[gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Preston Cody]

A few months ago the Gentoo Release engineering team changed the way
that releases are done to simplfy, automate, and provide more current
release media on a more regular basis.  One of the consequences of
this is that the livecds are no-longer being released.  This leaves
the installer with no place or function any longer.  The installer
developers have all moved on to other projects, leaving GLI in an
unmaintained state.  We can no-longer offer support for the 2008.0-r1
LiveCDs for x86 and amd64, though we expect it to work for
those that use it.  During this project's five year existence, it has
been both a pride for Gentoo and a source of controversy.  The Gentoo
Handbook is still the official installation method for Gentoo.  For
those still seeking to do automated gentoo installs, please see the
Quickstart project at http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php
-Codeman

Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Petteri Räty]

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Preston Cody wrote:
> A few months ago the Gentoo Release engineering team changed the way
> that releases are done to simplfy, automate, and provide more current
> release media on a more regular basis.  One of the consequences of
> this is that the livecds are no-longer being released.  This leaves
> the installer with no place or function any longer.  The installer
> developers have all moved on to other projects, leaving GLI in an
> unmaintained state.  We can no-longer offer support for the 2008.0-r1
> LiveCDs for x86 and amd64, though we expect it to work for
> those that use it.  During this project's five year existence, it has
> been both a pride for Gentoo and a source of controversy.  The Gentoo
> Handbook is still the official installation method for Gentoo.  For
> those still seeking to do automated gentoo installs, please see the
> Quickstart project at http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php
> -Codeman
> 

Why wasn't this sent to gentoo-dev-announce?

Regards,
Petteri


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Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Ben de Groot]

Petteri Räty wrote:
> Preston Cody wrote:
>> [...] This leaves
>> the installer with no place or function any longer.  The installer
>> developers have all moved on to other projects, leaving GLI in an
>> unmaintained state.  We can no-longer offer support for the 2008.0-r1
>> LiveCDs for x86 and amd64, though we expect it to work for
>> those that use it. [...]
> 
> Why wasn't this sent to gentoo-dev-announce?

Also, will we have an announcement on the www.gentoo.org frontpage? This
seems to me an important enough issue to inform our users about.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (lxde, media, qt, desktop-misc)
Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison
______________________________________________________

yngwin@gentoo.org
http://ben.liveforge.org/
irc://chat.freenode.net/#gentoo-media
irc://irc.oftc.net/#lxde
______________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 15:23 Wed 14 Jan     , Ben de Groot wrote:
> Also, will we have an announcement on the www.gentoo.org frontpage? This
> seems to me an important enough issue to inform our users about.

Yeah, I'll get something up. I've got a few pending now.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Philip Webb]

090114 Donnie Berkholz wrote:
> On 15:23 Wed 14 Jan 2009, Ben de Groot wrote:
>> Also, will we have an announcement on the www.gentoo.org frontpage?
>> This seems to me an important enough issue to inform our users about.
> Yeah, I'll get something up. I've got a few pending now.

I've been using Gentoo since 2003 & have installed it in  2  machines.
I've also felt it necessary more than once to comment in LWN
in response to scare stories then circulating about "the death of Gentoo"
& how it was no longer putting out new versions reliably or on time.
The fact that 'version' doesn't mean the same for Gentoo as other distros
is not clear to the many people who haven't used Gentoo.

I just had a look at the Gentoo home page,
as if I were a newcomer wanting to find out how to get started.
The 'about' page says nothing about the basic installation process,
so I went to 'installation docs', where the 1st 'installation resource'
is the 'Gentoo Handbook', which led me to get 'Gentoo AMD64 Handbook',
then 'about the Gentoo Linux installation'.
This emphasises that I can install Gentoo in many ways,
the 1st of which listed is 'from one of our installation CDs'.

May I suggest that the 'about' page needs an additional 3rd section
entitled 'How do I go about installing Gentoo ?'.
I'm sure DB is capable of writing whatever is needed,
but it could be something like the following:

  Unlike most distributions, which rely on binary packages
  and create a new version of the whole system at regular intervals,
  Gentoo is installed once and thereafter kept upto-date by the user
  by means of Portage (as above).  Installing Gentoo is not difficult,
  but it does require a bit more time & attention from the user,
  which we at Gentoo consider to be a useful exercise for her or him
  to get to know better how a Linux system really works under the hood.
  All you typically need is a live CD and a copy of the Gentoo Handbook,
  which you can find by following the link to 'installation docs' above.

It might be an idea also to amend the line in the Handbook above,
so that 'one of our installation CDs' is not quite so prominent.

