I’ve been through the Voodoo 0.8 Base ISO installer a couple of times now, trying to get a feel for how it works and what applies to me.

For now, I think most of the changes will benefit people who have newer hardware: Things like SATA drives seem to be better supported (I don’t know for sure; I don’t have those). But now there’s also support for root partitions on USB drives, PCMCIA drives, etc., with a lot more options at installation.

But there are some long overdue changes, too. You can assign a root password now, without leaving the installer. And things like partition assignment take a more practical approach, with partitions disappearing from the list of available choices once they’re assigned.

Of course, it does have a more Slack-esque look about it now too. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.

So far I don’t have many tips on getting through it, unless you’re using it on old hardware: For God’s sake, PICK IDE-LEGACY! 😯

I spent about a half an hour on the regular install path, waiting for the news that I didn’t have any SATA or SCSI drives (I was shocked to hear it). I finished the installation and rebooted, and had to wait another 20 minutes while it went through the same probing sequence again.

Of course that was my fault. I should have just stopped when I realized I was using the wrong installation procedure and started over. But do yourself a favor and take my advice: If you’re on old hardware, pick the ide-legacy path.