[brainout]

Since I was finally able to get Fedora 17 on a stick by using its install program, but specifying the stick, it unfortunately seemed a good idea to try the same with Debian. That was 10am yesterday. All seemed to go smoothly, until they asked whether I wanted to install any other DVDs besides the Linux install, or just reboot. I opted for the latter.

Then Debian took me down the rabbit hole with Alice, insisting on getting packages over which I had NO choice whatsoever.. FOR THE NEXT 15 HOURS. Ending with, a failed installation, because they couldn't detect the very pen drive to which they'd been installing for those 15 hours. The LAST thing they do is install grub? What kind of insanity is this? There was no option to cancel, or pause, or anything. I should have just pulled the plug on the Ethernet.

NEVER IN YOUR LIFETIME, BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET DURING A DEBIAN INSTALL. If Debian gets it this wrong, then the others can't be better.

I happen to have the DVDs, so all is not lost. But this is one of many reasons why Linux doesn't play in prime time. Free is used as an excuse to be slovenly. But if people want donations, which are really sales, then they have to be professional. Thoughtlessness like the installer, will not win customers.

Free is usually the most expensive and the least workable. Never buy 'free'. You don't work for free, so nothing else works, if it's free, either.

[linuxrants7xpg]

brainout, on 20 February 2013 - 12:19 AM, said:

Since I was finally able to get Fedora 17 on a stick by using its install program, but specifying the stick, it unfortunately seemed a good idea to try the same with Debian. That was 10am yesterday. All seemed to go smoothly, until they asked whether I wanted to install any other DVDs besides the Linux install, or just reboot. I opted for the latter.

Then Debian took me down the rabbit hole with Alice, insisting on getting packages over which I had NO choice whatsoever.. FOR THE NEXT 15 HOURS. Ending with, a failed installation, because they couldn't detect the very pen drive to which they'd been installing for those 15 hours. The LAST thing they do is install grub? What kind of insanity is this? There was no option to cancel, or pause, or anything. I should have just pulled the plug on the Ethernet.

NEVER IN YOUR LIFETIME, BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET DURING A DEBIAN INSTALL. If Debian gets it this wrong, then the others can't be better.

I happen to have the DVDs, so all is not lost. But this is one of many reasons why Linux doesn't play in prime time. Free is used as an excuse to be slovenly. But if people want donations, which are really sales, then they have to be professional. Thoughtlessness like the installer, will not win customers.

Free is usually the most expensive and the least workable. Never buy 'free'. You don't work for free, so nothing else works, if it's free, either.

If you were actually doing the install to a real computer I would agree that something is wrong, but it looks like you're still insisting on trying to use a usb key as a hard drive. Sorry, the logic that Linux isn't ready for prime time because it sometimes has difficulties doing what other OSs that are already prime time don't do just doesn't hold up for me.

[waldojim]

linuxrants7xpg, on 20 February 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

If you were actually doing the install to a real computer I would agree that something is wrong, but it looks like you're still insisting on trying to use a usb key as a hard drive. Sorry, the logic that Linux isn't ready for prime time because it sometimes has difficulties doing what other OSs that are already prime time don't do just doesn't hold up for me.

And once more, we are in agreement. Though, I am at a loss as to the issue here.

Linux installs to USB drives like any other hard drive for me. It takes nothing special, apart from working hardware.