User Feedback :: Why do I still do regular HD installs of DSL?

Quote (dwk @ Jan. 13 2007,09:03)

Quote (mikshaw @ Jan. 13 2007,08:36) dwk: You seem to have misunderstood everything you've read about frugal. I believe you But if any contributors are looking to understand why more people aren't using frugal, and even reviewers seem oblivious to it, then my case can't be that uncommon - as for me, I've been running and installing various linux distros for about 7 years, but this frugal thing is totally novel to any operating system, so any extra documentation, redundant or not, couldn't go astray imho. (the poll agrees with me ) And another thing, if I may be so bold as to venture my own opinion; I think "Frugal" is the wrong name for it. When I was looking at the intallation menu, I spent all of 30s trying to decide what the difference was between the different options. I took the literal, english definition of Frugal, and assumed that it meant some kind of frugal, minimalistic installation, maybe with bash and nothing else. (It's all very well to say that it was all spelled out in the docs - not everyone has time to read the docs for every single distro, and having a counter-intuitive name doesn't help) Perhaps if it were given a new name, like "Live Install" or "HD Protected install" or something, then there'd be a lot less less confusion. Or better still, if frugal is so good, why not just make that the default "HD install" or "new DSL-style HD install," and label the old hd install option as "traditional Debian-style HD install" or something similar suggesting its deprecated state. just my 2c.

I fully agree to that !

It's a pity the newcomer is not afforded a simple step by step guide to the most efficient way of using the latest versions of DSL (call it as you wish, but don't change names too often !)


It wouldn't be that difficult to follow I assume


And we would be able after that to make some changes according to our peculiar situation

Quote (jrev @ Feb. 12 2007,04:54)

It's a pity the newcomer is not afforded a simple step by step guide to the most efficient way of using the latest versions of DSL (call it as you wish, but don't change names too often !)

DWK suggested reviewers are oblivious to frugal installation. Every article/review I've read about DSL has noted what frugal installation is and what its benefits are.

The frugal install concept isn't novel at all, but my saying that assumes you have the same familiarity with the concept of installing and booting from an ISO image installed on a hard drive or thumbdrive. I immediately thought "frugal" was close enough to the Knoppix "poor man" that people would get it if they were familiar with Knoppix since it's the live CD most people are familiar with. Regardless, I certainly knew what frugal install was when I read the documentation.

I think the problem is, most people burn the ISO, immediately pop it in, see that it works, and never bother reading the documentation before they start making system changes (installation). Since they don't bother reading, they make their own presumptions like DWK did and get all trigger happy and commence to doing things they should have a better idea about before they do a thing.

Presumptions about what people do or don't understand don't matter. They should always read the available documentation from the website. There's sufficient detail about the differences between frugal and hd installs available on the site. The developers and other DSL users can't make anyone read the available documentation. That's the user's own responsibility. It's not the developers' or community's "problem" when people aren't willing to read the documentation to understand their options and what they actually mean.

Accordingly, you can call it ISO-install, image-install, poor-man's install, DSL concept install, frugal install, or anything you want but it won't make any difference unless someone actually bothers to read the documentation to understand what it means and what the pros and cons are. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the trigger happy users.