Re: Major GLI Redesign!
"Andrew Nishihira" <[email protected]> Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:51:55 -0700
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.gentoo.installer |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
------=_Part_110201_13584829.1161139915681 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Than-you very much for the up-to-date progress. Congratulations for all the hard work done up to now.I look forwards your release. Anything good to make Gentoo installation easier for more people. On 10/17/06, Preston Cody <[email protected]> wrote: > > Greetings and salutations, > In GLI's 2.5 years or so of existence, we have achieved almost all of > the goals of the project. The first main goal of GLI was to make a > fully automated installation program that would work off of profiles, > be non-interactive, and architecture-generic. The other main goal was > to make an installer that could be used by end users for their > desktops without having to know XML and with pretty, easy-to-use > frontends that would help boost the reputation of Gentoo as not just a > super-l33t distro. > > We have struggled and faught hard to achieve both goals at the same > time, but alas they are simply too different to be able to handle both > and do a *good job* at both. > The main problem, as was to be expected, is partitioning. Andrew > Gaffney has spent ages working on trying to support every insaine and > idiotic combination of partitions that users try to create, but there > are millions of combinations and the simple truth is we can't do it > right for everyone, and we're tired of the endless stream of people > complaining why their drive with 6 primaries isn't being supported. > Also, with the current partitioning, it is extremely hard to support > raid or lvm or other architectures in general for that matter. > > After seeing the simplicity and ease of Quickstart, the solution > became clear: admit failure and split/branch GLI. So here's the plan: > > Quickstart will become the primary method for automated installations. > It is designed to be able to be netbooted and will be the installer > integrated into Scire. It may also be added to the minimal livecd at > some point (why not, right?). Quickstart works with blank drives > only, and is not too user-friendly. Currently no frontend or > configurator exists though I have plans for a web-based one that will > plug in to Scire nicely. > > GLI will be refactored to become slightly more interactive. There > will probably be about four main steps/stopping points/actions that > will occur. > 1. Setup networking, logfiles, chroot_dir and such.. i.e. all the > client_configuration stuff. This already is done interactively from > the two main frontends. We can thus chuck the entire client_profile > (yea!!!!) > 2. Drop to cfdisk or diskdruid to let the user do partitioning and > probably filesystem formatting too. This lets the user deal with > partitioning themselves and thus we don't get the blame when they > screw it up! :) > 3. Define mountpoints.. these will replace the partition layout in the > install profile. Then we fetch/install the stage tarball and/or > portage. We will still keep the dynamic stage3 (as well as making > command-line tools for its use), because the installer-livecd isn't > changing. Having this step separate lets us choose profiles and > gather updated info about things like USE flags. > 4. Everything else. There really isn't much benefit to separate out > the rest of the steps. We'll let people drop to a shell to make their > own kernel config, but I don't see much beyond that and I still like > the ability to configure at once and then let it go for a while. > > These changes will drastically simplify the partitioning code and make > GLI much easier to port to other architectures. > > The plan is to release a version of GLI like it is now with bugfixes > only for 2007.0 and target the new GLI (god forbid, should we call it > GLI 2.0? <cringe>) for 2007.1. If enough progress has been made, we > can try to put an experimental copy on the livecd and hide it (doesn't > make much sence to have an entirely different /experimental livecd > just for that). The new GLI will be written first and foremost with > gli-dialog as the frontend. The GTK frontend is quite bloated and a > pain to change and maintain, so it may disappear entirely and that is > ok by the installer devs. > > That's about it, if you have any questions/comments, feel free to post > them. This list has like no traffic so it could use some discussion > every once and awhile. > Have a pleasant day, > > -Codeman > -Installer Project Co-Lead. > -- > [email protected] mailing list > > -- Andrew ------=_Part_110201_13584829.1161139915681 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Than-you very much for the up-to-date progress. Congratulations for all the hard work done up to now.I look forwards your release. Anything good to make Gentoo installation easier for more people.