Take on our poll below and vote for your favorite OS installer (Javascript required).
Poll: Best OS Installer
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I know the classic BeOS installer was great in terms of ease, although not flexibility; I’ve never tried Zeta though. I’ve not installed a Redhat since 6.0 either, although that wasn’t so bad; similar for mandrake.
Beyond that, I know and don’t like the FreeBSD and Debian installers. The FreeBSD one makes it way too easy to mess up and need to restart parts of the install, imho; a typo shouldn’t be able to do that with no warning.
The only distro I’ve really installed recently is Gentoo, but I’m not nominating it for best install for some reason… hehe.
Otoh, Knoppix might be a contender; I haven’t tried the hard-disk installer of that either, but it’s pretty impressive at things like hardware detection.
I’d guess that MacOS [I know nothing about its installer] or some of the more user-friendly linux distros have the best install.
Anaconda is the best Linux installer overall (except the fact that DiskDruid is on crack and it shuffles partitions randomly when creating them, instead of creating them sequentially).
Mac OS X installer is good too. BeOS’ installer is great too.
I can’t decide between these three. Anaconda is the most powerful of the three (but still simple to use), but OSX and BeOS are even simpler.
Xandros’ installer ain’t bad either, it just doesn’t look as good.
I have.
FreeBSD and Debian installers are great and easy to use.
I think this means that nobodys installer is actually what a user would consider great. But some are good and this will show that, also the usual distro bias will shine through.
In a way, the BeOS installer was the best because it was the simplest and easiest. In other way, the Debian installer is far superior, because it let’s you install Debian on pretty much anything. You don’t even need to boot into an installer — you can install Debian from an existing Linux setup, even remotely.
Being something like a minimalist (as so using gnome and ubuntu). Idealy I think an OS installer should just dump the cd image on the HD, perhaps with intergrated partitioner but thats basically it.
Then the desktop enverioment would detect that it was the first run and run a wizzard desktop and system configuration tool. Hardware detection is also handled by the desktop env working together with the system.
> I have.
Well, sure, it’s a poll on your site. Kudos, though.
It might be interesting to have a few more non-linux things on there though; iirc, QNX has a decent installer, while Solaris’ installer, last I used it, was painful. [for some reason, I couldn’t partition from the usual cd and in English; I ended up having to use Japanese rather than English to run fdisk, then rebooted so I could install in English. Probably just a slightly corrupted disk, but …]
I don’t know about other people but I’ve only installed Red Hat and Windows XP. So it’s hard to judge which one is the best since I haven’t installed them all.
These are really small OSes, most people haven’t tried them. That’s why there is a “Other” option on the poll.
When I first read it, I assumed “good” meant ease of use (I voted for YAST). Now I’m reading comments and seeing people comment on things like ease of flexability, interface, etc. I still think YAST offers a good combination of most positive perspectives, but I’ve only tried it a few times. Anyways, interesting comments, got me thinking a bit…
Been using the /stand/sysinstall for years and I’ve never had a single problem with it. Maybe I’m just gifted or something, I don’t know but it just works. It’s a very simple installer, which gets you up and running quickly, and that’s what I like the most about it.
How any other operating systems can you install with 4-5 mouse clicks?
If you’ve tried Longhorn 4051, although it took a LONG time to boot after the install, that was pretty sleek. Nice graphics, simple, attractive.
But as is, I had to vote for Anaconda. Nothing is quite as sleek, and short, super simple installers scare me.
I’m pissed off that my NTFS is labelled Windows XP correctly, but my damn FAT32 crossover partition is always inserted into Lilo or Grub as “Windows” too, even though it’s got no OS. I’m much happier with the option of control.
> Being something like a minimalist (as so using gnome and ubuntu). Idealy I think an OS installer should just dump the cd image on the HD, perhaps with intergrated partitioner but thats basically it.
I’d argue whether that’s really minimalist. I’d like at least a “click here to dump” “click here to config”, and “cancel” button/key.
> Then the desktop enverioment would detect that it was the first run and run a wizzard desktop and system configuration tool. Hardware detection is also handled by the desktop env working together with the system.
