O'Smith
Those are not your typical users. Those, although some don't, will do research, ask some friends, READ some manuals before undertaking this change. In order to understand what has to be done, then one needs to understand their hardware and that PCs are not all created equal. Again, a simple READ of either a manual or site/s will help you before you start. Problems after that? Hmmm, the manual spoke of a mail list, a support database, FAQs and the list goes on. You have to wonder sometimes why SuSE goes to the trouble of printing those darn useless manuals, don't you? ;o)
Where, exactly, do the SuSE manuals tell you that the install may hang while looking for a non-existent modem, and what to do about it? The 8.2 Admin index for insserv shows nothing, and even if it did, how would the user know to look for it, or if found, how to use it during install? Of course they don't do that, nor should they be expected to. What _is_ reasonable to expect is a clearly labeled option to disable the hardware scan -- with warnings about the consequences -- during the install. And, if the hapless user has only one machine that blows up during the install, how do they get online to access these resources?
Not trying to be insulting, really, it's just that you don't seem to think things out before plunging head first into these things.
Then you clearly have a natural talent for it (me too). Just to be clear, I'm not complaining about 8.2. It's been excellent for me on both a clean install and an upgrade (from 8.0), but I recognize that no installer can be perfect; there _will_ be problems with some hardware, and there ought to be a clear option to skip the automatic hardware scan. -rex