<br><br> <div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/17/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Preston Cody</b> <<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>> wrote:</span> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Greetings and salutations,<br>In GLI's 2.5 years or so of existence, we have achieved almost all of<br>the goals of the project. The first main goal of GLI was to make a <br>fully automated installation program that would work off of profiles,<br>be non-interactive, and architecture-generic. The other main goal was<br>to make an installer that could be used by end users for their<br>desktops without having to know XML and with pretty, easy-to-use <br>frontends that would help boost the reputation of Gentoo as not just a<br>super-l33t distro.<br><br>We have struggled and faught hard to achieve both goals at the same<br>time, but alas they are simply too different to be able to handle both <br>and do a *good job* at both.<br>The main problem, as was to be expected, is partitioning. Andrew<br>Gaffney has spent ages working on trying to support every insaine and<br>idiotic combination of partitions that users try to create, but there <br>are millions of combinations and the simple truth is we can't do it<br>right for everyone, and we're tired of the endless stream of people<br>complaining why their drive with 6 primaries isn't being supported.<br>Also, with the current partitioning, it is extremely hard to support <br>raid or lvm or other architectures in general for that matter.<br><br>After seeing the simplicity and ease of Quickstart, the solution<br>became clear: admit failure and split/branch GLI. So here's the plan:<br><br>Quickstart will become the primary method for automated installations. <br>It is designed to be able to be netbooted and will be the installer<br>integrated into Scire. It may also be added to the minimal livecd at<br>some point (why not, right?). Quickstart works with blank drives<br>only, and is not too user-friendly. Currently no frontend or <br>configurator exists though I have plans for a web-based one that will<br>plug in to Scire nicely.<br><br>GLI will be refactored to become slightly more interactive. There<br>will probably be about four main steps/stopping points/actions that <br>will occur.<br>1. Setup networking, logfiles, chroot_dir and such.. i.e. all the<br>client_configuration stuff. This already is done interactively from<br>the two main frontends. We can thus chuck the entire client_profile <br>(yea!!!!)<br>2. Drop to cfdisk or diskdruid to let the user do partitioning and<br>probably filesystem formatting too. This lets the user deal with<br>partitioning themselves and thus we don't get the blame when they <br>screw it up! :)<br>3. Define mountpoints.. these will replace the partition layout in the<br>install profile. Then we fetch/install the stage tarball and/or<br>portage. We will still keep the dynamic stage3 (as well as making <br>command-line tools for its use), because the installer-livecd isn't<br>changing. Having this step separate lets us choose profiles and<br>gather updated info about things like USE flags.<br>4. Everything else. There really isn't much benefit to separate out <br>the rest of the steps. We'll let people drop to a shell to make their<br>own kernel config, but I don't see much beyond that and I still like<br>the ability to configure at once and then let it go for a while.<br><br> These changes will drastically simplify the partitioning code and make<br>GLI much easier to port to other architectures.<br><br>The plan is to release a version of GLI like it is now with bugfixes<br>only for 2007.0 and target the new GLI (god forbid, should we call it <br>GLI 2.0? <cringe>) for 2007.1. If enough progress has been made, we<br>can try to put an experimental copy on the livecd and hide it (doesn't<br>make much sence to have an entirely different /experimental livecd <br>just for that). The new GLI will be written first and foremost with<br>gli-dialog as the frontend. The GTK frontend is quite bloated and a<br>pain to change and maintain, so it may disappear entirely and that is<br> ok by the installer devs.<br><br>That's about it, if you have any questions/comments, feel free to post<br>them. This list has like no traffic so it could use some discussion<br>every once and awhile.<br>Have a pleasant day, <br><br>-Codeman<br>-Installer Project Co-Lead.<br>--<br><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> mailing list<br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Andrew<br> ------=_Part_110201_13584829.1161139915681-- -- [email protected] mailing list