Let the desktop environment have the option to run a config util whenever it doesn’t find its usual dotfiles, or when it has an equivalent lack of configuration. Agreed that hardware detection should be automatic, with the caveat that it needs to be easy to turn _off_; I doubt it’ll ever work exactly perfectly 100% of the time.
I’d rather have the option to configure the system at install time, as in BeOS’ installer, than be forced to do it by a wizard as soon as I boot.
wheres the option for dos? boot to a dos floppy, type in ‘sys c:’ and viola! its installed :]
anyways, as far as ease of use, I’d have to pick BeOS. Its very fast and works perfectly.
> These are really small OSes, most people haven’t tried them. That’s why there is a “Other” option on the poll.
Oops. I somehow missed that. Sorry!
I voted “Other” for the DragonFly BSD installer.
>> I voted “Other” for the DragonFly BSD installer.
Me, too!
It’s now included in FreeSBIE, too!
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.freesbie/cutoff=1132
I voted OS X, it is simple and is very fast. Gives you only a few options but really thats all you need. I really like the Archive Install feature.
Though BeOS takes a close second place for me. Windows even though I don’t really like it the installer isn’t bad, it seems to take a long time to install though.
..gentooo! *ducks*
For a simple partition layout, Mepis is the simplest, easiest Linux install I’ve ever experienced. Granted it may lack some of the flexibility that others have.
After trying it I think all cd based install disks (not net-installs) should move to a live-cd format (a cross between what the live cds currently offer & what the installation cds of Fedora & Mandrake, etc. offer).
What about Gentoo’s installer (not the Anaconda-based one that VidaLinux did)? Sure, it’s pretty much all hands-on, but you are in complete control of what it does, and Gentoo’s documentation pretty much hold your hand through the entire process, as well as explaining what each step does, so not onoly are you in total control, you learn a lot more about the inner workings of Gentoo (and this knowlegde can be applied to other GNU/Linux system Unix-like system etc.).
My two cents…
Where are the QNX Neutrino, OS/400, and Plan-9 options?
QNX 6. (Some might say Neutrino, but that is really supposed to refer to the kernel. Although even people who work at QSSL call the OS Neutrino sometimes).
I think zhe installer M$ is planning for Longhorn will be pretty much that what I understand as a good installer: copy some kind of image to HD and do a hardware detection and a bit customization afterwards.
But for now, I would say Anaconda is the best installer. I’ve tried it in Fedora; nice graphics, not too much options and relatively fast.
Knoppix install is the best.
The BeOS and MacOS Installer are good, but they just install the OS but Knoppix installs the OS + all programms you need
It’s really simpler than Windows’ installer
My vote goes to the BeOS/Zeta installer, no doubt about that. And yes, I have also tried practically all of these. Mac OS X’ installer has a resemblance with the BeOS/Zeta one, so that one also ends up high on my list.
I was doubting a little bit whether or not to choose the QNX Neutrino installer (other), because that installation is also extremely easy and fast. The bad thing is, though, that that one is not graphical and therefore not good enough.
As for Linux installations: I prefer the one from Mandrake. It was the first Linux installer I ever tried and thereofre I am very used to it. And I like the extensive partitioning tool included.
OpenBSD has by far the best installer I’ve ever used. It is extremely simply to use, yet still maintains that level of configurablility that the experienced user wants.
Because it’s not an installer…?
Come on. I like Gentoo but I can make the difference between an installation document and an installer.
you can’t get better than OSX’s installer.
BeOS would have been considered 1st but it has a nasty partition utility with plenty of drawbacks.
Nobody said anything about Mandrake’s installer, but imho its much better than anaconda. The perfect combitation of power and simpliness. And its partitioner…
I like Be’s partition utility. Explain these drawbacks please.
missing voting option eComstation 1.2 *g*
Windows XP is probably the easiest
Here’s my ranking of my favorites, based on server installs:
1. FreeBSD – possibly the easiest and fastest of all.
Partitioning is a breeze, and it only asks a few questions.
Minimum install footprint is only at abt 100M (4.10).
2. Debian – In my opinion, its quite easy, but that’s me. I like
the old d-i with cfdisk than the new one with a sort of graphical/ncurses
parted.
3. OpenBSD – Also very simple IF you read and understand the docs.
Once you do it twice, you got it covered.
