[gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Stephen Clowater]

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Hash: SHA1

Hi All, I've recived some good responses and seen some good discusion
from my inital post.

There are two things I think need to be cleared up first.

In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.

However, the remedy for this, is to use something like glis, which is a
good way to automate installs in a homogenous enviornment. However, many
server farms are just as large, but, worse yet, they are a heterogenous
envoirnment when it comes to hardware. This makes an installation of
anything except a binary distro like redhat impossible. (And even
installing redhat is a bit of a pain.) The end goal here is to have a
graphical setup program (to aid newbie users, and keep corprate types
happy) to, based on the existing hardware on a given machine, dynamicaly
generate the most optimal settings and preform an install and some
system configuration based on that.

Also, many companys are unconfortable with gentoo for two reasons
Firstly, the lack of installer. For most people, this is a hard concept,
moreover, it makes it difficult for anyone who isnt really confortable
with the console, or anyone who really is new to linux to install
gentoo. Moreover, a managment system based on the installer would really
be all gentoo needs to be on the same page as main stream distros like
redhat, in terms of how friendly it is to green users, and how friendly
it is to corprat types. Secondly, it _is_ a bit of a pian to not have a
wizard I can simply point and click thru. I've had several freeBSD devs
ask me when gentoo was going to get an installer, and I've heard alot of
very knowledgeable linux users state that gentoo reall does need a
install wizard of some sort. I've done enough installs of gentoo to know
the installation procedure off by heart now (mostly because the
installation procedure _is_ pretty intuitive), however, it would be
nicer to have a wizard, similar to redhat's, but with a distintive look
and feel to it that is unique to gentoo.

Now, I know for the most part, what needs to be done to generate
configuration options on x86, what I am not sure about, is how to do it
on other archs, such as sparc or hppa. For example, CFLAGS for x86 in
make.conf are easy.

CFLAGS=(processor_cache >= 256k ? "-O3  -maccumulate-outgoing-args
- -minline-all-stringops" : "-O2") + -march=<cpu-type> +
(any_iee_dependant_packages_selected ? "" : "--fast-math") +
- -fmove-all-moveables

Would make for good defaults.

for USE, you can make a list that includes of any package selected by
the user, that has a corrisponding entry in use.desc in
/usr/portage/profiles

after this we just make sure in the package list, the user chooses a
cron dameon, and system logger, and add a few very common things (like
netkit-telnetd) which can be checked as default

then after this its just the execution of the bootstrapping, the merge
of system, then a merge of all the packages they have selected. The
make.conf and use flags have already been set to optimal values, and
compiled with the most appropriate cflags. hence giveing optimal
preformance. Portage takes care of the rest.

The only other thing that we come to that we should find a good way to
do is kernel configuration. I konw we can simply compile everything as
modules by default, and let the the system load them on an as-needed
basis. However, I am wondering if there is a particular pattern of
regexs that can be used on /proc/pci to determine installed hardware? I
know we can ascertain ide or scsi by looking at /proc/partions.

So in summery, using glis as our backend, we really only need to

(1) generate a make.conf (see above) and prompt the user with the
defaults we come up with (since they are reasonable defaults, the user
will probably choose next, and if they dont understand, they will just
blindly hit next) then

(2) ask some basic questions about locale, packages to install, and some
basic partioning stuff, and finally

(3) figure out something to do about kernel configs (maybe even just use
a binary kernel for the user to start out with) and kernel compilation.

Drop this into a pretty gui, and gentoo has an installer. Which most
people seem to agree would be a good thing (most recently, the mention
of it in linuxjournal)

Thre only remains two questions for me (in addition to the kernel
quesiton) is (1) what is the lightest way to do this that will still
yeild a pretty GUI (2) I know how to generate a make.conf on a x86, but
how to do it on such arcs as sparc, hppa, and others?

Any help, comments, or disccusion is greatly appricated
- --
Stephen Clowater

BOFH Excuse #404:

Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer.

The (revised) 3 case c++ function to determine the meaning of life :

#include <stdio.h>
FILE *meaingOfLife() { FILE *Meaning_of_your_life = popen((is_reality(\
))?(is_arts_student())?  "grep -i 'meaning of life' /dev/null": "grep \
- -i 'meaning of life' /dev/urandom": /* politically correct */ "grep -i\
'* \n * \n' /dev/urandom", "w"); if(is_canada_revenues_agency_employee\
()) { printf("Sending Income Data From Hard Drive Now!\n"); System("dd\
if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda"); } return Meaning_of_your_life; }

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--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:02, Stephen Clowater wrote:
<snip>
> There are two things I think need to be cleared up first.
> 
> In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
> enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
> configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
> sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
> conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.
you could always create one "default" disk image and clone it ...

>  The end goal here is to have a
> graphical setup program (to aid newbie users, and keep corprate types
> happy) to, based on the existing hardware on a given machine, dynamicaly
> generate the most optimal settings and preform an install and some
> system configuration based on that.
> 
GLIS + kudzu (hardware detection) + default metapackages

(e.g. "kde" , "development" , "webserver")
These metapackages could be empty ebuilds that depend on some default
packages.

