Installation-guide cleanup

removal/rework of outdated parts (chapters 1 and 2, parts of chapter 3)

6 files changed, 136 insertions, 145 deletions

diff --git a/en/hardware/buying-hardware.xml b/en/hardware/buying-hardware.xml
index 4995508a1..48c20e4c7 100644
--- a/en/hardware/buying-hardware.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/buying-hardware.xml
@@ -41,58 +41,48 @@ releasing the &arch-kernel; source code.
 </para><para>
 
 Since we haven't been granted access to the documentation on these
-devices, they simply won't work under &arch-kernel;. You can help by asking
-the manufacturers of such hardware to release the documentation. If
-enough people ask, they will realize that the free software community
-is an important market.
+devices, they simply won't work under &arch-kernel;.
 
-</para>
-</sect2>
+</para><para>
 
+In many cases there are standards (or at least some de-facto standards)
+describing how an operating system and its device drivers communicate with a
+certain class of devices.  All devices which comply to such a
+(de-facto-)standard can be used with a single generic device driver and no
+device-specific drivers are required.  With some kinds of hardware (e.g. 
+USB "Human Interface Devices", i.e.  keyboards, mice, etc., and USB mass
+storage devices like USB flash disks and memory card readers) this works
+very well and practically every device sold in the market is
+standards-compliant.
 
-  <sect2 arch="any-x86"><title>Windows-specific Hardware</title>
-<para>
+</para><para>
 
-A disturbing trend is the proliferation of Windows-specific modems and
-printers. In some cases these are specially designed to be operated by
-the Microsoft Windows operating system and bear the legend <quote>WinModem</quote>
-or <quote>Made especially for Windows-based computers</quote>. This
-is generally done by removing the embedded processors of the hardware
-and shifting the work they do over to a Windows driver that is run by
-your computer's main CPU. This strategy makes the hardware less
-expensive, but the savings are often <emphasis>not</emphasis> passed on to the
-user and this hardware may even be more expensive than equivalent
-devices that retain their embedded intelligence.
+In other fields, among them e.g. printers, this is unfortunately not the
+case.  While there are many printers which can be addressed via a small set
+of (de-facto-)standard control languages and therefore can be made to work
+without problems in any operating system, there are quite a few models which
+only understand proprietary control commands and either cannot be used at
+all on free operating systems or can only be used with a vendor-supplied
+closed-source driver.
 
 </para><para>
 
-You should avoid Windows-specific hardware for two reasons. The first
-is that the manufacturers do not generally make the resources
-available to write a &arch-kernel; driver. Generally, the hardware and
-software interface to the device is proprietary, and documentation is
-not available without a non-disclosure agreement, if it is available
-at all. This precludes it being used for free software, since free
-software writers disclose the source code of their programs. The
-second reason is that when devices like these have had their embedded
-processors removed, the operating system must perform the work of the
-embedded processors, often at <emphasis>real-time</emphasis> priority,
-and thus the CPU is not available to run your programs while it is
-driving these devices. Since the typical Windows user does not
-multi-process as intensively as a &arch-kernel; user, the manufacturers hope
-that the Windows user simply won't notice the burden this hardware
-places on their CPU.  However, any multi-processing operating system,
-even Windows 2000 or XP, suffers from degraded performance when
-peripheral manufacturers skimp on the embedded processing power of
-their hardware.
+Even if there is a vendor-provided closed-source driver for such hardware
+when purchasing the device, the practical lifespan of the device is limited
+by driver availability.  Nowadays product cycles have become short and it is
+not uncommon that a short time after a consumer device has ceased
+production, no driver updates get made available any more by the
+manufacturer.  If the old closed-source driver does not work anymore after a
+system update, an otherwise perfectly working device becomes unusable due to
+lacking driver support and there is nothing that can be done in this case.
+You should therefore avoid buying closed hardware in the first place,
+regardless of the operating system you want to use it with.
 
