Take down 2007.0 LiveCD/DVD with installer?

Message

20div0 · Post by **20div0** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:08 pm

You can read all the detail here:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-558042.html

I just downloaded the 2007.0 liveCD to install my beloved Gentoo on my new notebook.
I was shocked with how crappy the installer was. After reading the above link, people
lose all the partitions because of the installer and I was almost another victim if I haven't
used Gparted to resized and created new partitions already.

So, I think we should pull the liveCD to prevent further damage for the reputation of a great
distribution.

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:15 pm

I love the idea.

But you forgot to mention that the handbooks should also be revised to completely rip out all the references to this installer. Kind of the historical revisions that took place on "1984" by George Orwell. It should never have existed, at least, not in the state it did. I am all for ease of use, but if we can't do it correctly, let's not do it.

20div0 · Post by **20div0** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:24 pm

100% agree. Let's only release it when it's usable.

Cereza · Post by **Cereza** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:34 pm

I also agree. Remove the wizard and add an updated manual for installation on the desktop.

didymos · Post by **didymos** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:04 am

On the other hand, it's normal for open-source projects to make incomplete versions available from very early on, so people can test things out and give feedback. Since you can't very well test the GLI if you've already installed Gentoo (well, unless you're in the mood to reinstall for the hell of it or you go to the trouble of a chroot or something similar), distributing the installer does make some sense. That said, it really should be made extremely clear up front that the GLI is far from finished and may do bad things to your system. There should also be GLI-free versions of the LiveCD and LiveDVD.

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:10 am

didymos wrote:On the other hand, it's normal for open-source projects to make incomplete versions available from very early on, so people can test things out and give feedback.

And the way to make test is to completely erase the layout of the user's hard driver without warning... No, I don't think so. Don't forget that this comes from 2006.0. It is a pain that is is failing so miserably in such basic things. It should never be documented as the official way to install Gentoo. The old method just works, and this new livecd doesn't. For me, it is a clear choice.

Since you can't very well test the GLI if you've already installed Gentoo (well, unless you're in the mood to reinstall for the hell of it or you go to the trouble of a chroot or something similar), distributing the installer does make some sense. That said, it really should be made extremely clear up front that the GLI is far from finished and may do bad things to your system. There should also be GLI-free versions of the LiveCD and LiveDVD.

In my humble opinion, it SHOULD NEVER appear in the handbook, and it should be put into separate download locations, clearly stating that is alpha software (I think it is). If a newbie comes, try this, and something breaks, it will flee forever.

Etal · Post by **Etal** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:18 am

I agree. I've hated the idea of a wizard-based installer for Gentoo ever since I first heard of it. I think that completing the handbook method of installing Gentoo is highly crucial to anyone who chooses to install Gentoo, and I am thankful that when I first did it two years ago, the GLI did not exist.

96140 · Post by **96140** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:23 am

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:32 am

I personally don't miss them. But it has been demonstrated that they are not efficient in tons of cases. That is a fact that we should not ignore.

I am not bitching, I am stating my opinion: it is not on an useable state. To each, hir/her own. Polls are for this only purpose, so people can state their opinion. Maybe I sound a bit harsh sometimes, I am not skilled enough in English language to sound poetic (and no, I am not trying to be sarcastic).

vandien · Post by **vandien** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:13 am

The installer worked amazingly well for me when I tried it. Granted I just did a default install of binary packages, but everything just worked. No installer crashers and incomplete install like previous versions (or like Sabayon). Friends that wanted to try Linux and have something up and running quick, I would have to point to Sabayon or Ubuntu, but now I can more easily introduce them to Gentoo.

20div0 · Post by **20div0** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:25 am

I agreed with 6thpink. If this is the first time I use Gentoo, I will flee and probably will ask everyone I know to avoid it
even though it's really the greatest distro ever.

It's not about it's an option and you don't use it if you don't like it. I like it as an option but the
the installer is like the front door of a shop. You make it so pretty to attract your customers but wait, it won't open to
let the people in or worse it opens and as people come in, it smacks them on their face.

That's my point.

There is no 2007.0.5 planed and 2007.1 won't come out until Nov.
So, in the meantime, anyone wants to try Gentoo will have a bitter taste in their mouth.

Andy

SiberianSniper · Post by **SiberianSniper** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:27 am

If it works for some people and not for others, I'd think it should stay up but with a rather large warning that it might not work. After all, if Gentoo is about choice, then let us install it without the GLI if we so desire, but give others the chance to use it if it's there. It just might help someone out who's totally clueless and has no desire to do a standard install.

