up with the same kernel version once install/update has completed.

2) It's because the installer already has the base packages so doesn't need to fetch them. However, the packages on the CD (like with the kernel question above) will be dated from the time the CD image was made. Post install if you run and updated apt will check every package.

3) I haven't done a fresh install in quite some. Which progress bar are you referring to? If you mean the one during get packages then it's possible it's finished downloading the required packages but before installing apt (or more likely dpkg) is building an index. But then I'm not sure I've experienced this.

Are you installing often? Ideally you should only every need to install once.

Hope that helps.

I install Debian on a daily basis. I work for the DoD and we've got at the moment 12 tickets in for Linux servers that need to be deployed for various programs / developers. My longest standing server on Debian is my 'mail' server which is 2.5+ years old.

As for #3. It's the partitioning completion window which is always stuck at 33% and if you do a quick Google search, this is all over the place and is constantly confusing new users to Debian. It just seems to me like it's been over looked for at least 5 years or more. I can't imagine it would take years to fix something regardless if it's something petty or presentational like a partition progress bar during the installer but the installer is usually the 1st perception a user has of a distribution and seeing a bug like this makes the distribution seem unmaintained and or buggy - at least in my eyes. Obviously we all know Debian is very far from buggy or unmaintained but I can't understand why something so silly is still lingering around years later. It's not like nobody notices and yeah, it does complete partitioning eventually.

Interesting. If you're doing a lot of installs then you may wish to consider preseeding or setting up a local mirror. But I'm sure you've probably already considered that sort of thing.

Now you mention it that does sound familiar. But I can't say I've ever given it much thought. However, if you're doing daily installs I can imagine that's the sort of thing that would annoy you.

Perhaps it's worth submitting a bug report on it (I had a quick look but couldn't find anything exactly the same)

You are right:
I haven't noticed it yet.
I do installations on a regulary basis. I would say it is a no-brainer. Hitting the enter-button a few times...

Using Debian for five years and you couldn't figure out the difference between business and net installer?
daily and weekly images?
Perhaps try the docu at:
www.debian.org

Sounds very odd.

At what point during the my post did I say the installation was confusing. If you go back and read, you will see the point is there is a 5+ year lingering bug in the installer. A simple Google search shows / explains many Debian users frustrated or people who've noticed this. Nothing indicates "Oh man - that Debian installer is so hard / confusing".

I've used Debian on and off as stated above and daily and weekly images are far from the difference between the two so sounds like I've helped you learn a bit on the Debian as well through this thread. The netinst obviously installs a dated kernel and then hits the Internet for the latest kernel in the repo. The business-card ISO loads the kernel straight from the repo rather than the disk.

Sounds very odd.

My google-foo seems to be limited:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...=Google+Search


What language is that?