 </para><para>
 
-You can help improve this situation by encouraging these manufacturers
-to release the documentation and other resources necessary for us to
-program their hardware, but the best strategy is simply to avoid this
-sort of hardware<phrase arch="linux-any"> until it is listed as working
-in the <ulink url="&url-hardware-howto;">Linux Hardware Compatibility
-HOWTO</ulink></phrase>.
+You can help improve this situation by encouraging manufacturers of closed
+hardware to release the documentation and other resources necessary for us
+to provide free drivers for their hardware.
 
 </para>
 </sect2>
diff --git a/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml b/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml
index 89a9b4670..a4e7c09d0 100644
--- a/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/hardware-supported.xml
@@ -237,9 +237,14 @@ as well.
   <sect2 arch="x86" id="laptops"><title>Laptops</title>
 <para>
 
-Laptops are also supported and nowadays most laptops work out of the box.
-In case a laptop contains specialized or proprietary hardware, some specific
-functions may not be supported.  To see if your particular laptop works well
+From a technical point of view, laptops are normal PCs, so all information
+regarding PC systems applies to laptops as well. Installations
+on laptops nowadays usually work out of the box, including things like
+automatically suspending the system on closing the lid and laptop specfic
+hardware buttons like those for disabling the wifi interfaces ("airplane
+mode"). Nonetheless sometimes the hardware vendors use specialized or
+proprietary hardware for some laptop-specific functions which
+might not be supported. To see if your particular laptop works well
 with GNU/Linux, see for example the
 <ulink url="&url-x86-laptop;">Linux Laptop pages</ulink>.
 
@@ -250,21 +255,16 @@ with GNU/Linux, see for example the
   <title>Multiple Processors</title>
 <para>
 
-Multiprocessor support &mdash; also called <quote>symmetric multiprocessing</quote>
-or SMP &mdash; is available for this architecture.  The standard &debian;
-&release; kernel image has been compiled with SMP support.  The standard
-kernel is also usable on non-SMP systems, but has a slight overhead which
-will cause a small reduction in performance. For normal system use this
-will hardly be noticable.
-
-</para><para>
+Multiprocessor support &mdash; also called <quote>symmetric
+multiprocessing</quote> or SMP &mdash; is available for this
+architecture.  Having multiple processors in a computer was originally
+only an issue for high-end server systems but has become quite common in
+recent years even for rather low-end desktop computers and laptops with
+the introduction of so called "multi-core" processors.  These contain
+two or more processor units, called "cores", in one physical chip.
 
-In order to optimize the kernel for single CPU systems, you'll have to
-replace the standard &debian; kernel.<phrase arch="linux-any">  You can find a discussion of how
-to do this in <xref linkend="kernel-baking"/>.  At this time
-(kernel version &kernelversion;) the way you disable SMP is to deselect
-<quote>&smp-config-option;</quote> in the <quote>&smp-config-section;</quote>
-section of the kernel config.</phrase>
+The standard &debian; &release; kernel image has been compiled with SMP support.
+It is also usable on non-SMP systems without problems.
 
 </para>
   </sect2>
@@ -281,6 +281,12 @@ The standard &debian; &release; kernel image has been compiled with
 will detect the number of processors (or processor cores) and will
 automatically deactivate SMP on uniprocessor systems.
 
+Having multiple processors in a computer was originally
+only an issue for high-end server systems but has become quite common in
+recent years even for rather low-end desktop computers and laptops with
+the introduction of so called "multi-core" processors.  These contain
+two or more processor units, called "cores", in one physical chip.
+
 </para><para arch="i386">
 
 The 486 flavour of the &debian; kernel image packages for &arch-title;
@@ -298,7 +304,7 @@ multiprocessing</quote> or SMP &mdash; is available for this architecture.
 However, the standard &debian; &release; kernel image does not support
 SMP.  This should not prevent installation, since the standard,
 non-SMP kernel should boot on SMP systems; the kernel will simply use
-the first CPU.
+only the first CPU.
 