4. Slackware – Minimum install is as easy as any. Just takes a little longer
if your doing it the first time and would like to select packages, especially if you
haven’t figured out package dependencies. I find the ‘menu’ option the easiest way.
5. NetBSD – Feels like a cross between OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Just take a
moment to study the partitioning program and its all easy afterwards.
6. Dragonfly – Pretty easy, a bit raw though, but very easy. Partitioning feels
like the new d-i, but faster to go through.
7. Anaconda – This is the future of installation. I have nothing it. I just prefer
text based ones.
IMHO Slackware’s installer is the best to me, may not be the most user friendly for the clueless but it works for me…
Although Mac OS X is extremely smooth and simple, if you are an advanced user, it’s all too easy to miss custom installation options. And if you ever change your mind later, you cannot easily install or uninstall features.
chown -R netbsd_installer *_installer
better yet
chPWN -R netbsd_installer *_installer
The _new_ debian installer rocks! I’ve used it on X86, Sparc and PPC without issue. It’s great!
lol. I’ve tried to install it three times, no good. WTF are you supposed to do to partition? What does it mean by creating a “disklabel”? Why did it delete my hard disk when I tried to make one?
Who really cares? its not like any single vendor is going to abandon their installer for another. Kind of an inane poll if you ask me.
Ubuntu: extremely simple and fast, somehow similar to Slack but easier.
Anaconda has a really good balance of power and simplicty.
It’s weird to have OS X and Windows on the same poll as Linux installers, since they have completely different requirements. For example, you won’t be doing much partitioning in either, nor package selection (only a tiny bit in OS X). Having said that, OS X’s installer is so superior to Windows that it’s not even funny.
Of course Eugenia’s tried them all, she runs a site called “OSnews”!!!
The *BSD’s prepare your drives in a different way than Linux.
BSD makes a single BSD partition and then ‘slices’ that up into smaller chunks. These chunks are where you mount the filesystem. In order for *BSD to know w/c slice is w/c, you have to give them ‘disklabels’.
Best install distro:(opinion me)Slackware,Debian,Gentoo!and…FreeBSD & Solaris!!!
I have installed Windows, Redhat, Mandrake, BeOs and Debian and FreeBsd for years.
FreeBsd does all the necessary checks before installing, whereas others tend to crash if preconditions are not ok on the machine.
Ex :
– trying to install on a too small partitions ==> crash the partition
– trying to install from 4 CDs with the third that cannot be read==> Crash of the install
{well, I have little luck with installations)
– … Partition annihilated, No possible reboot, …
Hopefully, we still have a reset button and a bootable floppy !
olive
How any other operating systems can you install with 4-5 mouse clicks?”
With SUSE’s YAST I can install in 2 mouse clicks. One to say install and one to say yes to a warning about deleting partitions. Of course I never do an install like that because I wan’t to configure the packages to my liking and I usually need to change my timezone, but that could all be done after the install.
Simple and to the point. It gets my vote.
What about OpenBSD and Slackware?
Hemm … What is good about The installer of WindowsXP ?? Why do some people vote for that one ? Can someone find some arguments for it ?
it’s …
* ugly
* slow
* not flexibale
* sometimes you have no idea, what is happening.
beos get my vote, yes it’s not a bell and wistle installer but it goes to the point. It sure can be improved, like suporting instalation from network and allow instalation on a bottable cd or any other volume.
Another thing i would like is when an installation occur from a boot CD we would not have to reboot, all would be “hook” back to the HD instalation.
Honorable mention for amiga OS 3.0
I don’t know how recently you tried Mandrake, but I’m fairly sure it has a free space check now, and it *definitely* offers to skip packages and continue the installation if you’re missing a CD, or the CD is corrupt, or whatever.
I actually prefer the Red Hat over the MacOS X, although they indeed are both very good. No unnecessary questions, always comprehensible, but still enough options for the power user.
that would be almost technically feasible with most current distros; the only real remaining problem is that distros tend to have a separate installation kernel with some specific differences from the general purpose kernel. If these were merged, most distros could have a “no reboot” install.
