Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Derek J. Belrose" <derek@×××××××××.com>
To: Jeff Rose <rosejn@××××××××.EDU>
Cc: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] GUI installer
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 09:14:41
Message-Id: 3E992A80.60508@omegabyte.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] GUI installer by Jeff Rose
1 I think we should take a look at RedHat's installer to see what goes on
2 underneath. For what I have used, it's hardware detection worked
3 perfectly...i believe it's kudzu that drives it.
4
5 In my opinion, the installer should just do a stage install, and
6 everything that the install doc describes...then on reboot maybe dump to
7 X or a ncurses interface giving the user options on what to do next. I
8 like how Debian does it, basic install, then allow dpkg to be configured.
9
10 Opinions?
11
12 Jeff Rose wrote:
13
14 >Well, I'm glad to see that people are interested. After doing some
15 >initial research I have some thoughts. First, we should decide on whether
16 >we want to have a terminal or X based installer. Does anyone know how
17 >well the generic vesa driver works for X? I personally have battled with
18 >X so many times that I'm not sure I think its worth it for an installer.
19 >(Although we could just use the RedHat stuff for autodetection etc. if we
20 >want to go that direction.) Besides X we could use ncurses dialog
21 >widgets or another terminal gui package. I was thinking it would be cool
22 >to use somethine lighter than X like svgalib. I have no experience with
23 >it and don't know how cross platform (or cross video card) it is, but it
24 >could be a cool solution if a decent widget set is put on top of it. I'm
25 >not sure if this would lead to more or less work than using X.
26 > As for choosing stages, that should be a decision made by the user
27 >at install time. We can very briefly explain how the system works and let
28 >them do what they please. For the complete novice we can basically have
29 >the "do everything for me" button. For the supreme hacker we can let them
30 >have it all while still taking care of mundane details. (For example,
31 >they could choose what file systems they want to use on what partitions,
32 >but that would just be a selection dialog rather than having to type the
33 >commands etc...) It might be nice if the installer can be exited at any
34 >point so people have the ability to get things rolling quickly but then
35 >tweak things out to their hearts content once its where they want it.
36 > One of the major pains in the redhat like installers deals with
37 >package selection. I think it is ridiculous to give people a list of a
38 >thousand packages and tell them to pick. Especially since the package
39 >documentation is horrible. Most people probably wouldn't know that its
40 >important for them to have the e2fsprogs installed, for example. So, this
41 >is the portion of the installer where I see the most room for innovation.
42 >Especially since gentoo has such a unique package system, we should really
43 >try to enable the user as much as possible, rather than just hucking a
44 >bunch of packages into the mix. I'm still working on ideas, but we should
45 >experiment with all kinds of stuff to get this stage really smoothed out.
46 > This idea of processor detection makes me think that a whole lot
47 >of detection could go on if we wanted it to. The thing is detection is
48 >useless unless you can act on what you have detected. Changing some CPU
49 >related compiler flags is one thing, but what about detecting network,
50 >sound, video, raid, scsi, firewire, printers etc. This could all get very
51 >tricky real fast. What about using RedHats kudzu?
52 >
53 >Peace,
54 >Jeff
55 >
56 >
57
58
59 --
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