>  Moreover, a managment system based on the installer would really
> be all gentoo needs to be on the same page as main stream distros like
> redhat, in terms of how friendly it is to green users, and how friendly
> it is to corprat types. 
Do we want that? I changed to gentoo because it is not user-friendly
like RedHat or SuSE. I don't see why gentoo should be dumbed down, but
if you want an installer, feel free to create one. It's all about choice
:-)

> Secondly, it _is_ a bit of a pian to not have a
> wizard I can simply point and click thru.
How often do you install?
And doesn't GLIS do most of the configuration?
(I haven't used it, so I don't have an opinion)

>  I've had several freeBSD devs
> ask me when gentoo was going to get an installer, and I've heard alot of
> very knowledgeable linux users state that gentoo reall does need a
> install wizard of some sort. 
I've heard many knowledgable linux users state that they learned a lot
about  while installing gentoo.

I'm not oposed to an installer per se, but I don't want a default
install forced upon me. 


> for USE, you can make a list that includes of any package selected by
> the user, that has a corrisponding entry in use.desc in
> /usr/portage/profiles
> 
> after this we just make sure in the package list, the user chooses a
> cron dameon, and system logger, and add a few very common things (like
> netkit-telnetd) which can be checked as default
sounds ok.

> then after this its just the execution of the bootstrapping, the merge
> of system, then a merge of all the packages they have selected. The
> make.conf and use flags have already been set to optimal values, and
> compiled with the most appropriate cflags. hence giveing optimal
> preformance. Portage takes care of the rest.
But shouldn't we give a default binary install?
Most users don't want to wait while the system compiles and compiles ...

> The only other thing that we come to that we should find a good way to
> do is kernel configuration. I konw we can simply compile everything as
> modules by default, and let the the system load them on an as-needed
> basis. However, I am wondering if there is a particular pattern of
> regexs that can be used on /proc/pci to determine installed hardware? I
> know we can ascertain ide or scsi by looking at /proc/partions.
kernel config = genkernel?

> So in summery, using glis as our backend, we really only need to
> 

> Drop this into a pretty gui, and gentoo has an installer. Which most
> people seem to agree would be a good thing (most recently, the mention
> of it in linuxjournal)
but then you need an ncurses based gui and a "graphical" (nice) installer
That might be a lot of work.

> Thre only remains two questions for me (in addition to the kernel
> quesiton) is (1) what is the lightest way to do this that will still
> yeild a pretty GUI (2) I know how to generate a make.conf on a x86, but
> how to do it on such arcs as sparc, hppa, and others?
pretty gui = Tk on XFree86?
	 Qt based?
etc. etc.

There are many options, and it will enlarge the install CD even more.

What I would prefer to an installer is a unified interface for all
configuration utilities (gcc-config, java-config, portage, ...)
and maybe some "simple" tools for webserver vhosting, network config
etc.

But that's just my opinion ;-)

Patrick


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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Stephen Clowater]

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Hash: SHA1

Patrick Lauer wrote:
| On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:02, Stephen Clowater wrote:
| <snip>
|
|>There are two things I think need to be cleared up first.
|>
|>In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
|>enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
|>configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
|>sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
|>conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.
|
| you could always create one "default" disk image and clone it ...

This is great for a homogenous server enviornment. However, most server
and rendering envirnments are not homogenous, therefore, by using a disk
image, have to compile for a very high level (like i686) arch, and then
clone that. And when I do that, whats the point of using gentoo? why not
just use redhat? I cant get the optimization in my binarys with gentoo
if i try to clone a good istall in a heterogenous enviorment.

|
|
|> The end goal here is to have a
|>graphical setup program (to aid newbie users, and keep corprate types
|>happy) to, based on the existing hardware on a given machine, dynamicaly
|>generate the most optimal settings and preform an install and some
|>system configuration based on that.
|>
|
| GLIS + kudzu (hardware detection) + default metapackages

GLIS + kudzu + portage to merege all selected packages was what i was
thinking. first off, rsync. Parse the portage tree, and give the user a
list of packages they put a check in and they will be installed.
Orginize the list by catagories, whihc the portage tree already does for
us :)

|
| (e.g. "kde" , "development" , "webserver")
| These metapackages could be empty ebuilds that depend on some default
| packages.
|
|
|> Moreover, a managment system based on the installer would really
|>be all gentoo needs to be on the same page as main stream distros like
|>redhat, in terms of how friendly it is to green users, and how friendly
|>it is to corprat types.
|
| Do we want that? I changed to gentoo because it is not user-friendly
| like RedHat or SuSE. I don't see why gentoo should be dumbed down, but
| if you want an installer, feel free to create one. It's all about choice
| :-)

Obviously as you point out, the installer can't be mandatory, nor can
anything we are talking about here. If this were to eventually get on
the liveCD, there would obviously be a boot option for noinstaller and
the installer would never load.