EDIT: But I do agree with all the well-stated reasons for removing it.

didymos · Post by **didymos** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:55 am

6thpink wrote:
didymos wrote:On the other hand, it's normal for open-source projects to make incomplete versions available from very early on, so people can test things out and give feedback.
And the way to make test is to completely erase the layout of the user's hard driver without warning... No, I don't think so.

Neither do I. I said "open-source projects". I'm not enumerating the flaws and faults of the GLI. I'm simply saying it isn't a bad thing in and of itself to release it in an unfinished state.

In my humble opinion, it SHOULD NEVER appear in the handbook

A defensible opinion. I myself have no objection to it's appearance in the handbook as long as it's clearly stated that this is still an early stage in the GLI's development, and that the command-line install should be used if it doesn't work, since the "CLI" is the officially sanctioned install method.

...clearly stating that is alpha software (I think it is).

Going by the roadmap for the project, I'd say it's still well within the alpha phase.

If a newbie comes, try this, and something breaks, it will flee forever.

Debatable. Some will keep at it until they figure out how to install Gentoo. Some probably will be driven off for good. The question is: how many are in each category?

terracotta_shore · Post by **terracotta_shore** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:14 am

20div0 wrote:After reading the above link, people
lose all the partitions because of the installer and I was almost another victim if I haven't
used Gparted to resized and created new partitions already.

I'm getting very tired of reading this nonsense. I spent several hours trying to get the 2007.0 live CD to wipe partitions without warning me and I failed. What I did succeed with was to install Gentoo with it.

I agree that the live CD has some rough edges and I would welcome the opportunity to make some constructive criticisms but I fear that if I did so my voice would be drowned out with all this pebkac-inspired moaning. Indeed, it's the 'kac' syllable that tells you where this is all coming from.

Afterthought - Strangely though, I agree with the OP on one point. I would much rather use Gparted to set up partitions beforehand. I don't like the way the live CD partitioner cannot setup extended/logical partitions. This is an example of a constructive criticism - but I'll say no more.

bLUEbYTE84 · Post by **bLUEbYTE84** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:17 am

One would guess, even after this time the installer would either be dropped or enhanced (i.e. made usable rather than harmful), but unfortunately apparently this is not the case.
I always did/will do my Gentoo installs with the minimal CD and I agree with you.
Read my older post and poll about the subject here
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-494596.html

bLUEbYTE84 · Post by **bLUEbYTE84** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:25 am

terracotta_shore wrote:
I'm getting very tired of reading this nonsense.

terracotta_shore wrote: I would welcome the opportunity to make some constructive criticisms but I fear that if I did so my voice would be drowned out with all this pebkac-inspired moaning.)

Don't bother

didymos · Post by **didymos** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:41 am

bLUEbYTE84 wrote:One would guess, even after this time the installer would either be dropped or enhanced (i.e. made usable rather than harmful)l

They just did a huge rewrite of the thing. Why would they drop it? It's in active development and has not had a 1.0 release. That means bugs should be expected. As code get's refactored, that means regressions. I get the impression that people think an installer is something trivial to implement, so why can't they just get it right already. It's been awhile since I've used another distro, so I can't say how things stand now, but I unfondly remember dealing with various iterations of "user-friendly" Redhat and Debian installers. They spent years refining and fiddling around with the install process, only to ditch it for new, re-written systems every now and then. And when packages or commands on those things broke, you were basically just screwed until they pressed new CDs (or felt like downloading a bunch of crap over a slow-ass dialup account). And those were/are effectively binary-only distributions. So the GLI has to contend with all that stuff if you go the GRP route, plus it needs to deal with all the stuff that makes Gentoo Gentoo, and then it has to integrate all that functionality into a single, graphical interface (for now, that is. Eventually there's to be a text UI, a web UI, and fully-unattended installs). Oh, and it has to work for every supported Gentoo arch, and these volunteer devs have to do all the testing themselves before they're allowed to release the code in executable form. But obviously, those fuckers are incompetent because they haven't finished yet and it's not perfect (and yes, I'm being hyperbolic, rhetorically speaking). And it's not like I'm in love with the thing, either. I don't use it, and currently have no plans to start. I just find all the hostility and mob-behavior irritating, along with all the straw-men and other fallacies being tossed around. I have a suspicion that I've read more of the release notes and other docs for the GLI than a lot of the people who actually used the thing and then decided to launch their own little jihad against it.

So, that was fun. Time to go do something else.

