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Re: fresh install questions


* Chris Carlson (2004-06-25 19:03 +0200)
> I noticed you said installing "everything" was not a good idea.  Yet the
> web page suggest it if you want all the products.

Yes, sure if you /really/ want everything, then you should install 
everything. But believe me, someone who opens his passwd file with 
/Notepad/ surely doesn't want everything (for instance 
zsh/bash/tcsh/pdksh as shells, python/perl/ruby as scripting 
languages). There so many packages that even I don't know by name nor 
what they actually /do/.

It's simply one question: what do I want to do and which packages do I 
need for that?

> Also, I've found that when I go through the products and pick and
> choose, 100% of the time nothing installs because there's some
> problem with the server (some connection times out).

That's correct, too. When you choose your packages for too long (ten 
minutes or so - which is reasonable regarding the amout of packages) a 
timeout occurs on most servers. But this wouldn't be a problem if 
setup.exe wouldn't forget your choices on going back in the 
"assistant".

I solve this problem by choosing as fast as possible and by clicking 
"install" after every three categories I chose (and starting the setup 
again after that). Of course this is just a workaround for the faulty 
design of setup.exe.

> Yet I never have a connection problem when I ask for everything or
> the default.  Also note, it happens on every server I've tried, yet
> I can go back to the servers and ask for everything or the default
> and it downloads fine.
 
> I have yet to figure out how to download anything other than the default
> or everything.

See above: choose quickly and start setup multiple times. Another 
approach would be to /download/ everything and then to choose your 
packages because there's no timeout on your local harddisk. On the 
other hand it doesn't make sense to download (or install) so many 
packages that will never get installed (or used).

The best thing would be to store the selection of packages you want 
into a text file for later use with setup. This would also be useful 
because someone could make a template for his personal default install 
instead of chosing manually every time.

Let's face it: setup,exe is a simple useful tool but it sucks and 
lacks basic functionality still a lot. Remember how long it took to 
get a resizable setup.exe?!


Thorsten


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