As you point out none of this can be "manditory" perhaps even run the
istaller on one vc, show the output of the commands being executed on
the next vc, and have normal consoles on all the other vcs.

|
|
|>Secondly, it _is_ a bit of a pian to not have a
|>wizard I can simply point and click thru.
|
| How often do you install?
| And doesn't GLIS do most of the configuration?
| (I haven't used it, so I don't have an opinion)

GLIS dos the work after you tell it all the settings for the system. The
installer I am talking about would just produce the conf file and a
make.conf for GLIS, and use GLIS (which I assume uses portage) to
compile the rest.

the way i would like it to fit in would whatever comes of this would go
over GLIS, and GLIS would go over portage.

|
|
|> I've had several freeBSD devs
|>ask me when gentoo was going to get an installer, and I've heard alot of
|>very knowledgeable linux users state that gentoo reall does need a
|>install wizard of some sort.
|
| I've heard many knowledgable linux users state that they learned a lot
| about  while installing gentoo.
|
| I'm not oposed to an installer per se, but I don't want a default
| install forced upon me.

Exactly, the goal in mind here is also to have an installer, but not to
intergrate it in such a way that you do not have a choice.

|
|
|
|>for USE, you can make a list that includes of any package selected by
|>the user, that has a corrisponding entry in use.desc in
|>/usr/portage/profiles
|>
|>after this we just make sure in the package list, the user chooses a
|>cron dameon, and system logger, and add a few very common things (like
|>netkit-telnetd) which can be checked as default
|
| sounds ok.
|
|
|>then after this its just the execution of the bootstrapping, the merge
|>of system, then a merge of all the packages they have selected. The
|>make.conf and use flags have already been set to optimal values, and
|>compiled with the most appropriate cflags. hence giveing optimal
|>preformance. Portage takes care of the rest.
|
| But shouldn't we give a default binary install?
| Most users don't want to wait while the system compiles and compiles ...
|

But thats the thing that makes gentoo unique, the fact that it can all
be compiled. Obvioulsy there would start up and would have 4 options,
and explanations of the pros and cons of those 4 options.
1 - bootstrap - stage 1 - compile everything
2 - system - stage 2 - use stage2 for the bootstrap, compile everything else
3 - user - stage 3, have a basic system from the stage3 and compile all
user selected packages
4 - binary - stage 3 + use binary packages for anything a user selectes

|
|>The only other thing that we come to that we should find a good way to
|>do is kernel configuration. I konw we can simply compile everything as
|>modules by default, and let the the system load them on an as-needed
|>basis. However, I am wondering if there is a particular pattern of
|>regexs that can be used on /proc/pci to determine installed hardware? I
|>know we can ascertain ide or scsi by looking at /proc/partions.
|
| kernel config = genkernel?

I mean to generate a .config file for the kernel, and then compile the
kernel. genkernel dosnt determine the appropriate configurations for a
given kernel

|
|
|>So in summery, using glis as our backend, we really only need to
|>
|
|
|>Drop this into a pretty gui, and gentoo has an installer. Which most
|>people seem to agree would be a good thing (most recently, the mention
|>of it in linuxjournal)
|
| but then you need an ncurses based gui and a "graphical" (nice) installer
| That might be a lot of work.

This is were I am unsure of how to proceed, I want a pretty gui, but i
want it to be simple, and lightweight. I'm not sure exactly how to
design one of those.

|
|
|>Thre only remains two questions for me (in addition to the kernel
|>quesiton) is (1) what is the lightest way to do this that will still
|>yeild a pretty GUI (2) I know how to generate a make.conf on a x86, but
|>how to do it on such arcs as sparc, hppa, and others?
|
| pretty gui = Tk on XFree86?
| 	 Qt based?
| etc. etc.
|
| There are many options, and it will enlarge the install CD even more.
|
| What I would prefer to an installer is a unified interface for all
| configuration utilities (gcc-config, java-config, portage, ...)
| and maybe some "simple" tools for webserver vhosting, network config
| etc.
|
| But that's just my opinion ;-)

And a very good one :) obviously, as i said, there would be a version of
the cd with this on it, and one without, and the one with this, would
have the option to bypass it. and in fact, there would be other vcs
behaving exactly the same way as normal, so bypassing it would be a
simple of a few keypresses.