 </para><para>
 
@@ -344,19 +350,19 @@ section of the kernel config.</phrase>
   <sect2 id="gfx" arch="not-s390"><title>Graphics Card Support</title>
 <para arch="x86">
 
-You should be using a VGA-compatible display interface for the console
-terminal. Nearly every modern display card is compatible with
-VGA. Ancient standards such CGA, MDA, or HGA should also work,
-assuming you do not require X11 support.  Note that X11 is not used
-during the installation process described in this document unless the
-graphical installer was explicitly selected.
-
-</para><para>
-
 &debian;'s support for graphical interfaces is determined by the
-underlying support found in X.Org's X11 system.  Most AGP, PCI,
-PCIe, and PCI-X video cards work under X.Org.  Details on supported graphics
-buses, cards, monitors, and pointing devices can be found at
+underlying support found in X.Org's X11 system. On modern PCs,
+having a graphical display usually works out of the box. Whether
+advanced graphics card features such as 3D-hardware acceleration
+or hardware-accelerated video are available, depends on the 
+actual graphics hardware used in the system and in some cases
+on the installation of additional "firmware" images (see <xref
+linkend="hardware-firmware"/>). In very few cases there have
+been reports about hardware on which installation of additional graphics
+card firmware was required even for basic graphics support, but
+these have been rare exceptions.
+</para><para>
+Details on supported graphics cards and pointing devices can be found at
 <ulink url="&url-xorg;"></ulink>.  &debian; &release; ships
 with X.Org version &x11ver;.
 
@@ -407,6 +413,17 @@ so-called <firstterm>firmware</firstterm> or <firstterm>microcode</firstterm>
 to be loaded into the device before it can become operational. This is most
 common for network interface cards (especially wireless NICs), but for example
 some USB devices and even some hard disk controllers also require firmware.
+With many graphics cards, basic functionality is available without
+additional firmware, but the use of advanced features requires an
+appropriate firmware file to be installed in the system.
+
+</para><para>
+
+On many older devices which require firmware to work, the firmware file was
+permanently placed in an EEPROM/Flash chip on the device itself by the
+manufacturer.  Nowadays most new devices do not have the firmware embedded
+this way anymore, so the firmware file must be uploaded into the device by
+the host operating system every time the system boots.
 
 </para><para>
 
@@ -422,7 +439,7 @@ of the archive.
 However, this does not mean that such hardware cannot be used during an
 installation. Starting with &debian-gnu; 5.0, &d-i; supports loading
 firmware files or packages containing firmware from a removable medium,
-such as a floppy disk or USB stick.
+such as a USB stick.
 See <xref linkend="loading-firmware"/> for detailed information on how to
 load firmware files or packages during the installation.
 
diff --git a/en/hardware/installation-media.xml b/en/hardware/installation-media.xml
index c8bcb7ad6..47cc37f24 100644
--- a/en/hardware/installation-media.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/installation-media.xml
@@ -34,26 +34,15 @@ For CHRP, floppy support is currently broken.
 
 Whenever you see <quote>CD-ROM</quote> in this manual, it applies to both
 CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, because both technologies are really
-the same from the operating system's point of view, except for some very
-old nonstandard CD-ROM drives which are neither SCSI nor IDE/ATAPI.
+the same from the operating system's point of view.
 
 </para></note><para>
 
-CD-ROM based installation is supported for some architectures.
-On machines which support bootable CD-ROMs, you should be able to do a
-completely
-<phrase arch="not-s390">floppy-less</phrase>
-<phrase arch="s390">tape-less</phrase>
-installation.  Even if your system doesn't
-support booting from a CD-ROM, you can use the CD-ROM in conjunction
-with the other techniques to install your system, once you've booted
-up by other means; see <xref linkend="boot-installer"/>.
+CD-ROM based installation is supported for most architectures.
 
