Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Installer

[Scott Koch]

Paul de Vrieze wrote:

>On Thursday 22 January 2004 18:02, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>
>
>>Oh you of little faith. Someone approached karltk at LWE with a
>>completed python+gtk2 installer. See http://pen2.sclab.clarkson.edu/.
>>
>>I quote Karl:
>>"What's more, they're going to be working actively on this
>>irrespectively of whether we officially start using it or not. I
>>personally would think it completely stupid not to seriously consider
>>this most generous offer; they are an entire sw development team, they
>>seem organised, they have api docs, and they're long-time gentoo users.
>>Having them do most of the dirty-work, leaves us to do integration and
>>tweaks, to polish this thing off."
>>
>>
>
>Looks quite ok. There are some point I think are of interest though which
>basically come down to "there is no expert mode":
>- There is access to a partitioning tool, let alone qtparted or similar.
>- Only a very rough package selection is available.
>- I don't know whether it is smart to offer a no-network setup to newbee's,
>  gentoo has a rather strong assumption on the network being available.
>
>In general I think we should decide on what kind of installer we want, who do
>we want to target? Do we want to target newbee's. Do we want to offer
>software based on detected available hardware (offer sane if a supported
>scanner was detected)
>
>Paul
>
>
>
The project looks like a very good start.  My concerns go along with 
what Paul was mentioning.  Here goes:

1. "Expert Mode":  yes this is something that is needed, but I think the 
expert mode should be no more than just a console with maybe an easier 
way to view the install documention.  The current method of install, 
although some think it is a disadvantage of gentoo, I think that it is 
an advantage, even for the intermediate/entry level gentoo users.  A not 
so experienced user can learn so much by going through that install.  Or 
even, the expert mode could be as little as "reboot and insert basic liveCD"

2. Advanced Package selection: This would be a great addition to both 
the installer and the desktop in general.

3. Gtk2: I am thinking that this may not be the best interface to use.  
How will this fair with those putting gentoo on very slow/old machines.  
Also for those doing an install through ssh would not be able to benifit 
from this.  Maybe curses would be the way to go?  There are already many 
tools that are already made for curses(menuconfig, ufed, net-setup).  Or 
heck maybe there could be support for both.

Overall I think the big concern is those user that are stuck in between 
the two categories(beginer and expert).  This is also probably the group 
that needs to be "targeted".  These are the people, who I would say, who 
want a customized system but don't want to go through all the "trouble" 
of the install now.  I think the best solution for this is just to do 
each individual step or group of steps as much as possible in graphical 
mode, but allow the user to switch back and forth between "graphical 
mode" and "console mode".  This way they can ease their way into 
intalling gentoo the _real_ way. 

Most gentoo users are above the involment level of this installer. But 
hopefully in the future gentoo will attract some that this would be 
perfect for.  This is a great start, and it is good to see that a 
project like this is in the making!

Scott



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