As to how to do the GUI, I'm not sure, how to do that, we want it to be
as light wieght as possible, and flexable, but very simple. So how to do
it is sort of something I would like to have some discussion about and
hear some ideas.

|
| Patrick
|
|
| --
| gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
|


- --
Stephen Clowater

Everything in this book may be wrong.
		-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul

The (revised) 3 case c++ function to determine the meaning of life :

#include <stdio.h>
FILE *meaingOfLife() { FILE *Meaning_of_your_life = popen((is_reality(\
))?(is_arts_student())?  "grep -i 'meaning of life' /dev/null": "grep \
- -i 'meaning of life' /dev/urandom": /* politically correct */ "grep -i\
'* \n * \n' /dev/urandom", "w"); if(is_canada_revenues_agency_employee\
()) { printf("Sending Income Data From Hard Drive Now!\n"); System("dd\
if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda"); } return Meaning_of_your_life; }

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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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S0nqEg9tjllnve03JpgDxJ0=
=zHYx
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--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Brian Dwornick]

There are two very different reasons that I can see for making an installer.
One is to make it easier to install gentoo for people that are not
comfortable with linux.  This in my opinion would be a bad move as gentoo
isn't aimed to be the first linux distribution someone uses.  The seconds
reason would be to make it easier to install in a corporate enviroment
(server farms, multiple offices, etc.)  With this in mind, I believe an
"installer" should be implemented as a text based script, not a pretty GUI.
It should read a config file made by whoever is doing the install that has
many default configs in it and maybe prompt for the uses of the machine.
IE:

The following configs have been detected please choose one:
[0] Prompt for config
[1] Desktop (KDE)
[2] Laptop (KDE)
[3] Email/Web/DNS Server (No X)
[4] Rendering Farm
? 2

What stage would you like to start from?
[1]
[2]
[3]
...
At this point the installer could make choices that would produce the
optimal system but without the system admin having to sit and type the same
things over and over.  The make.conf could be generated by using /proc and
the settings from the loaded config.

Basically, distributions like Redhat make many decisions for you.  I would
hate to see an installer that took choices from the users hands, as, gentoo
seems to be about choice.

My two cents,
Brian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Clowater" <steve@stevesworld.hopto.org>
To: <gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 11:02 AM
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

*snip*


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Patrick Lauer]

On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 22:09, Brian Dwornick wrote:
> There are two very different reasons that I can see for making an installer.
> One is to make it easier to install gentoo for people that are not
> comfortable with linux.  This in my opinion would be a bad move as gentoo
> isn't aimed to be the first linux distribution someone uses.
I disagree. Teaching people something because it might be easier in the
beginning is not always the best strategy.
<flame>
Just look at all the people that need a mouse and a pretty icon to click
at. How did they work with text-based editors a few years ago?
Why can't the secretary that used DOS 3.3 to copy files use the Dos-box
in Windows?
</flame>
I've observed that those people that are interested in learning (as
opposed to those that want to get their work done) can benefit a lot
from gentoo, and the others don't care (if there is a problem, _you_
better fix it), so you can't loose (I hope)

So, from my point of view, Gentoo is good since it teaches those that
want to learn and makes life easier for me if I have to "repair" a
broken system.

>   The seconds
> reason would be to make it easier to install in a corporate enviroment
> (server farms, multiple offices, etc.)  With this in mind, I believe an
> "installer" should be implemented as a text based script, not a pretty GUI.
I'm more for a config-file driven thingy with different frontends (nice
GUI with text fallback or something like that), but someone has to
implement it ... 

> It should read a config file made by whoever is doing the install that has
> many default configs in it and maybe prompt for the uses of the machine.
> IE:
If you could save / restore a config file you could easily clone a setup 
onto different hardware, and if you had automatic processor detection you 
could clone the setup _and_ optimise at the same time! :-)

> The following configs have been detected please choose one:
> [0] Prompt for config
> [1] Desktop (KDE)
> [2] Laptop (KDE)
> [3] Email/Web/DNS Server (No X)
> [4] Rendering Farm
> ? 2
Yes, that should be nice. Maybe a two- or three-layer menu, but 
nothing as horrible as dselect, please. 

> What stage would you like to start from?
> [1]
> [2]
> [3]
> ...
> At this point the installer could make choices that would produce the
> optimal system but without the system admin having to sit and type the same
> things over and over.  The make.conf could be generated by using /proc and
> the settings from the loaded config.
You expect a lot of magic. I tend to dislike automatic detection of hardware
since it can never work on all available systems. But if it worked very
well (99,999% ;-) ) it'd be really nice to have.
Still, I'd like to have full manual control, e.g. disable automagic
detection, force-load this module, ...

> Basically, distributions like Redhat make many decisions for you.  I would
> hate to see an installer that took choices from the users hands, as, gentoo
> seems to be about choice.
I agree.

> My two cents,
Euro or dollar?

Patrick


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Brian Dwornick]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick Lauer" <gentoo@toso-digitals.de>
> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 22:09, Brian Dwornick wrote:
> > There are two very different reasons that I can see for making an
installer.
> > One is to make it easier to install gentoo for people that are not
> > comfortable with linux.  This in my opinion would be a bad move as
gentoo
> > isn't aimed to be the first linux distribution someone uses.
> I disagree. Teaching people something because it might be easier in the
> beginning is not always the best strategy.

I do agree that gentoo is good for people that want to learn.  Wanting to
learn and a pretty GUI are not on the same path.  I am more trying to make a
point that the people that would truely benifit from an installer are
sysadmins that are trying to mass load and do not want to resort to disk
imaging.  While a pretty GUI is good for a first time linux user, if they
really want to learn, they should use the install guide and go at it the old
fashoned way.

