Re: [gentoo-project] Question about a installer for Gentoo.

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 11-10-2010 11:24, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 1:42 PM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr."
> <phajdan.jr@g.o> wrote:
>> On 10/11/10 9:01 AM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>> all it needs is a maintainer that doesnt suck and keeps the project going.  so
>>> until that happens, nothing is going to change.
>>
>> I think it's more than that. Even when it was maintained, the installer
>> was buggy. An installer which doesn't work hurts the reputation of
>> Gentoo. Make sure the installer is very solid before it is more broadly
>> advertised.
>>
>
> Another problem was that users who used the installer and never read
> the handbooks constantly got problems using and maintaining their
> system afterwards. On the other hand, an automated installer is *very*
> useful for people already experienced with Gentoo to install new
> systems w/o spending 3 hours of personal time on it.

Since most of the install process is already automated by emerge. Most
of work left to the user is indeed configuration of the system
(make.conf, conf.d & friends).

So I would instead focus on a CLI util to help quickly generate (up to
date) configuration files for make.conf and conf.d files. - that is what
takes most of the time..

Example:

System clock [/etc/conf.d/hwclock]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[U] Set clock to (L)ocal or (U)TC.     (Choose local if dual-booting
windows)
[X] Sync HW clock at shutdown

Ones like conf.d/net will be trickier...

My 2 cents
- Angelo
>
> In summation, IMO the goal of the installer should be to automate and
> not to make it easy for newbies to install Gentoo. With that in mind,
> please someone work on this! :)
>