From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 6716 invoked by uid 1002); 20 Aug 2003 01:56:34 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gentoo-dev-help@gentoo.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Received: (qmail 19690 invoked from network); 20 Aug 2003 01:56:34 -0000 Message-ID: <3F42D583.6060105@gentoo.org> Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 21:57:23 -0400 From: Kumba Reply-To: kumba@gentoo.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Text Menu Installer Idea X-Archives-Salt: e2ba2b66-81ae-4576-86ae-750f299dd143 X-Archives-Hash: b53fa1c5f8737c2d206d808b2c014cb8 Okay, I'm writing this mail up to see what people think of the idea of a menu system for installing Gentoo. Now before the mob drags me out and lynches me, I'm not talking about some bloated X11 thing, but something more simple akin to Debian's installer or FreeBSD's sysinstall. I tried to help several people today on different IRC networks install Gentoo, one who was totally new to Linux, the other who was very experienced with it, and both had issues with the excessive use of the Command Line. Now I myself am a fan of the command line, and have no problem with installing gentoo via a command line interface, but not everyone likes this. Since Gentoo's mantra is about choice, I think a menu-driven system could succeed, or supplement the command line interface, giving the user the choice of going either route. I've taken a brief look at the install manuals, and the basic steps taken are universally similar. Some differences are only in the fdisk setup (depending on your architecture), stage selections (like GRP and Portage's upcoming binary installing ability), and so on. It's really not until the end of the install, right around the kernel installation, where things change, mainly due to the bootloaders used, and final cleanup tasks and such. Right now, this is just an idea. I would probably need to create a GLEP for it to get it more cemented, after some logistical ideas get worked out (like whether to use dialog, ncurses, or lsdialog, etc..). However, I think it's an overdue idea, and complete implementation of it will go a long way to making the install process easier for users. So let's start trading ideas on this. Debian's Installer can be found here (Source): http://cvs.debian.org/debian-installer FreeBSD's Sysinstall Source: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/ So, Ideas, Thoughts, Comments......Flames? --Kumba -- "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." --Elrond -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list