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What could your distro learn from another distro?
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this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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If you want Debian but user-friendly, just use Mint, Debian is easy enough to install. It's like asking Gentoo or Arch to drop a easy installer, it would break the point of using it.
Gentoo and Arch do have easy installers (Arch via the Arch install script, Gentoo... Well, they provide stage 3 already built, a genkernel option, and even binary distribution now, which greatly simplifies the process)
Arch install is not official and it's not that stable, and what's the point of using Gentoo if you don't use the main reason to use it ?
Honestly, that one had me scratching my head too, I doubt I'd ever use the precompiled binaries on Gentoo myself
The stage 3 tarballs and genkernel, though, make an install that could take a week or more down to a few hours; having successfully built a system from a stage 1 with customized kernel, that's not an experience I feel a burning desire to go through again
It's a way to do, and yes it's not made for everyone. Currently im using vanilla Arch but i understand how great source installed Gentoo is
Would it detract from Debian if it had an installer which was more intuitive to new users? As long as they don't remove the options to configure, I see no harm, only benefits. To me, the thing about Debian is that it's a community. If a distro wants to be elitistic, sure, that's up to them, but I don't see Debian having that goal.
There's already an gui installer on Debian, what do you want ? The system to install himself without asking for your preferences ?
I don't know. It's difficult for me to answer because I'm so used to the Debian installer. But, for some reason the general opinion is that it's difficult for many compared to some other distros.
More difficult because Debian rely more on the terminal than mint. The terminal is not a accessorie like on Windows, it's part of basics Linux uses. In my opinion it's important to learn how to be familiar with
I think text based interfaces is a strength of unix-like systems, valuable tools to be used when the situation calls for it. It might be a lot to ask of new users to be familiar with terminals before they have even installed the system though. If Mint can get the same result with a GUI, I see no reason why Debian can't offer that option too, and let users discover bash and TUI when they have a working system.
When you're beginner it's normal to not be familiar with terminal, that's why i recommend Mint as a first distro. What im saying is that We already have Mint as a beginner-friendly distro, we don't need Debian to be as simple as Mint, also they included non-free firmware in their iso it's pretty enough imo.
You could check out Spiral Linux for an "easier" installer. It has the option to use the Calamares installer from the live USB instead of Debian's default. Also comes preloaded with back port repositories and, I think, Nvidia drivers.
I like that Spiral Linux is "plain" Debian, without extra repos. What I'm thinking is more along the lines of "why is Spiral Linux needed to begin with?" Sometimes downstream distros serve a niche function that warrants its own distribution, but sometimes I feel that if upstream improved, the need wouldn't be there to begin with.