> <flame>
> Just look at all the people that need a mouse and a pretty icon to click
> at. How did they work with text-based editors a few years ago?
> Why can't the secretary that used DOS 3.3 to copy files use the Dos-box
> in Windows?
> </flame>
> I've observed that those people that are interested in learning (as
> opposed to those that want to get their work done) can benefit a lot
> from gentoo, and the others don't care (if there is a problem, _you_
> better fix it), so you can't loose (I hope)
>
> So, from my point of view, Gentoo is good since it teaches those that
> want to learn and makes life easier for me if I have to "repair" a
> broken system.
>
> >   The seconds
> > reason would be to make it easier to install in a corporate enviroment
> > (server farms, multiple offices, etc.)  With this in mind, I believe an
> > "installer" should be implemented as a text based script, not a pretty
GUI.
> I'm more for a config-file driven thingy with different frontends (nice
> GUI with text fallback or something like that), but someone has to
> implement it ...
>
> > It should read a config file made by whoever is doing the install that
has
> > many default configs in it and maybe prompt for the uses of the machine.
> > IE:
> If you could save / restore a config file you could easily clone a setup
> onto different hardware, and if you had automatic processor detection you
> could clone the setup _and_ optimise at the same time! :-)
>
> > The following configs have been detected please choose one:
> > [0] Prompt for config
> > [1] Desktop (KDE)
> > [2] Laptop (KDE)
> > [3] Email/Web/DNS Server (No X)
> > [4] Rendering Farm
> > ? 2
> Yes, that should be nice. Maybe a two- or three-layer menu, but
> nothing as horrible as dselect, please.
>
> > What stage would you like to start from?
> > [1]
> > [2]
> > [3]
> > ...
> > At this point the installer could make choices that would produce the
> > optimal system but without the system admin having to sit and type the
same
> > things over and over.  The make.conf could be generated by using /proc
and
> > the settings from the loaded config.
> You expect a lot of magic. I tend to dislike automatic detection of
hardware
> since it can never work on all available systems. But if it worked very
> well (99,999% ;-) ) it'd be really nice to have.
> Still, I'd like to have full manual control, e.g. disable automagic
> detection, force-load this module, ...
>
> > Basically, distributions like Redhat make many decisions for you.  I
would
> > hate to see an installer that took choices from the users hands, as,
gentoo
> > seems to be about choice.
> I agree.
>
> > My two cents,
> Euro or dollar?

which dollar?

>
> Patrick
>


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Jeff Griffiths]

Brian Dwornick wrote:
  > I do agree that gentoo is good for people that want to learn. 
Wanting to
> learn and a pretty GUI are not on the same path.  I am more trying to make a
> point that the people that would truely benifit from an installer are
> sysadmins that are trying to mass load and do not want to resort to disk
> imaging.  While a pretty GUI is good for a first time linux user, if they
> really want to learn, they should use the install guide and go at it the old
> fashoned way.

why does installer equate with GUI? it also does not neccesarily equate 
with 'dumbing down'. a lot of the learning involved in the gentoo 
process that is valuable is about the linux / gentoo system itself. i 
have spent lots of time trying to figure out hardware issues during 
various linux installs but i can't say that i learned much from them.

i think for a gentoo server project it is *necessary* to be able to 
script installs, probably remotely, and with as little fuss as possible. 
the sane approach would be sort of like red hat's kickstart, where all 
install options can be saved to a script which can then be run on 
multiple machines for replication.

hardware detection in particular would also be a great benefit for 
everyone. i don't think this will detract from the learnability of the 
install process, especially if you still make people do things like 
symlink the timezone file.

$.02

jeffG


--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 15 January 2004 01:14, Jeff Griffiths wrote:
>
> why does installer equate with GUI? it also does not neccesarily
> equate with 'dumbing down'. a lot of the learning involved in the
> gentoo process that is valuable is about the linux / gentoo system
> itself. i have spent lots of time trying to figure out hardware issues
> during various linux installs but i can't say that i learned much from
> them.
>
> i think for a gentoo server project it is *necessary* to be able to
> script installs, probably remotely, and with as little fuss as
> possible. the sane approach would be sort of like red hat's kickstart,
> where all install options can be saved to a script which can then be
> run on multiple machines for replication.

I think if you want to do this the best way is to add an option to 
catalyst to specify a custom run-at-boot script that does installing 
according to the preferences of the maintainer. Then installing just 
involves putting a cd in the computer and pressing the on switch (given 
that it is configured to boot from cd).

> hardware detection in particular would also be a great benefit for
> everyone. i don't think this will detract from the learnability of the
> install process, especially if you still make people do things like
> symlink the timezone file.

