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The Gentoo Linux Installer team would like to announce version 0.3 of the |
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installer. This release will be an official part of the 2006.0 Gentoo release. |
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The old universal and package CDs have been replaced by the Installer LiveCD for |
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the x86 architecture. An experimental AMD64 Installer LiveCD will also be |
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released under /experimental, and will have similar capabilities, but it is not |
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officially supported. |
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|
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As always, there are many improvements (and bugfixes) since the last version. |
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|
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* Improved support for preserving existing partitions (many, many bugfixes) |
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* Complete rewrite of the GRP handling code: We no longer use quickpkg and |
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'emerge -K', which has cut the install time for GRP about in half. |
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* GTK+ frontend redesign: the listing of steps that was previously in the |
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separate panel on the left has been replaced by the "Future Bar" (as named |
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and designed by blackace). This allows more space for each screen, and it |
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prevents the problem of the steps going off the bottom of the screen. |
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* More sub-progress reporting: any install step that takes more than a few |
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seconds will now report on its progress in a secondary progress bar (or as |
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part of the main progress bar in gli-dialog). Included is stuff like |
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partitioning, downloading a tarball, unpacking a tarball, emerging packages, |
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etc. |
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* Recommended partition layout: If you have at least 4GB of consecutive |
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unallocated space, the installer can create a partitioning layout for you |
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consisting of a 100MB /boot, a swap with a size calculated based on amount |
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of physical memory, and a / taking up the remaining space. |
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* Graceful cleanup after install failure in both frontends |
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|
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As always with improvements, there are new bugs created to go along with them. |
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If you do encounter a bug, make sure to save your /tmp/installprofile.xml and |
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/var/log/installer.log.failed from the LiveCD right after the install fails. |
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File a bug at http://bugs.gentoo.org/. Select the "Gentoo Linux" product and the |
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"GLI" component. If you can't find that, just use the following link: |
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|
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http://bugs.gentoo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Gentoo%20Linux&component=GLI |
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|
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With the installer, we have set a new world speed record for a Gentoo install. |
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Using gli-dialog, a local (on disk or on a local ftp/http server) stage3 |
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tarball, the portage snapshot on the LiveCD, and the GRP option, we have |
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completed an install in just under 7 minutes. This was in VMWare on a box with |
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an Athlon64 3200+, 1GB of memory (512MB allocated to VMWare), and a SATA disk. |
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The same install in the GTK+ frontend took 10:40 on a Athlon64 4200+ with 1GB |
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of memory (384MB allocated to VMWare) and a SATA disk, but the GTK+ frontend |
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does a few things (displaying the install logfile and compile output) that the |
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dialog frontend does not do. |
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|
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There are updated screenshots of both frontends available at |
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http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/installer/screenshots/. There are also |
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some videos of different types of installs using both frontends. The videos |
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should be available via the Gentoo bittorrent tracker at |
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http://torrents.gentoo.org/. The three install types are: |
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|
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* basic: minimal install, dynamic stage3, GRP for logger, cron, and bootloader |
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* gnome GRP: dynamic stage3, GRP option, gnome added to extra packages |
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* speed test: minimal install, local stage3 tarball, GRP for logger, cron, and |
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bootloader |
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The first two types are both networkless. |
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As mentioned in the release announcement for 0.2, there is also a web-based |
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frontend in the works. It is the profile creation component of the network |
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deployment system called GLIMD (Gentoo Linux Installation Management Daemon). |
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GLIMD is designed to deploy multiple machines (optionally with different |
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profiles) simultaneously. While we have had a few successful test installs with |
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this method, it is still *extremely* alpha. |
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|
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-- |
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Andrew Gaffney http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/ |
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Gentoo Linux Developer Installer Project |
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-- |
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gentoo-installer@g.o mailing list |