HTH

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[AllenJB]

Philip Webb wrote:
> 090114 Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>> On 15:23 Wed 14 Jan 2009, Ben de Groot wrote:
>>> Also, will we have an announcement on the www.gentoo.org frontpage?
>>> This seems to me an important enough issue to inform our users about.
>> Yeah, I'll get something up. I've got a few pending now.
> 
> I've been using Gentoo since 2003 & have installed it in  2  machines.
> I've also felt it necessary more than once to comment in LWN
> in response to scare stories then circulating about "the death of Gentoo"
> & how it was no longer putting out new versions reliably or on time.
> The fact that 'version' doesn't mean the same for Gentoo as other distros
> is not clear to the many people who haven't used Gentoo.
> 
> I just had a look at the Gentoo home page,
> as if I were a newcomer wanting to find out how to get started.
> The 'about' page says nothing about the basic installation process,
> so I went to 'installation docs', where the 1st 'installation resource'
> is the 'Gentoo Handbook', which led me to get 'Gentoo AMD64 Handbook',
> then 'about the Gentoo Linux installation'.
> This emphasises that I can install Gentoo in many ways,
> the 1st of which listed is 'from one of our installation CDs'.
> 
> May I suggest that the 'about' page needs an additional 3rd section
> entitled 'How do I go about installing Gentoo ?'.
> I'm sure DB is capable of writing whatever is needed,
> but it could be something like the following:
> 
>   Unlike most distributions, which rely on binary packages
>   and create a new version of the whole system at regular intervals,
>   Gentoo is installed once and thereafter kept upto-date by the user
>   by means of Portage (as above).  Installing Gentoo is not difficult,
>   but it does require a bit more time & attention from the user,
>   which we at Gentoo consider to be a useful exercise for her or him
>   to get to know better how a Linux system really works under the hood.
>   All you typically need is a live CD and a copy of the Gentoo Handbook,
>   which you can find by following the link to 'installation docs' above.
> 
> It might be an idea also to amend the line in the Handbook above,
> so that 'one of our installation CDs' is not quite so prominent.
> 
> HTH
> 

The ability of new users to find their way around the site was something 
I tried to fix with a new sidebar menu[0], which has currently been 
implemented in http://gentoo.org/index2.xml - Unfortunately this is 
currently being held up by something to do with the GLSA's that's been 
hanging around incomplete for the past 6 months now (see the deps of bug 
#252157).

I've tried posting on the relevant bugs to find out exactly what needs 
to be done, but no one seems to care, which is a real shame as the new 
index would be a vast improvement in my opinion.

[0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/252157

AllenJB

Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Daniel Drake]

Petteri Räty wrote:
> Why wasn't this sent to gentoo-dev-announce?

It should be posted on front page gentoo.org if that is not already in 
the works.

Thanks,
Daniel

Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Mike Auty]

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I realize it might be a bit obvious to us, but from reading it people
might wonder how they're supposed to carry out installs now.  When the
notice finally goes out, it might be worth mentioning that just the
LiveCDs are no longer supported, and mention how often the install media
is produced, and basically how people should go about doing installs
these days.  It's so easy to misread these things and for people to
start pushing out blogs and articles saying Gentoo's stopped producing
release media, etc, etc...

Mike  5:)
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Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Arun Raghavan]

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On Wed, 2009-01-14 at 17:05 +0000, Mike Auty wrote:
> I realize it might be a bit obvious to us, but from reading it people
> might wonder how they're supposed to carry out installs now.  When the
> notice finally goes out, it might be worth mentioning that just the
> LiveCDs are no longer supported, and mention how often the install media
> is produced, and basically how people should go about doing installs
> these days.  It's so easy to misread these things and for people to
> start pushing out blogs and articles saying Gentoo's stopped producing
> release media, etc, etc...

+1

-- Arun

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Re: [gentoo-dev] GLI Officially Deprecated

[Donnie Berkholz]

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On 21:54 Tue 13 Jan     , Preston Cody wrote:
> A few months ago the Gentoo Release engineering team changed the way
> that releases are done to simplfy, automate, and provide more current
> release media on a more regular basis.  One of the consequences of
> this is that the livecds are no-longer being released.  This leaves
> the installer with no place or function any longer.  The installer
> developers have all moved on to other projects, leaving GLI in an
> unmaintained state.  We can no-longer offer support for the 2008.0-r1
> LiveCDs for x86 and amd64, though we expect it to work for
> those that use it.  During this project's five year existence, it has
> been both a pride for Gentoo and a source of controversy.  The Gentoo
> Handbook is still the official installation method for Gentoo.  For
> those still seeking to do automated gentoo installs, please see the
> Quickstart project at http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php

I think this is the right decision. The installer seemed like a good 
idea at the time, but in retrospect the concept didn't fit Gentoo. An 
advanced user can finish an install pretty quickly, and a beginning one 
is using Gentoo to learn, so they should be doing everything by hand 
instead of having an opportunity to skip the handbook.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donnie Berkholz
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com

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