Hmmm. I really like FreeBSD’s installer.Coming from Linux, it was different, but not less simple. I also like Arch’s and Slackware’s installer. Simple and fast. I cannot comment on the new d-i, because it had some serious issues with dhcp on my system. Yast was also very nice, but tends to be somewhat slow.
Installers I don’t like: old debian, gentoo, windows 9x.
Guess I’ll have to make up my mind about this before I vote.
Xandros is by far the best OS installer. Way better than Windows. I haven’t got a clue why Fedora is rated so high. It’s o.k but far from the best. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to many questions.
Xandros asks the least amount of questions and is easy to use. Windows is a close 2nd place with all others taking a very distant 3rd or further place.
I don’t know mac os x installer but linux installers are a *lot* better these days….they’re with no doubt much better than any windows installer. Windows installer overwrites your MBR without even asking (not even an “advanced” button) and the partitioning stage is in text mode, not graphics (and partitioning is IMHO the _one_ step where graphics have sense – for the rest debian-like installers are ok)
Note that we’re missing a installer – dragonfly’s installer. Take a look at http://www.bsdinstaller.org
how can you not vote for windows..
it’s so easy, you don’t even have to install it!!
</joke>
… in terms of too simple, you have admit, 3 clicks and a game couple games of tetris later that gives you a pretty full featured KDE Distro. Even Grandma can do it
I enjoy debian’s installer. It’s powerfull and has improved quite a bit. Gentoo’s is also nice for the control it gives you, though you want to be careful of what you do with it.
As far as my worst experience, though, it would be Windows XP. To put it simply they make the installer too easy. To the point where they try to stop you from installing it certain ways. Due to their idiotic installer it took me 5 tries to set it up the way I wanted. Now that’s easy…
It took you 5 tries to get xp installed the way you wanted it? What in the heck were you trying to do? The xp installer seems idiot proof. and if you goof something (I dont know how..) you can fix it after windows is booted. unless its sometthing like you loaded it on the wrong partition.
Classic AmigaOS… several modes to choose from depending on user experience, and it´s more or less a disk copying procedure 🙂
Do we vote for the easiest (Xandros) or the most powerful (Linux From Scratch) installer…?
I would prefer a powerful installer that lets me configure things like multibooting and nondestructive partition resizing (etc.), reliably, fast and relatively easily. But I do not prefer something like Gentoo, LFS, CRUX or Rubyx, not something unnecessarily difficult.
A good usability rule for OS installers could be that a relatively competent user of that particular OS should also be able to install the OS without following or even reading a manual outside of the integrated guidance of the installer. But having enough features (so not simplifying the installer too much), is important for usability too.
any installer that genuinely lets me have a very basic install is great. that includes netbsd (install sets which do’t include x11). its quite hard to install minimal linuxn ow without perl or X being install or some graphical related libs. but people do want to do it. remember freebsd wanting to remove perl dependencies in its base system. good stuff.
Of all the options, I’ve tried BeOS/Zeta, FreeBSD, OS X, RH/Fedora Anaconda, Debian (both the old one and the new D-I for Sarge), and all the Windows installers.
Voting for any of the Windows installers is a joke. They’re far from flexible, and not very easy to use. For instance, no Windows will allow installation to a logical partition. And if you for some reason only have logical partitions on the drive, you’re f*cked because the installer’s partitioning program won’t let you delete a logical partition and recreate it as a primary partition — you have to erase the whole extended partition. So you have to use other apps to partition the drive. BeOS/Zeta’s partitioner isn’t quite as bad, but the UI is worse than plain fdisk — quite an accomplishment for a graphical app.
OS X is shiny and good looking, but nothing really special. It is quite polished, though. It works just like it should on a Mac — not very flexible, but it does install Mac OS on a Mac.
Of the Linux installers, Anaconda is far more user friendly than Debian, so it gets my vote. It’s flexible and powerful, yet shouldn’t scare anyone off. FreeBSD’s installer is also quite powerful, but it’s quite confusing, and not only to newbies. It’s not always easy to understand whether you partitioned or formatted the drive, etc., and if you hit a mirror that lacks your particular version of FreeBSD, you have to choose the packages again, and so on. Sysinstall just doesn’t seem very fault tolerant. Oh, and if you change your config with sysinstall later, it will clutter your rc-files.