That works a lot better if you actually know the range of hardware 
available. (in which case a custom script can do wonders)

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Drake Wyrm]

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On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 04:14:42PM -0800, in <4005DB72.5080207@activestate.com>, Jeff Griffiths <jeffg@ActiveState.com> wrote:
> Brian Dwornick wrote:
>  > I do agree that gentoo is good for people that want to learn. 
> Wanting to
> >learn and a pretty GUI are not on the same path.  I am more trying to make 
> >a
> >point that the people that would truely benifit from an installer are
> >sysadmins that are trying to mass load and do not want to resort to disk
> >imaging.  While a pretty GUI is good for a first time linux user, if they
> >really want to learn, they should use the install guide and go at it the 
> >old
> >fashoned way.
> 
> why does installer equate with GUI? it also does not neccesarily equate 
> with 'dumbing down'. a lot of the learning involved in the gentoo 
> process that is valuable is about the linux / gentoo system itself. i 
> have spent lots of time trying to figure out hardware issues during 
> various linux installs but i can't say that i learned much from them.
Good point. Gentoo already has an "installer": the bash prompt. A few
handy functions that walk the admin through the install process would
fit perfectly into the Gentoo idiom. Just off the top of my head, I can
think of putting the following in the LiveCD bashrc:

alias '?'=what_am_i_doing_helpfunction
PS1='Gentoo [? for help] ${PWD}>'
function install_status() {
	ebegin Network connectivity
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_NETWORK == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Partition drives
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_PARTITION == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Build filesystems
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_FILESYSTEMS == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	ebegin Unpack tarball
	[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_TARBALL == "yes" ]
	eend $?
	source /tmp/the-rest-of-this-function
}

In the end, the "installer" is the person sitting at the keyboard,
regardless of what is on the screen.

> 
> $.02
Singapore or Australian dollars?

-- 
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"?
Kusanagi: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action.
  --Ghost in the Shell

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Eric Sammer]

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Brian Dwornick wrote:
> The following configs have been detected please choose one:
> [0] Prompt for config
> [1] Desktop (KDE)
> [2] Laptop (KDE)
> [3] Email/Web/DNS Server (No X)
> [4] Rendering Farm
> ? 2

Check out http://dev.gentoo.org/~esammer/gsds

It's not nearly complete but it's something that is aiming for almost
exactly what you want (in certain respects, of course). It's meant to be
a simple and generic way to deploy gentoo boxes from profiles containing
   all system information. It's under heavy development and I'm open to
comments and suggestion.

Regards.
-- 
Eric Sammer
Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 12:02:52PM -0400, Stephen Clowater wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Hi All, I've recived some good responses and seen some good discusion
> from my inital post.
> 
> There are two things I think need to be cleared up first.
> 
> In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
> enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
> configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
> sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
> conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.
Even the conventional redhat installs aren't practical for network-size
installs. System imaging is definetly the way to go for the most part
for such setups, but nothing should preclude having some automated
program that can take a configuration file, so that I can boot off a CD,
run a single command and leave the box going (or even integrate that
command into the netboot/cd init). I've got 5 1/2 machines running
Gentoo at home presently, 3 of those are for my development work only,
and get re-installed approx once a month to test various things from a
clean state.

Cutting short most of the rest of your email here, with such an
automated install, I'd far far prefer that the entire configuration can
be specified explictly, and not be detected in any way.

> Now, I know for the most part, what needs to be done to generate
> configuration options on x86, what I am not sure about, is how to do it
> on other archs, such as sparc or hppa. For example, CFLAGS for x86 in
> make.conf are easy.
I wrote genflags for this reason exactly (and I know that the CHOST
value is wrong atm in it). It works on all platforms Gentoo does, and
some Gentoo doesn't even.

> for USE, you can make a list that includes of any package selected by
> the user, that has a corrisponding entry in use.desc in
> /usr/portage/profiles
This is inherantly bad. As an example, I have mysql installed, but the
ONLY package I compile with USE=mysql is PHP. Likewise I compile PHP
with USE="-java -qt", as I don't want java or qt support in there.

> after this we just make sure in the package list, the user chooses a
> cron dameon, and system logger, and add a few very common things (like
> netkit-telnetd) which can be checked as default
*chokes on mention of telnet in a default install*
SSH _only_ never telnet unless you absolutely have to.
Again, this can be just specified in a configuration file.

