[gentoo-dev] GUi installer brainstorm

[Geert Bevin]

Hi all,

I post a log of what Hallski and I have been talking about on irc, 
please add you comments.

<Bevin>   what did you already imagine in terms of GUI tools for gentoo? 
installer, package manager, admin tools, ... ?
<Hallski> not much really, the problem for packagemanager and admin 
tools would be which toolkit (or mulitple)
<Hallski> about the installer I would really like to have it so that 
users see what happends and take an active part in it
<Hallski> since it's very educating
<Hallski> *puh*
<Bevin>   that's also how I see the installer, more like a guide with 
blanks to fill in and commandlines to choose from, not something that 
tries to detect and do everything automatically
<Hallski> yes
<Hallski> well, some kind of hardware detection would be nice though
<Bevin>   I saw this kinda like a frame based approach, left frame with 
details about the current step and required data with links to 
alternative paths
<Hallski> that takes you through setting the different parts up
<Bevin>   right frame almost exactly as a normal shell, but i which 
commands get auto-pasted from the left frame
<Bevin>   didn't the new developer was going to work on auto-detection 
of hadrware
<Hallski> yes, I think it would be rather nice to have that, so it can 
autoinsert commands
<Hallski> oh, nice
<Bevin>   so it's a kinda like an interactive and guiding documentation
<Hallski> yes
<Bevin>   with no need to print out the installation manual before 
installing
<Hallski> it could even be so easy to just have a html-browser that 
shows the installation
<Hallski> but it would be nicer to have some more interactive aproach
<Hallski> like, when you excecute the command in the shell-prompt it 
takes you to the next step in the guide-part
<Hallski> wonder if that would be easy to do :)
<Bevin>   exactly my thoughts :-)
<Hallski> you can have like Next-button
<Bevin>   or even a real website-like navigation with possible 
installation actions tat still have to be done
<Bevin>   the most important part will in fact be to write a good 
'story-board'
<Hallski> agree
<Bevin>   where every step in clear explanantions and all 'follow-ups' 
needed
<Hallski> yes
<Bevin>   guess I'll get onto that storyboard first then
<Bevin>   and post it to the mailinglist as soon I have a first draft
<Hallski> yes, that would be great
<Bevin>   about the toolkit, I like to use qt for it for several reasons
<Hallski> ok
<Bevin>   1. everything possibly needed is available in 1 lib
<Hallski> I don't want to hack QT but it's ok if you do it :)
<Bevin>   2. it officially supports operating without X
<Bevin>   first however I'd like to try to make a boot cd that contains 
the qt-embedded lib and an example app, as a proff of concept
<Bevin>   do you know if drobbins has 'portagified' his build cd 
creation scripts already?
<Hallski> well, I think I can look a little at QT, but I'd rather not 
spend to much time learning about it
<Hallski> dunno
<Bevin>   helping out with the storyboard will be most of the work
<Hallski> yes