 </para><para arch="x86">
 
-SCSI, SATA and IDE/ATAPI CD-ROMs are supported.  The <ulink
-url="&url-cd-howto;">Linux CD-ROM HOWTO</ulink> contains in-depth information
-on using CD-ROMs with Linux.
+On PCs SATA, IDE/ATAPI and SCSI CD-ROMs are supported.
 
 </para><para arch="x86">
 
@@ -78,32 +67,16 @@ entry in the firmware.
 </para>
   </sect2>
 
-  <sect2><title>Hard Disk</title>
-
-<para>
-
-Booting the installation system directly from a hard disk is another option
-for many architectures. This will require some other operating system
-to load the installer onto the hard disk.
-
-</para><para arch="sparc">
-
-Although the &arch-title; does not allow booting from SunOS
-(Solaris), you can install from a SunOS partition (UFS slices).
-
-</para>
-  </sect2>
-
   <sect2 condition="bootable-usb"><title>USB Memory Stick</title>
 
 <para>
 
-Many &debian; boxes need their floppy and/or CD-ROM drives only for
-setting up the system and for rescue purposes. If you operate some
-servers, you will probably already have thought about omitting those
-drives and using an USB memory stick for installing and (when
-necessary) for recovering the system. This is also useful for small
-systems which have no room for unnecessary drives.
+USB flash disks a.k.a. USB memory sticks have become a commonly
+used and cheap storage device. Most modern computer systems
+also allow booting the &d-i; from such a stick.
+Many modern computer systems, in particular netbooks and thin laptops, do not have
+a CD/DVD-ROM drive anymore at all and booting from USB media ist
+the standard way of installing a new operating system on them.
 
 </para>
   </sect2>
@@ -123,7 +96,14 @@ configure your system to use ISDN and PPP.
 </para><para condition="supports-tftp">
 
 You can also <emphasis>boot</emphasis> the installation system over the
-network. <phrase arch="mips;mipsel">This is the preferred installation technique
+network without needing any local media like CDs/DVDs or USB sticks.  If
+you already have a netboot-infrastructure available (i.e.  you are already
+running DHCP and TFTP services in your network), this allows an easy and fast
+deployment of a large number of machines.  Setting up the necessary
+infrastructure requires a certain level of technical experience, so this is
+not recommended for novice users.
+
+<phrase arch="mips;mipsel">This is the preferred installation technique
 for &arch-title;.</phrase>
 
 </para><para condition="supports-nfsroot">
@@ -134,6 +114,25 @@ and NFS-mounting of all local filesystems, is another option.
 </para>
   </sect2>
 
+
+  <sect2><title>Hard Disk</title>
+
+<para>
+
+Booting the installation system directly from a hard disk is another option
+for many architectures. This will require some other operating system
+to load the installer onto the hard disk. This method is only recommended
+for special cases when no other installation method is available.
+
+</para><para arch="sparc">
+
+Although the &arch-title; does not allow booting from SunOS
+(Solaris), you can install from a SunOS partition (UFS slices).
+
+</para>
+  </sect2>
+
+
   <sect2><title>Un*x or GNU system</title>
 
 <para>
@@ -143,7 +142,8 @@ If you are running another Unix-like system, you could use it to install
 manual. This kind of install may be useful for users with otherwise
 unsupported hardware or on hosts which can't afford downtime.  If you
 are interested in this technique, skip to the <xref
-linkend="linux-upgrade"/>.
+linkend="linux-upgrade"/>. This installation method is only recommended
+for advanced users when no other installation method is available.
 
 </para>
   </sect2>
@@ -152,21 +152,16 @@ linkend="linux-upgrade"/>.
 
 <para>
 
-The &debian; boot disks contain a kernel which is built to maximize the
-number of systems it runs on.  Unfortunately, this makes for a larger
-kernel, which includes many drivers that won't be used for your
-machine<phrase arch="linux-any"> (see <xref linkend="kernel-baking"/> to learn how to
-build your own kernel)</phrase>.  Support for the widest possible range of
-devices is desirable in general, to ensure that &debian; can be
-installed on the widest array of hardware.
-
+The &debian; installer contains a kernel which is built to maximize the
+number of systems it runs on.
 </para><para arch="x86">
+Generally, the &debian; installation system includes support for IDE (also
+known as PATA) drives, SATA and SCSI controllers and drives, USB, and
+FireWire.  The supported file systems include FAT, Win-32 FAT extensions
+(VFAT) and NTFS.
 