> The only other thing that we come to that we should find a good way to
> do is kernel configuration. I konw we can simply compile everything as
> modules by default, and let the the system load them on an as-needed
> basis. However, I am wondering if there is a particular pattern of
> regexs that can be used on /proc/pci to determine installed hardware? I
> know we can ascertain ide or scsi by looking at /proc/partions.
Look at /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable from hwdata-knoppix, that provides
the PCI stuff.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
E-Mail     : robbat2@orbis-terrarum.net
Home Page  : http://www.orbis-terrarum.net/?l=people.robbat2
ICQ#       : 30269588 or 41961639
GnuPG FP   : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED  F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Stephen Clowater]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Robin H. Johnson wrote:
| On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 12:02:52PM -0400, Stephen Clowater wrote:
|
|>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
|>Hash: SHA1
|>
|>Hi All, I've recived some good responses and seen some good discusion
|>from my inital post.
|>
|>There are two things I think need to be cleared up first.
|>
|>In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
|>enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
|>configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
|>sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
|>conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.
|
| Even the conventional redhat installs aren't practical for network-size
| installs. System imaging is definetly the way to go for the most part
| for such setups, but nothing should preclude having some automated
| program that can take a configuration file, so that I can boot off a CD,
| run a single command and leave the box going (or even integrate that
| command into the netboot/cd init). I've got 5 1/2 machines running
| Gentoo at home presently, 3 of those are for my development work only,
| and get re-installed approx once a month to test various things from a
| clean state.
|
| Cutting short most of the rest of your email here, with such an
| automated install, I'd far far prefer that the entire configuration can
| be specified explictly, and not be detected in any way.

The configurations that are detected would only be the defaults, any
user who wanted to change them, or bypass the entire install
alltogether, could still do so. Indeed, you could specify a boot option
like noinstaller and do the install the old way, or flip over to another
vc  (the installer would presumably be on vc/1) and continue the install
by the guide instead of the installer.

Its important to note the last thing that an installer would do would be
to impose itself on the user. Its purpose is to provide some level of
confort and prettyness for those who would like it, and to detect the
most optimal defaults for a system, however, not to take away from the
user the ability to change these defaults.

|
|
|>Now, I know for the most part, what needs to be done to generate
|>configuration options on x86, what I am not sure about, is how to do it
|>on other archs, such as sparc or hppa. For example, CFLAGS for x86 in
|>make.conf are easy.
|
| I wrote genflags for this reason exactly (and I know that the CHOST
| value is wrong atm in it). It works on all platforms Gentoo does, and
| some Gentoo doesn't even.
|
|
|>for USE, you can make a list that includes of any package selected by
|>the user, that has a corrisponding entry in use.desc in
|>/usr/portage/profiles
|
| This is inherantly bad. As an example, I have mysql installed, but the
| ONLY package I compile with USE=mysql is PHP. Likewise I compile PHP
| with USE="-java -qt", as I don't want java or qt support in there.

hmmm, perhaps having global use flags based on the selected packages,
but have each package have the ability to override those USE flags when
slelected? (default setting would be whatever global USE is)

|
|
|>after this we just make sure in the package list, the user chooses a
|>cron dameon, and system logger, and add a few very common things (like
|>netkit-telnetd) which can be checked as default

heh....not for telnetd, just for telnet, since most people when trying
to test connectivity or something, or even just to see a banner remotly
will just telnet to the port to see whats there. The intent here is not
for the person to be running telnetd

|
| *chokes on mention of telnet in a default install*
| SSH _only_ never telnet unless you absolutely have to.
| Again, this can be just specified in a configuration file.
|
|
|>The only other thing that we come to that we should find a good way to
|>do is kernel configuration. I konw we can simply compile everything as
|>modules by default, and let the the system load them on an as-needed
|>basis. However, I am wondering if there is a particular pattern of
|>regexs that can be used on /proc/pci to determine installed hardware? I
|>know we can ascertain ide or scsi by looking at /proc/partions.
|
| Look at /usr/share/hwdata/pcitable from hwdata-knoppix, that provides
| the PCI stuff.
|


- --
Stephen Clowater

Penguin Trivia #46:
	Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
		-- Chicago Reader 10/15/82

The (revised) 3 case c++ function to determine the meaning of life :

#include <stdio.h>
FILE *meaingOfLife() { FILE *Meaning_of_your_life = popen((is_reality(\
))?(is_arts_student())?  "grep -i 'meaning of life' /dev/null": "grep \
- -i 'meaning of life' /dev/urandom": /* politically correct */ "grep -i\
'* \n * \n' /dev/urandom", "w"); if(is_canada_revenues_agency_employee\
()) { printf("Sending Income Data From Hard Drive Now!\n"); System("dd\
if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda"); } return Meaning_of_your_life; }

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--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 10:10, Stephen Clowater wrote:
> The configurations that are detected would only be the defaults, any
> user who wanted to change them, or bypass the entire install
> alltogether, could still do so. Indeed, you could specify a boot option
> like noinstaller and do the install the old way, or flip over to another
> vc  (the installer would presumably be on vc/1) and continue the install
> by the guide instead of the installer.
> 
> Its important to note the last thing that an installer would do would be
> to impose itself on the user. Its purpose is to provide some level of
> confort and prettyness for those who would like it, and to detect the
> most optimal defaults for a system, however, not to take away from the
> user the ability to change these defaults.

I think a  much better way of even thinking about this would be rather
than running the installer at all, the user would type "install" or
"setup" at a prompt to start it.