Genone · Post by **Genone** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:50 am

#gentoo-dev wrote:<agaffney> spbecker: don't blame me for stupid people using the installer...I'd like to get rid of the installer
<agaffney> it wasn't ever meant to be what it has become
<spbecker> agaffney: I know you want to kill it...doesn't mean that I can't blame you for it
<genone> agaffney: so tell Chris to remove it from the next release
<agaffney> genone: well, chris and I agree that we can't remove it without replacing it with *something*
<agaffney> since x86/amd64 no longer have a universal cd
<steev64> agaffney: "text instructions"
<agaffney> so you can't do a networkless install
<agaffney> I'm thinking of just trimming down the installer code to provide a commandline program that can pull packages from the CD
<agaffney> for networkless purposes
<genone> agaffney: and we can't go back to the universal cds?
<agaffney> genone: it's not the universal...it's the GRP CD
<agaffney> that thing is typically a royal pita
<agaffney> genone: universal+GRP were replaced with the LiveCD
<agaffney> which takes up far less space on the mirrors
<agaffney> and is more useful
<genone> agaffney: so what exact functionality of the installer would have to be replaced? Just the binpkg creation?
<agaffney> genone: creating a stage3 equivelant from the LiveCD and copying packages (a la binpkg) to the install chroot
<agaffney> genone: and the code is already there in the installer
<agaffney> genone: I wrote a script to use the installer code to do this stuff from the commandline 2 releases back
<genone> agaffney: so you already have a replacement for the next release?
<agaffney> genone: heh, pretty much
<agaffney> I would just have to clean it up
<agaffney> to be more usable
<agaffney> genone: and then brace myself to deal with the ensuing shitstorm from whining users
<agaffney> anyone who used GLI for automated installs can use its sister project quickstart
<agaffney> which is already far more capable than the installer
<genone> agaffney: would those users be worse than the current situation?
<agaffney> genone: true

cwr · Post by **cwr** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:04 pm

My experiences with the Gentoo installer(s) seem fairly typical, and might show
why the graphical installer is so widely disliked.

I installed 2004.1, 2005.0, 2005.1 from Stage 3 tarballs, which was slow but
straightforward. (I tend to do a complete re-install with each Gentoo release).
When 2006.0 came out I delayed installing, and heard about the graphical
installer problems; for various other reasons I never installed 2006.0. When
2006.1 came out with no Stage 3 on the DVD I assumed that the installer problems
were fixed, read up on the graphical installer, and tried it out. With no warning it
tried to wipe the machine's entire partition table, but crashed before it could do so.

I don't have a spare machine to test the installer on, and the machine I use
for Gentoo would be a pain to rebuild if the sofware was wiped, so with 2007.0
I went back to the Stage 3 install (which was now on the DVD) and everything
went smoothly. I'm now not about to touch the graphical installer until a release
has lasted six months without major problems.

The main problem with the graphical installer isn't that it doesn't work - I can
accept a non-functional installer, since Stage 3 is always available - or even that it
wipes the partition table, though that's certainly a drawback. The problem is that
it doesn't say what it's going to do and give the user a chance to back out in time.

The error is compounded by the fact that the DVD a least gives no other obvious
way to install Gentoo, so most users will use the graphical installer by default and
(if the problem still exists in version 2 of the installer) some will get badly bitten.

Will

Skunky · Post by **Skunky** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:37 am

Despite the things that are said in here about the LiveCD/DVD, I think I'mma stick with using the DVD. Just put a warning out for people to back up everything they have, depending on their current OS, let us take our risks, let some of us fail, and some of us succeed. I'm sitting here waiting for the LiveDVD to finish burning, if I suffer the same fate as some others, so be it. I'm not going to cry or moan about it, I made the choice, and I'm not gonna kick myself in the teeth for it. It's just a computer. If it fails, I shrug my shoulders and reinstall XP knowing that I made some backups.

nutbar21 · Post by **nutbar21** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:32 am

Never tried the graphical installer, actually. I prefer to go in the old way.

Decibels · Post by **Decibels** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:05 am

My system recently fried and full system backup not done, so had to reinstall (luckily have home and other backups though from cronjobs).
Note, I don't reinstall hardly ever, can't remember last time did. At least a year or more.

Used the Live CD/DVD Installer because wanted to use firefox for help while installing. I tried to use the Gui installer and hated it! Very confusing.
Long long time ago used to install Mandrake and that installer was nice, have used Debian's simplier installer and that is fairly easy to use also.

Something hit me wrong about this installer though and quickly printed the (incomplete) quick install guide and did it all by console.

As someone else mentioned. I really do believe this installer would scare new users off. I would recommend another distro if a noob just had to have
gui installer.

gentoo_lan · Post by **gentoo_lan** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:43 am

I just upgraded my system and specifically avoided the graphical installer because it is horrible to work with. Hopefully Gentoo will release a polished graphical installer or none at all.

Take down 2007.0 LiveCD/DVD with installer?

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Take down 2007.0 LiveCD/DVD with installer?

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