A vote for Anaconda from this Debian user.
A:> SYS C:
A:> C:
C:> _
Can’t get much simpler than that :>
What about Slackware installer……..???
Easy, strait forward from a geeks way of looking (right)
Ugly!!! But gets the job done, deps no…. I kinda like it that way
I have no ideal where the Mepis installer came from are what it is but think anyone would have no trouble ,even if was the first O/S of you ever installed and its fast enough for the amount it install,s.Other than installing ever thing (and thats easy to fix with Synaptic).I,d think a first time PC user would have little trouble.
Do we vote for the easiest (Xandros) or the most powerful (Linux From Scratch) installer…?
I’d rather nominate the BeOS installer as the easiest one… Ever tried it?
Select partition, optionally initialize partition, copy over – and on the unofficial “distributions” and on Zeta you can even “restart the Desktop” and browse the web while itis copying the files over.
I can’t believe XP/2k3 have the votes they’ve got. I suppose it’s better if you happen to live in the States, but personally I find it bloody annoying that I have to tell it where I live four times in subtly different ways – input language, time zone, regional setting and keyboard map. Why on earth can’t it ask me what country I live in and look up the other answers from that – giving the opportunity to change them, but at least the default would be okay then.
Anyway, no chance to vote for the mighty Gentoo command-line install… damn 🙂
I voted for Redhats installer because it gives you a mix of easy and technical if you want. It’s quite pleasing to the eye for newbies and not too intimidating. Some have knocked the windows eXpee installer for giving no choice, but the amount of documentation and support available for creating a customised unattended install must be mentioned, the power offered under this environment is quite hard to beat.
(I understood that you were partly just joking but anyway)
an installer that expects you to know some odd unfamilar commands that you should write on the blank screen, is not exactly very easy.
SYS C:?? Now what on earth is that SYS? And what the heck is that C: supposed to mean…? 😉
The same can be said about the Gentoo installer (and the likes), although following the excellent Gentoo documentation can make it much easier.
All installers has good things, i really like RH anaconda and SuSE YaST, but those to lack a lot on partitioning, which is horrible using what they provide (i won’t mention why, thats even more flamebait), but i really like diskdrake, good flexibility, easy to use, secure.
The winner for me is the Mandrake installer, altough it would be nice an anaconda installed enhanced with diskdrake and better error handling (ask me whatever to stop installation if something fails instead of just rebooting)
None of the Windows installers are pretty, they’re not particularly simple, not overly powerful and also force you to enter a key every time you instal. Definitely not user-friendly.
Some of the newer linux distros are certainly getting friendlier – definitely friendly than Windows, in any case.
Debian is my favourite OS, but it has an awful (but immensely powerful) installer.
MacOS… pretty good.
BeOS… has to take the prize. Dead simple, user-friendly, looks nice and does everything you’d expect an installer to do – install
Poll not showing here, for some reason. Javascript is on though…
Anyway, BeOS. Fastest, simplest installer I’ve ever used. Followed closely by the Lycoris “installs whilst you configure” installer, the one with Solotaire in it…
Minimal install, it evens installed the 3d nvidia drivers, 25 minutes
Gentoo is missing from the list ;-p I love to install gentoo!!!
I’d rather nominate the BeOS installer as the easiest one… Ever tried it?
Yep, BeOS’s easy. But what about hardware support? Does BeOS (or Zeta) detect and configure for instant use most hardware out of the box too? Hardly. Neither Xandros can, but it’s a safer bet in that respect (and if ease of use is what you’re after).
Windows (& Mac OS X) has pretty good hardware support too, naturally, but there may often be less need of installing/hunting for separate drivers with modern Linux distros.
Zeta and all the BeOS distros have a their own installers, or they were released as image.
It was not that clever to pack them in the box.
Yeah, Gentoo installer r0cks, even women think of that since when I install Gentoo, I’m the installer
Now thats good…u got a full fledge desktop while u install an os to ur HD
I prefer text-based installers. I prefer the NetBSD & Crux installers.
redhat is over windows? come on. This is a very anti-windows site
> redhat is over windows? come on. This is a very anti-windows site
Correction: This is a very anti-windows world.