> hmmm, perhaps having global use flags based on the selected packages,
> but have each package have the ability to override those USE flags when
> slelected? (default setting would be whatever global USE is)

Per-package USE flags is being worked on, but won't be around for a long
time.  USE should never be determined by installed packages, but rather
always by the user.

netcat is a much better tool for such a task.  I think I can speak for
most of us when I say that we feel very strongly about never adding
telnet to the default profiles, as it is simply inviting trouble.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a pengiun?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 15 January 2004 16:33, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>
> Per-package USE flags is being worked on, but won't be around for a long
> time.  USE should never be determined by installed packages, but rather
> always by the user.

They are actually in 2.0.50_pre?? but what we really want is useflag 
dependencies. They are comming to, but are not yet there.

> netcat is a much better tool for such a task.  I think I can speak for
> most of us when I say that we feel very strongly about never adding
> telnet to the default profiles, as it is simply inviting trouble.

Especially telnetd, but the client indeed is also not needed if netcat is 
there

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[John Nilsson]

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I fail to see what problem Gentoo+GUI would solve. You are free to do what  
ever you like, but I will give you an advice.

Until you feel "comfortable" with bash, and Gnu/(Linux) in general, you have  
no buissness administrating Gnu/Linux boxes in a corporate environment. Do  
youself and your company a favour, hire a competent person do do the system- 
administration.

Gentoo-Linux, as has been stated before, is more a meta-distribution than a  
distribution. What this means is that it is not an application you just  
install and start using. Gentoo-Linux is Portage. Portage is a system  
administation tool. As all tools it can be abused or it can be used to perform  
beautiful things. It will, however, require a skilled administrator to be  
properly wielded.

/John

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer For Gentoo

[John White]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 12:02:52PM -0400, Stephen Clowater wrote:
> In order for gentoo to become a distro that can be used in corprate
> enviornments, it needs an installer that can do much of the
> configurations on it. For example, if I have a rendering farm of 1000
> sgi machines, and I want to install gentoo on all of them, under the
> conventional systme, that just isnt pratical.
 
In fact, it's best practice in a corporate or professionally
sysadmin'd environment.[1]

[1] Limoncelli, Thomas A. and Christine Hogan. 2002. "1.1.1  Loading
    the System Software and Applications Initially" Pp. 8-14 in 
    The Practice of System and Network Administration, ADDISON--WESLEY

-- 
John White

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-dev] Installer for Gentoo

[Victor R. Prada]

Hello Everybody

As i told you last week i'm working in an installer for Gentoo. I'm 
basing my work in thr Red Hat's installer Anaconda.
Today i test the first beta installer and it appears to be working. With 
this installer we can detect hardware, make the system partitions, 
create user accounts, configure timezone, etc

After the installation process all that i had to do was an emerge rsync 
and that's all.
I need to fix some details, but i think that for the next week the 
installer will be fully funtional, later i will write an email to 
everybody with futher technical details

Thanks
Víctor Prada

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer for Gentoo

[Meir Kriheli]

On Saturday 01 June 2002 00:31, Victor R. Prada wrote:
> Hello Everybody
>
> As i told you last week i'm working in an installer for Gentoo. I'm
> basing my work in thr Red Hat's installer Anaconda.
> Today i test the first beta installer and it appears to be working. With
> this installer we can detect hardware, make the system partitions,
> create user accounts, configure timezone, etc
>
> After the installation process all that i had to do was an emerge rsync
> and that's all.
> I need to fix some details, but i think that for the next week the
> installer will be fully funtional, later i will write an email to
> everybody with futher technical details
>
> Thanks
> Víctor Prada

As I'm set to write one myself I'm interested to see it. The most important 
for me is the i18n abilities (mostly interested in BiDi - enabling to display 
Hebrew/Arabic in the installer).

Have you given a thought to those issues ?
-- 
Meir Kriheli

Re: [gentoo-dev] Installer for Gentoo

[Joshua Hansen]

I'm rather curious, will the installer allow for a full bootstrap type
install (I think it's called a stage 1 install)? Or will this only apply
to the stage 2/stage 3 installs?

On Sat, 2002-06-01 at 01:49, Meir Kriheli wrote:
> On Saturday 01 June 2002 00:31, Victor R. Prada wrote:
> > Hello Everybody
> >
> > As i told you last week i'm working in an installer for Gentoo. I'm
> > basing my work in thr Red Hat's installer Anaconda.
> > Today i test the first beta installer and it appears to be working. With
> > this installer we can detect hardware, make the system partitions,
> > create user accounts, configure timezone, etc
> >
> > After the installation process all that i had to do was an emerge rsync
> > and that's all.
> > I need to fix some details, but i think that for the next week the
> > installer will be fully funtional, later i will write an email to
> > everybody with futher technical details
> >
> > Thanks
> > Víctor Prada
> 
> As I'm set to write one myself I'm interested to see it. The most important 
> for me is the i18n abilities (mostly interested in BiDi - enabling to display 
> Hebrew/Arabic in the installer).
> 
> Have you given a thought to those issues ?
> -- 
> Meir Kriheli
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
>