Will you ever use the Gentoo Installer?

richard.scott

Hi,

I've been using Gentoo now for over 4 years and I have to say I love it.

Yes it has its little quirks just like any other OS does, but it still rocks!

I've been reading this thread, and feel that the resources of the developers would be better spent on the basics of Gentoo rather than any type of Installer.

Don't get me wrong, the installer is a nice idea, but not at the expense of doing things by hand!

It seems that Gentoo are taking away our choice of how we install Gentoo and forcing us to use an installer.

heavenscent · n00b Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 20

I first installed gentoo 1.2 in early 2002 via command line which hooked me on Linux and in particular Gentoo. I had never known such a thing. I was actually completely in control of what went on my computer. I agree with the author of this poll in that the command line install made gentoo unique. It actually taught me things where as looking dumbly at a largely automatic pretty gui teaches nothing. Keep Gentoo unique! It is not a mainstream distro and shouldn't be. Of course we should have the choice of install methods but I believe the focus should remain on the command line.

Perhaps we could ask for drobbins' opinion. I for one would love to hear his thoughts on the matter. Why he defected would also be good reading. Hey Daniel, if you're reading this how about your thoughts?

mark_alec · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 7:32 am Post subject:

heavenscent · n00b Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 20

Wow, the forums shine!. Thanks for the link Mark!

dahranis · Apprentice Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 166

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 8:19 am Post subject:

dahranis · Apprentice Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 166

Yes!!!!!!
Like when i only have a wireless internet connection and i can't get the live cd to connect to the net?
Or like when i go to my fathers house and simply haven't got an internet connection but would still like to use the time gen-efficiently??
FAR to many times now i've had to install ubuntu just so i can get an internet connection to install the damned thing.
There is demmand for it!
Me!
over here!
Looky!!

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 8:45 am Post subject:

dahranis · Apprentice Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 166

Have to use a live cd that supports jmicron or something or other.
I just don't understand WHY i shouldn't be allowed to have a universal cd, it just defies my understanding!
The Live cd is all very nice, very shiny etc but still. Stage3, portage snapshot, distfiles. Please.

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 8:54 am Post subject:

neysx · Retired Dev Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 795

See this 2006.1 review: "the graphical installation utility is still not production-ready"
Two more 2007.0 reviews: http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/linux/review_gentoo_20070 & http://techgage.com/article/gentoo_20070/

anello · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 9:10 am Post subject:

I think gentoo is about "tweaking it to your needs" and not about saving time installing a "default" setup.
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BrummieJim · l33t Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 683

I worry that people new to gentoo who wouldn't have previously made it through the install will be stuck with a distro which they can't really handle. Apart from that though for people willing to get involved the forums and wiki's make just about anything possible, if you've the time and motivation, which is really the crunch. I think that there's a role for a serious linux i.e. not ubuntu (like using linux wearing a straitjacket) and anything which brings more users is good, as long as it's not to the detriment of choice.

Question about dev time is valid though, where should that time be spent improving what sounds like a buggy installer or improving the distro itself.

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 9:41 am Post subject:

Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

Why not, if it's no more in alpha state I'll use for sure on next install, I have no time to waste if
it's not strictly necessary, and gentoo will still be the most customized distro even if installed
from the graphical installer instead than "all-by-hands".
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If you're born distro, no matter what, start to run.
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Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

pdr · l33t Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 618

Rather than an installer, I'd really like a package that helps with backup/restore. I have very specific needs for my desktop and have spent a lot of time scripting and setting up fluxbox to fulfill it. When I swapped desktop hardware to move to raid-1, new motherboard/proc, etc I copied my world file, my /usr/local/bin scripts, various other things from /etc, and kept the old hard drive connected (because I DID end up forgetting to copy some stuff). Ended up with a whole bunch of scripts that did each step of the install (eg: a netsetup script that used data from my current config to set up networking) with the final script emerging all the stuff that used to be in my world file.

What would be grand is if the people that are a LOT more familiar with the system layout - etc/conf.d, etc-update/dispatch-conf, etc - could come up with a package to do this; not only would it help with a migration like I had, but also would seriously help out sysadmins with server farms like we have at work..

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:42 am Post subject:

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:45 am Post subject:

Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

richard.scott · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:16 am Post subject:

Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:43 am Post subject:

To answer a few earlier points,

If you need to do a network install, using wireless, use Knoppix as your liveCD, or any liveCD that provides ndiswrapper.
Note that Knoppix does not provide the Windows drivers you will need

If you want to install (and even maintain) Gentoo from the minimal liveCD with no network connection, you need Sneakernet

Its difficult to vote in this poll, I'm a fairly experianced user, so I've not used the GUI installer and see no need to switch now.
Indeed, I do most of my installs via ssh, so emerge can run 24/7. The people you really need to get to vote here are the ones who have never installed Gentoo.

Looking back over my years with Gentoo, I would say that the GUI installer robs users of a valuable learning experiance. The stage installs are more than a Gentoo rite of passage, they teach you how to maintain your system too.

Oh, how did I vote - I spoilt my ballot paper
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

richard.scott,

You are supposed to start with a hardened stage, not convert a normal install to hardened.
Converting a normal stage 3 install to hardened is longer possible with 2007.0, as you would need to downgrade glibc.

Hopefully, hardened gcc-4.x and >=glibc-2.4 will be along soon.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

d2_racing · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:54 am Post subject:

You can try the Stage 5

: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-534039.html