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Okay, I'm writing this mail up to see what people think of the idea of a |
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menu system for installing Gentoo. Now before the mob drags me out and |
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lynches me, I'm not talking about some bloated X11 thing, but something |
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more simple akin to Debian's installer or FreeBSD's sysinstall. |
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I tried to help several people today on different IRC networks install |
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Gentoo, one who was totally new to Linux, the other who was very |
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experienced with it, and both had issues with the excessive use of the |
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Command Line. Now I myself am a fan of the command line, and have no |
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problem with installing gentoo via a command line interface, but not |
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everyone likes this. |
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Since Gentoo's mantra is about choice, I think a menu-driven system |
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could succeed, or supplement the command line interface, giving the user |
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the choice of going either route. I've taken a brief look at the |
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install manuals, and the basic steps taken are universally similar. |
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Some differences are only in the fdisk setup (depending on your |
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architecture), stage selections (like GRP and Portage's upcoming binary |
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installing ability), and so on. It's really not until the end of the |
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install, right around the kernel installation, where things change, |
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mainly due to the bootloaders used, and final cleanup tasks and such. |
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Right now, this is just an idea. I would probably need to create a GLEP |
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for it to get it more cemented, after some logistical ideas get worked |
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out (like whether to use dialog, ncurses, or lsdialog, etc..). However, |
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I think it's an overdue idea, and complete implementation of it will go |
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a long way to making the install process easier for users. So let's |
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start trading ideas on this. |
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|
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Debian's Installer can be found here (Source): |
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http://cvs.debian.org/debian-installer |
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|
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FreeBSD's Sysinstall Source: |
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http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/ |
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So, Ideas, Thoughts, Comments......Flames? |
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--Kumba |
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-- |
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"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: |
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small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are |
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elsewhere." --Elrond |
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |
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