Gentoo Archives: gentoo-installer

From: Eric Sammer <esammer@g.o>
To: gentoo-installer@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-installer] New installer project status
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 04:46:15
Message-Id: 40188ECA.8040803@gentoo.org
1 All:
2
3 The new Gentoo installer project is underway. This email should serve as
4 a quick rundown of where we're at, what we've done, where we want to go,
5 and how we're going to get there.
6
7 Infrastructure:
8
9 The initial infrastructure for the installer project is just about
10 there. We now have a mailing list (if you hadn't noticed), and an
11 official channel on IRC (freenode) - #gentoo-installer. As of yet,
12 there's no project page, but I'm sure that will come in time. Maybe
13 we'll hijack a member of the documentation team to help with that.
14
15 Who's Involved:
16
17 Currently, we have a number of people, Gentoo devs and non-devs,
18 involved or interested in the project. Two of the three installer
19 projects have "signed on" to work together and hopefully the third will
20 as well. Our two desktop co-leads are also involved in defining features
21 and requirements, as well as other Gentoo devs from server, portage
22 tools, and other teams. A number of non-developers (and / or soon to be
23 developers) are also helping in various ways.
24
25 What We're Doing:
26
27 You probably know the idea - we're trying to bring together three
28 projects and create a complete installer that covers desktop systems as
29 well as automated server deployment.
30
31 As it stands, we've hashed out a number of requirements and features as
32 well as some potentials for the installer. While an official list is not
33 complete, here's a very brief (and most certainly INCOMPLETE) list of
34 what we have:
35 - Pluggable front ends (text, ncurses, gtk, qt, whatever)
36 - Pluggable, override-able architecture support (x86, ppc, sparc, etc.)
37 - Automated deployment (ala RH's Kickstart or Sun's Jumpstart)
38 - No loss (or as absolutely little as possible) of flexibility from the
39 manual process.
40 - Atomic run of all commands so users can freely experiment with
41 options prior to installation.
42 - Intelligent defaults.
43
44 We have a few documents that cover what is going on. I STRONGLY
45 recommend that you read them if you're interested in the project as a
46 spectator. If you want to contribute, please consider it required
47 reading as it will answer some initial questions that you will have.
48
49 http://dev.gentoo.org/~esammer/gentoo_installer_project.txt
50
51 What We Need:
52
53 We need to do the following...
54
55 - Solidify the team, both operational and development, and their roles.
56 - Get a team of willing testers.
57 - Get some people willing to do documentation, either from our doc team
58 or otherwise.
59 - Get a code repository going. Since non-devs may (as in "might," not
60 "can") participate in actual development, the repository may need to be
61 hosted on non-Gentoo servers.
62 - Decide to what level non-devs should participate (mainly, can they
63 commit code)
64 - Complete high(er) level design documents that all devs agree on.
65 - Code like the wind.
66 - Test like the dickens.
67
68 Hopefully, this will help get the ball rolling, so to speak. Most of
69 this stuff is just rehashed from #gentoo-installer (which, once again,
70 we invite you to join), but it should help as a nagging reminder.
71
72 No doubt this is a button-pusher of a topic. We ask that all comments be
73 constructive and respectful, even if you disagree, as at times we all
74 will. ;)
75
76 (Oh yea, and please read that doc!)
77
78 Regards.
79 --
80 Eric Sammer
81 Gentoo Linux
82 http://www.gentoo.org

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