Get used to it!
redhat is over windows? come on. This is a very anti-windows site
Consider, for example, this scenario:
I have bought a shiny new laptop with Linux (or Zeta, or BSD, or Unununium etc.) preinstalled on it. But because I desperately want to play the latest Snooker simulation game (for some odd reason only available for Windows) on it occasionally, I buy and want to install the latest (though all too expensive, just to play that darn game…) version of Windows on it too.
So my very simple goal is a multiboot sytem of two OSes. But what the heck? The Windows don’t want me to install it on any other but the first prinmary partition on the machine. Nor does it easily let me configure a multiboot system, something that one would expect from any modern OS. And Windows installer doesn’t even even keep my MBR and default OS loader intact! Is that supposed to be easy and practical?
I know nodody uses it for real work, but download, write image to floppy, boot. How much easier does it get?
I’ve been working on a mockup for a new intstaller for Yoper for some time now and only tonight finally got it posted – then I read this!
So, since it is very much on-topic, you’ll find it here:
http://www.blachford.info/computer/The_Source/index.html
Tell me what you think…
—
My own favorite is the BeOS installer, amazingly easy to use. Move a few sliders, press a couple of buttons and that’s it.
Should have put Gentoo on there just for jokes, and to see if it would actually get a vote lmao!!
Hold everything! STOP! Somebody really screwed up here in creating this poll. They totally forgot the Linux From Scratch “distro”. Common poeple. Sheesh. Get your act together.
Ooh. This is a toughie. The Mac OS X installer is pretty nice, and so is Anaconda. I like the DragonFly installer, but it does need some more work before I could say I prefered it over any others. Xandros also has a fairly nice installation routine.
But, like some other folks here have mentioned, you just can’t beat what was available back in the good old dark ages of DOS ;^)
Anaconda is scriptable. At least, you can kick start an anaconda install. You cannot, as far as I know, do that with Windows. Do you have any idea how nic it is to be able to type kickstrt.cfg to run the kickstart install. This means you can plot the entire install without actually running it, and you can do this presumably for multiple architectures, just answer the right questions.
You can even specify a few scripts to run when you have done the install.
The Windows installer requires you to reboot once before you actually start he proper install. It is text based then and has a poor partition utility. You cannot install Windows to a secondary partition. It will refuse to install. I do not know if it is scriptable like anaconda with kickstart, but I tell you, that is one fine feature. The windows installer does its job, but you must also realise, Windows istalls nothing but the OS, but Anaconda installs everything, enad handles it with aplomb.
“You cannot, as far as I know, do that with Windows”
Yep, it’s called an unattended install, you can do that since Win2k
This program mkaes it very nice to do in XP personally:
http://nuhi.msfn.org/guide/
YOU are the instller. I guarantee you’ll know everything on your box, why it’s there, and how it was compiled. Setting a temporary environment variable on the command line when invoking gcc, for example, was something I’d never seen until I did this one.
OTOH, a thumbs down to Windows, for the way it queers the hard drive partition table if it’s not the first OS on the drive. Boo, hiss, and an international gesture Redmond-ward.
Doesn’t get any simpler than that, unless your using scripts or something like Jumpstart.
I love the OpenBSD install, it is quick and easy with no bullshit or infinite loops involved (there was one in FreeBSD at 5.2, dunno about 5.3).
One floppy does it all, you do not understand the hate I have for the various operating systems with more. I am so suprised that FreeBSD needs 3 to install now.
Hah, you get over it.
I do agree with the post past yours that explains the windows partitioning issues and what not. I agree with you..
however, I don’t exactly know if this poll is overall the best, even if its complicated or if its the easiest to use yet powerful or whatever.. too general.
I’m doing it by what’s easier… so that explains the windows comment.
I prefer the OpenBSD installer, it’s truley Bad@ss
I’m surprised it’s not on the list. And after installing, removing unneeded software is as simple as dragging a file to the trash.
My vote is for Knoppix Live CD/DVD for first selection.
Secondly, Archlinux because of its pacman upgrade capability.
I see other people have beat me to the ‘Gentoo’ jokes. A couple of times ^_^ But if we’re talking installers as in ‘package managers’ I think Gentoo’s Portage rocks the socks off a lot of the others.