Allegedly, on or about 08 July 2013, Timothy Murphy sent:
Of course an estimate of the expected duration would be even more helpful, or just a statement of how many packages have been processed, out of how many in total.
It's often been said that it's hard to estimate how long to completion (though previous installers have done so, with reasonable accuracy), but I can see no argument against writing 12 out of 200 packages have been installed. Or showing a list of steps, that gradually get ticked off (downloading, partitioning, formatting, installing...). Or simply a scrolling log of what it's actually doing at the moment, on part of the screen, with something else permanently visible to give you a fighting chance of knowing how far along the routine it's gone.