Paul wrote:
I also started out with SuSE, played with Red Hat, and finally gave up on RPM based distros after a nasty experience with Ark Linux.... Debian's install left a lot to be desired (damned ugly then, and it hasn't improved much since)..
That closely mirrors my experience.
However, most of the live CDs such as Knoppix & Morphix provide a
reasonably painless way to install.
Agreed, they are a great inprovement over regular debian.
Debian has done much to improve the install system, there is even a GUI replacement under development - Read "eye candy included, but still following the same ncurses based format". One saving grace is a reboot after installing a bootstrap system is no longer required.
I am notinterested in eye candy - Slack still uses a text based install but it is simple, fast and elegant.
Progeny (a.k.a. Ian Murdock) ported Red Hat's Anaconda installer over to Debian and has been providing testing/unstable CDs for some time now. Anaconda may not be to everyone's liking, but it works - I occasionally build Sarge based CDs for a few people wanting to give Debian a spin.
Indeed, I never liked Anaconda - painfully slow.
Ian