Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Drake Wyrm]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 04:14:42PM -0800, in <4005DB72.5080207@×××××××××××.com>, Jeff Griffiths <jeffg@×××××××××××.com> wrote:
> Brian Dwornick wrote:
>  > I do agree that gentoo is good for people that want to learn.
> Wanting to
> >learn and a pretty GUI are not on the same path.  I am more trying to make
> >a
> >point that the people that would truely benifit from an installer are
> >sysadmins that are trying to mass load and do not want to resort to disk
> >imaging.  While a pretty GUI is good for a first time linux user, if they
> >really want to learn, they should use the install guide and go at it the
> >old
> >fashoned way.
>
> why does installer equate with GUI? it also does not neccesarily equate
> with 'dumbing down'. a lot of the learning involved in the gentoo
> process that is valuable is about the linux / gentoo system itself. i
> have spent lots of time trying to figure out hardware issues during
> various linux installs but i can't say that i learned much from them.
Good point. Gentoo already has an "installer": the bash prompt. A few
handy functions that walk the admin through the install process would
fit perfectly into the Gentoo idiom. Just off the top of my head, I can
think of putting the following in the LiveCD bashrc:

alias '?'=what_am_i_doing_helpfunction
PS1='Gentoo [? for help] ${PWD}>'
function install_status() {
	ebegin Network connectivity
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_NETWORK == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Partition drives
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_PARTITION == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Build filesystems
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_FILESYSTEMS == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Unpack tarball
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_TARBALL == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	source /tmp/the-rest-of-this-function
}

In the end, the "installer" is the person sitting at the keyboard,
regardless of what is on the screen.

>
> $.02
Singapore or Australian dollars?

-- 
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