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<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking -->
<!-- $Id$ -->
<sect1 condition="gtk" id="graphical">
<title>The Graphical Installer</title>
<para>
The graphical version of the installer is only available for a limited
number of architectures, including &arch-title;. The functionality of
the graphical installer is essentially the same as that of the regular
installer as it basically uses the same programs, but with a different
frontend.
</para><para>
Although the functionality is identical, the graphical installer still has
a few significant advantages. The main advantage is that it supports more
languages, namely those that use a character set that cannot be displayed
with the regular <quote>newt</quote> frontend. It also has a few usability
advantages such as the option to use a mouse, and in some cases several
questions can be displayed on a single screen.
</para><para arch="x86">
The graphical installer is available with all CD images and with the
hd-media installation method. As the graphical installer uses a separate
(much larger) initrd than the regular installer, it has to be booted using
<userinput>installgui</userinput> instead of <userinput>install</userinput>.
Analogous, the expert and rescue modes are booted using
<userinput>expertgui</userinput> and <userinput>rescuegui</userinput>
respectively.
</para><para arch="x86">
It is also available as a special <quote>mini</quote> ISO
image<footnote id="gtk-miniiso">
<para>
The mini ISO image can be downloaded from a Debian mirror as described
in <xref linkend="downloading-files"/>.
Look for <filename>netboot/gtk/mini.iso</filename>.
</para>
</footnote>, which is mainly useful for testing; in this case the image is
booted just using <userinput>install</userinput>. There is no graphical
installer image that can be netbooted.
</para><para arch="powerpc">
For &arch-title;, currently only an experimental <quote>mini</quote> ISO
image is available<footnote id="gtk-miniiso">
<para>
The mini ISO image can be downloaded from a Debian mirror as described
in <xref linkend="downloading-files"/>.
Look for <filename>netboot/gtk/mini.iso</filename>.
</para>
</footnote>. It should work on almost all PowerPC systems that have
an ATI graphical card, but is unlikely to work on other systems.
</para><para>
You can add boot parameters when starting the graphical installer, just as
with the regular installer. One of those parameters allows you to configure
the mouse for left-handed use. See <xref linkend="boot-parms"/> for valid
parameters.
</para>
<note><para>
The graphical installer requires significantly more memory to run than
the regular installer: &minimum-memory-gtk;. If insufficient memory is
available, it will automatically fall back to the regular
<quote>newt</quote> frontend.
</para><para>
If the amount of memory in your system is close to &minimum-memory;,
the graphical installer may fail to boot at all while booting the
regular installer would still work. Using the regular installer is
recommended for systems with low memory.
</para></note>
<sect2 id="gtk-using">
<title>Using the graphical installer</title>
<para>
As already mentioned, the graphical installer basically works the same as
the regular installer and thus the rest of this manual can be used to guide
you through the installation process.
</para><para>
If you prefer using the keyboard over the mouse, there are two things you
need to know. To expand a collapsed list (used for example for the selection
of countries within continents), you can use the <keycap>+</keycap> and
<keycap>-</keycap> keys. For questions where more than one item can be
selected (e.g. task selection), you first need to tab to the
&BTN-CONT; button after making your selections; hitting
enter will toggle a selection, not activate &BTN-CONT;.
</para><para>
To switch to another console, you will also need to use the
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap> key, just as with the X Window System. For example,
to switch to VT2 (the first debug shell) you would use: <keycombo>
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap> <keycap>Left Alt</keycap> <keycap>F2</keycap>
</keycombo>. The graphical installer itself runs on VT5, so you can use
<keycombo> <keycap>Left Alt</keycap> <keycap>F5</keycap> </keycombo>
to switch back.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="gtk-issues">
<title>Known issues</title>
<para>
Etch is the first release that includes the graphical installer and uses
some relatively new technology. There are a few known issues that you may
run into during the installation. We expect to be able to fix these issues
for the next release of &debian;.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
Information on some screens is not nicely formatted into columns as it
should be. The most obvious example is the first screen where you select
your language. Another example is the main screen of partman.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Typing some characters may not work and in some cases the wrong character
may be printed. For example, "composing" a character by typing an accent and
then the letter over/under which the accent should appear does not work.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Support for touchpads is not yet optimal.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Support for creating encrypted partitions is limited as it is not possible
to generate a random encryption key. It is possible to set up an encrypted
partition using a passphrase as encryption key.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Starting a shell from the graphical frontend is currently not supported.
This means that relevant options to do that (which are available when you
use the textual frontend), will not be shown in the main menu of the
installation system and in the menu for the rescue mode. You will instead
have to switch (as described above) to the shells that are available on
virtual consoles VT2 and VT3.
</para><para>
After booting the installer in rescue mode, it may be useful to start a shell
in the root partition of an already installed system. This is possible (after
you have selected the partition to be mounted as the root partition) by
switching to VT2 or VT3 and entering the following command:
<informalexample><screen>
# chroot /target
</screen></informalexample>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
|
