docs: add more info on selecting an installation method
In the cluster installation page, move the section on different methods
higher up and add some text on how to select an installation method.
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@ How to Install Determined
=========================
This document provides general information on how to install and upgrade
-Determined. Determined consists of several components, primarily
+a Determined cluster. Determined consists of several components,
+primarily
- a **master** that schedules workloads and stores metadata
- one or more **agents** that run workloads, typically using GPUs
@@ -16,9 +17,55 @@ We also run two third-party services within each cluster:
- a `PostgreSQL <https://www.postgresql.org/>`_ database
- a `Hasura <https://hasura.io>`_ server
-All of these components should typically be installed and configured by
-a system administrator. Each user of Determined should also
-:ref:`install the command-line tools <install-cli>`.
+Each user should also :ref:`install the command-line tools
+<install-cli>` on the systems from which they will be accessing
+Determined.
+
+Installation Methods
+--------------------
+
+We support running Determined either on existing machines (on-premise
+installation) or by spinning up instances automatically in a cloud
+environment (AWS or GCP).
+
+On-premise Installations
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+On-premise installations are useful if you already have access to the
+machines that you would like to install Determined on, whether that
+means a single laptop for experimentation or a fleet of multi-GPU
+servers. ``det-deploy`` is the most convenient on-premise option; once
+installed, it will allow you to start a cluster by running a single
+command on each machine. If you would like more control over the
+process, you can instead manually manage the Docker images that
+``det-deploy`` uses internally. If you are using Ubuntu, you also have
+the option of installing most components of Determined using Debian
+packages and running them as `systemd
+<https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/>`__ services.
+
+.. toctree::
+ :titlesonly:
+
+ installation/deploy
+ installation/docker
+ installation/packages
+
+Cloud Installations
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Determined can also be deployed to instances running in public cloud
+providers such as AWS and GCP. Using Determined in the cloud allows you
+to access more computational resources than you might have local access
+to; Determined can also manage your cloud resources for you
+automatically. To install Determined on the cloud, you can either use
+``det-deploy``, which automates much of this process, or install and
+configure Determined manually.
+
+.. toctree::
+ :titlesonly:
+
+ installation/aws
+ installation/gcp
System Requirements
-------------------
@@ -56,25 +103,6 @@ Hardware
machine, the disk space requirements for the master are minimal
(~100MB).
-.. _installation:
-
-Installing Determined
----------------------
-
-We support running most components of Determined either under Docker or
-using standard package files and natively installed services. We also
-provide ``det-deploy``, a tool that helps automate the process of
-deploying and running Determined.
-
-.. toctree::
- :titlesonly:
-
- installation/deploy
- installation/aws
- installation/gcp
- installation/packages
- installation/docker
-
.. _install-docker:
Installing Docker
