Re: [gentoo-dev] GUi installer brainstorm

[Taras Glek]

Why is a gui needed to do an installer? One could do a ncurses based
console "gui" that would be just as useful, but wouldn't depend on shaky
things like framebuffer(not all cards do vesa, some do it better/worse
than others), imho using a console interface, sort of like the one in
dos borland ides would be more than sufficient.
 
On Sun, 2002-01-06 at 14:54, Geert Bevin wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I post a log of what Hallski and I have been talking about on irc,
> please add you comments.
>
> <Bevin>   what did you already imagine in terms of GUI tools for gentoo?
> installer, package manager, admin tools, ... ?
> <Hallski> not much really, the problem for packagemanager and admin
> tools would be which toolkit (or mulitple)
> <Hallski> about the installer I would really like to have it so that
> users see what happends and take an active part in it
> <Hallski> since it's very educating
> <Hallski> *puh*
> <Bevin>   that's also how I see the installer, more like a guide with
> blanks to fill in and commandlines to choose from, not something that
> tries to detect and do everything automatically
> <Hallski> yes
> <Hallski> well, some kind of hardware detection would be nice though
> <Bevin>   I saw this kinda like a frame based approach, left frame with
> details about the current step and required data with links to
> alternative paths
> <Hallski> that takes you through setting the different parts up
> <Bevin>   right frame almost exactly as a normal shell, but i which
> commands get auto-pasted from the left frame
> <Bevin>   didn't the new developer was going to work on auto-detection
> of hadrware
> <Hallski> yes, I think it would be rather nice to have that, so it can
> autoinsert commands
> <Hallski> oh, nice
> <Bevin>   so it's a kinda like an interactive and guiding documentation
> <Hallski> yes
> <Bevin>   with no need to print out the installation manual before
> installing
> <Hallski> it could even be so easy to just have a html-browser that
> shows the installation
> <Hallski> but it would be nicer to have some more interactive aproach
> <Hallski> like, when you excecute the command in the shell-prompt it
> takes you to the next step in the guide-part
> <Hallski> wonder if that would be easy to do :)
> <Bevin>   exactly my thoughts :-)
> <Hallski> you can have like Next-button
> <Bevin>   or even a real website-like navigation with possible
> installation actions tat still have to be done
> <Bevin>   the most important part will in fact be to write a good
> 'story-board'
> <Hallski> agree
> <Bevin>   where every step in clear explanantions and all 'follow-ups'
> needed
> <Hallski> yes
> <Bevin>   guess I'll get onto that storyboard first then
> <Bevin>   and post it to the mailinglist as soon I have a first draft
> <Hallski> yes, that would be great
> <Bevin>   about the toolkit, I like to use qt for it for several reasons
> <Hallski> ok
> <Bevin>   1. everything possibly needed is available in 1 lib
> <Hallski> I don't want to hack QT but it's ok if you do it :)
> <Bevin>   2. it officially supports operating without X
> <Bevin>   first however I'd like to try to make a boot cd that contains
> the qt-embedded lib and an example app, as a proff of concept
> <Bevin>   do you know if drobbins has 'portagified' his build cd
> creation scripts already?
> <Hallski> well, I think I can look a little at QT, but I'd rather not
> spend to much time learning about it
> <Hallski> dunno
> <Bevin>   helping out with the storyboard will be most of the work
> <Hallski> yes
>
>
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