Please move machine name selection to earlier or later in the install process

[Timothy Miller]

I'm installing on a relatively slow system, but I'm sure this is an issue for faster ones too. During
the setup process for install, there are a lot of things that happen that take a while. First, we're
given a boot prompt (which should have a timeout and continue automatically, IMHO). When you hit Enter,
you have to wait a little bit, then you're asked for language information. Then you have to wait. Then
you're asked for a machine name. Then you have to wait some more, before you get to set up partitions.

Since I'm working with the previews, I've had to go through this process quite a number of times, so
it's gotten old.

If you could move the machine name selection to just after the language selection or just before
partitioning, it would make for a slightly more pleasant install experience, because I could walk away
from the machine for longer periods while waiting on it.

Thanks.

P.S. I don't see a way to indicate that this is a "wishlist" item, because it's obviously not really a
bug.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

There's a good reason why this isn't done right after language selection: a
default for the machine name is often acquired using DHCP, and if we asked the
question earlier we'd lose the nice default.

The reason why it isn't done after partitioning is mostly just that we'd have to
split up the code in a very awkward way.

I think the best answer to this bug is probably simply to make the early stages
of the installer faster. They're mostly hardware detection of one kind or
another, and as the udev/hotplug world gets better this is getting faster. We
ought to be able to dispose of many of the unnecessary delays.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

I'm setting this bug to invalid based on the last comment and due to inactivity. Feel free to reopen it if implementing this bug looks feasible.

[Timothy Miller (theosib)]

You might want to reconsider. I think it's important to put usability as a higher priority than avoiding awkward programming. Not putting usability first is one of the things that keeps Linux off of more desktops.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

I'm surprised that you answered so quickly after 3 years when you originally reported this bug. As I mentioned feel free to reopen it or maybe it would be better if you created an idea about this on brainstorm.ubuntu.com . More people would notice your idea and they could have additional ideas to improve it.

[Evan (ev)]

The previous lack of status change was not an oversight. Please do not revert status changes done by the developers (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingUbiquity#head-2e67f9e15817d82a0a10e14e5939eca7f927dc74). Moving back to confirmed.