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kumba@g.o writes: |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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I am the author of GLIS. What you have been proposing is exactly what |
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GLIS has aimed for. We are currently rewriting from scratch to be more |
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modular. Our rewrite reads system configuration from a "kickstart" type |
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file, and executes install. Then GUIs will be written seperately to |
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generate the "kickstart" and call the GLIS script. This allows one to do |
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the install various different ways: |
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1. by hand |
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2. by hand-edited kickstart (useful for servers) |
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3. by GUI(s) |
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|
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We are also looking for more help on this project. If you want to help, |
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join #glis on freenode or email me :) |
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|
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Nathaniel |
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|
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|
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-- |
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