-Generally, the &debian; installation system includes support for floppies,
-IDE (also known as PATA) drives, IDE floppies, parallel port IDE devices, SATA
-and SCSI controllers and drives, USB, and FireWire.  The supported file systems
-include FAT, Win-32 FAT extensions (VFAT) and NTFS.
 
+<!--
 </para><para arch="i386">
 
 Disk interfaces that emulate the <quote>AT</quote> hard disk interface
@@ -174,6 +169,7 @@ Disk interfaces that emulate the <quote>AT</quote> hard disk interface
 SCSI disk controllers from many different manufacturers are supported. See the
 <ulink url="&url-hardware-howto;">Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO</ulink>
 for more details.
+-->
 
 </para><para arch="sparc">
 
diff --git a/en/hardware/network-cards.xml b/en/hardware/network-cards.xml
index 0279753fd..5d9ca0d6f 100644
--- a/en/hardware/network-cards.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/network-cards.xml
@@ -6,10 +6,11 @@
 <para>
 
 Almost any network interface card (NIC) supported by the &arch-kernel; kernel
-should also be supported by the installation system; modular drivers
+should also be supported by the installation system; drivers
 should normally be loaded automatically.
 
-<phrase arch="x86">This includes most PCI and PCMCIA cards.</phrase>
+<phrase arch="x86">This includes most PCI/PCI-Express cards as well as
+PCMCIA/Express Cards on laptops.</phrase>
 <phrase arch="i386">Many older ISA cards are supported as well.</phrase>
 
 </para><para arch="sparc">
diff --git a/en/hardware/supported-peripherals.xml b/en/hardware/supported-peripherals.xml
index a05789677..e69492bf9 100644
--- a/en/hardware/supported-peripherals.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/supported-peripherals.xml
@@ -11,17 +11,14 @@ devices are not required while installing the system.
 
 </para><para arch="x86">
 
-USB hardware generally works fine, only some
-USB keyboards may require additional configuration
-(see <xref linkend="hardware-issues"/>).
+USB hardware generally works fine. On some very old PC systems some
+USB keyboards may require additional configuration (see <xref linkend="hardware-issues"/>).
+On modern PCs, USB keyboards and mice work without requiring any
+specific configuration.
 
-</para><para arch="x86">
-
-Again, see the
-<ulink url="&url-hardware-howto;">Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO</ulink>
-to determine whether your specific hardware is supported by Linux.
+</para>
 
-</para><para arch="s390">
+<para arch="s390">
 
 Package installations from XPRAM and tape are not supported by this
 system.  All packages that you want to install need to be available on a
diff --git a/en/hardware/supported/amd64.xml b/en/hardware/supported/amd64.xml
index 652bb4ffc..b2ef681e5 100644
--- a/en/hardware/supported/amd64.xml
+++ b/en/hardware/supported/amd64.xml
@@ -2,22 +2,12 @@
 <!-- $Id: i386.xml 39614 2006-08-07 15:50:11Z fjp $ -->
 
 
-  <sect2 arch="amd64"><title>CPU, Main Boards, and Video Support</title>
-<para>
-
-Complete information concerning supported peripherals can be found at
-<ulink url="&url-hardware-howto;">Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO</ulink>.
-This section merely outlines the basics.
-
-</para>
-
-   <sect3><title>CPU</title>
+  <sect2 arch="amd64"><title>CPU Support</title>
 <para>
 
 Both AMD64 and Intel EM64T processors are supported.
 
 </para>
-   </sect3>
 
 <!-- Not sure if this is relevant for AMD64; AFAIK only PCI supported
    <sect3 id="bus"><title>I/O Bus</title>