debian-installer is the installation system that sarge is going to use when it is released. boot-floppies, its predecessor for woody, is dead and buried.
Currently broken things
?AlmostNoPartitioningTool
?NoMultipleArchitectureSupport, only i386, alpha and powerpc.
- Firewire discs, this includes FW CD-ROMS.
- discover2, that is new version of discover hardware.
- check the reduced HW list.
- Shouldn't complain about not having a floppy drive when it isn't necessary.
- Shouldn't complain about missing IDE hardware. Not all machines use IDE.
- Support IDE-Raid card.
- Verify that the USB keyboard works. ( So tell us! )
Read more in the ?DebianInstallerSecondStatusreport.
How you can help
Code is a great way to contribute. Testing is pretty good too. Now, code that comes with tests: that's the best. Follow ?DebianInstallerBuild instructions.
Ideas
InstallOnDemand, UninstallOnExpiry, ?RevertingBackToNormalTextMode, DebianUserModels
Make debconf and config4gnu work together and use it for ConfigurationHandling issues allready during installation as well as in the running system. Config4gnu is the long awaited universal engine, back- and frontend framework to handle original and authoritative standard configuration files. The guys that started the project have really thought it through after having considered allready existing (sub-optimal) solutions. http://config4gnu.sourceforge.net
?InternetBootInstaller
Important addresses
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/d-i/ -- DebianInstaller in alioth, including the CVS repository
aph@debian.org -- can get you CVS commit access
http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/ is the mailing list.
tsauter@debian.org -- ["PowerPC"] fella..
For booting debian-installer floppy images over network see:
- ["DebianInstallerBootpTFTP"] for most architectures
?DebianInstallerMknbi for IBM PC
?DebianInstallerMknbiDos for IBM PC
?DebianInstallerConcepts
Note that this page will constantly evolve as the installer progresses. If there's something on it you know is wrong, fix it.
Is the DebianInstaller project not going to use PGI b/c it only works for i386 ? - PGI works not only in i386 but in other architectures, like ["IA64"], too - I've read this in PGI documentation ( http://www.progeny.com/products/pgi/guide.html#id2781733 ):
PGI is architecture-independent and has been designed for portability. In its first release, PGI supports the Intel x86 and IA-64 architectures. Hooks are in place for developers on other architectures to add support for their platforms without having to make infrastructural changes to PGI.
Is the DebianInstaller going to graphical in nature?
The DebianInstaller will not be graphical by nature, but modularity is a key in his design. It would allow to use different kinds of frontends, of which graphical one(s).
Why can't the installation detect to see if the machine being installed is supported by PGI, if so, use pgi, if not, use a non-graphical gui?
comments about how Debian is really not ready for the inexpert user, and once again we'll deserve them.