Graphical Installer

MaRTiaN · Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2002 3:00 pm Post subject:

If a user has problems with fdisk, how are they going to get through the X install process? That in my opinion is much harder to set up than a partition scheme using fdisk. C'mon, compiling a kernel is harder than using fdisk.

If you're going to find yourself presented with a console system and think "eek!, This looks hard!" and give up, maybe you should stick with mandrake or redhat. Gentoo is a great distro for people who know what they are doing, or aren't afraid to learn.

I've had loads of problems with disk druid in the past, especially if I've used it deal with windows partitions. Never had one problem with fdisk.
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AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

After reading these posts and some consideration, I think that a graphical installer is a bad idea for gentoo. Perhaps the developers of that project will name it something other than gentoo, as for DiskDruid or similar that is not going to happen.

Fdisk is not only an adequate partition tool, it is a tried and tested piece of software that just works and I find no reason that fdisk should be replaced with cfdisk or anything else.
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delta407 · Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2002 3:21 am Post subject: Re: .

jean-michel · Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2002 7:56 pm Post subject: Having Our Cake and Eating it Too

Having read through this thread with some interest, the arguments against an easier install seem to boil down to "the distro isn't easy to manage, so it shouldn't be easy to install" and "the manual installation procedure is great/powerful/etc. don't change it!"

One of the nice things about software freedom, particularly as it is embodied in the free software we use, is that we can often have our cake and eat it too. Already, as another poster pointed out, we have a GUI based emerge that compliments the command line interface, and I for one enjoy using both and having the choice.

First, I think the argument that the install should be as hard as the distro is an interesting one ... don't seduce newbies with a false sense of ease when hardship looms around the next corner. But I think the assumption that Gentoo will remain difficult to manage, or should remain difficult to manage, is a false one, and that being the case, I think impoving the ease of the installation (and of the distro as a whole) is a worthwhile effort.

My ideal installation would be something like the following (text based, or graphical based, doesn't really matter to me, as long as I have explicit access to the command line during the install):

A screen, split into three parts:

squanto · Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2002 8:52 pm Post subject:

FINITE · Guru Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 449

I see nothing worong with a graphical installer. It would of been nice at the begining for me but i made due and all went well. Now this perposed graphical installer should not be included in the downloadable iso but should be available as an emergable package after setting up networking (hehe). Which could then be run etc. etc..

klieber · Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2002 12:49 pm Post subject:

AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

After several (5) installs of gentoo, I can only say that it to me is extremely easy and straight forward in the installation process.

Practice Practice Practice

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leej · Apprentice Joined: 18 May 2002 Posts: 280

fuzz · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 93

I'm also a noobie, and I installed gentoo quite easly, the 1st time. Yea graphical interface looks nifty some times but there is no need for it, it will just make the cd balkier. that what one of the many things gentoo is known for the size of the ISO well that is what I think.

as a great movie once said (with some changes)
"graphical inastaller, we don't need no stinking graphical installer"

delta407 · Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2002 10:29 pm Post subject:

Bah. GRUB is not painful, just different. GRUB gives the inexperienced a chance to fix things quickly (little helpful reminders like "press e to edit the current line") and is easy for people with no experience with bootloaders to understand. (Oh, so I just add another entry to the menu... huh.)

But, that's not to say you can't emerge lilo and run with that -- go right ahead, it's your system. But, all things considered, I think GRUB should stay the recommended default.

</rant>

Lovechild · Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 10:12 am Post subject:

I've been playing around with Source Mage GNU/Linux and I must admit to liking their installer, it brings back those happy memories of coffee, long nights and debian install cds.

AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

When I install debian I use a couple of floppys

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jabuka · Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 6:10 pm Post subject:

i'm relatively new to linux, but have spent some time with mandrake and redhat. I didn't like the rpm dependency fiascos i continuously got myself in. then i somehow read about the gentoo portage system and that sold me. anyways, it took me a couple of times to get it finally installed. i suppose i got spoiled by the automated installs mandrake and redhat provide. all i can say to the other newbies out there is to read the documentation that gentoo provides on their site. i was a frustrated a few times until i did a little reading. the extra effort put in is well worth it in the end.

mark

Lovechild · Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 6:40 pm Post subject:

AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

Pigeon · Guru Joined: 21 Jun 2002 Posts: 307

I'd like to see cfdisk added to gentoo's installer, for one... fdisk gets the job done, but for me, cfdisk does it quicker and I'm more sure of what I'm doing.

(disk druid? *shrug* add it if ya want...

) That being said, the time and energy of adding cfdisk to the installer (ie all 10 minutes of it) is not worth the return.

And if a graphical installer was added to gentoo... yay. I'd still use the current system. I think the devs should point their time in other directions. By far, the largest problem with an automated installer (graphical or scripted) is that you have to decide how much control the user has, and how much will be done for him/her. Which is, of course, nearly impossible, to the point where you're just wasting your time because the final product will be so overly complex.

Besides that, there's nothing wrong with gentoo's installer, short of whacky RAID/SCSI driver problems. (of which I've had none) The most difficult part of gentoo's installer (IOW the weakest link...) is the fact that every user has to compile their own kernel, which is one of the most well-documented things in linux. Frankly- if a user can't RTFM well enough to compile and install a kernel, they have little business running a linux box and no business running a gentoo box.

By "RTFM well enough to compile and install a kernel" I mean "They set to compile a kernel, and either can't find the readme or doesn't understand it, and gives up" and not "Doesn't know how to compile a kernel because they never cared and never tried."

Though it would be very nice to have a status meter added to portage.... (ie, after "emerge kde gnome galeon gaim & && nap > sofa & && fg 1" you can come back in a few hours and see it's compiled X, a few other things, and is working on qt and still has 74 packages remaining.

)

masseya · Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 5:40 am Post subject:

Martin · Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2002 8:59 am Post subject:

IMO, I think a better way of catering to newbies is to have an expanded install guide - not changing the actual install process itself.

By expanded I mean geared to a n00b who wants (and will) devote time and effort to learn what the hell is actually going on when (s)he types the commands.

For example:

masseya · Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2002 2:18 pm Post subject:

I think this is a fantastic idea! Are you volunteering to work on it? There's a really neat Documentation forum that's a little under-used. I'd certainly be willing to help you revise it if you private message me with it. I'm sure a lot of others would help too.
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klieber · Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2002 2:23 pm Post subject:

AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

n0n · Guru Joined: 13 Jun 2002 Posts: 355

Well, there's a couple of things being discussed here.

Graphical Installer - Meh. Code one if you want, but I think Gentoo as a whole is much better geared to stay away from doing this. And if it's coded, certainly don't make it the default. But I really don't think it's an issue, just because the Gentoo docs are so good. I mean, really, Gentoo's docs have been just about the best docs for any piece of Linux software I've seen. Granted, there's a couple of things in 'em that might be confusing for people JUST getting into Linux ("...you can send metalog a USR1 signal...") but Gentoo's target audience seems to be people who have some idea what they're doing.
LILO vs GRUB - Meh. Used both. Grub's nice 'cause you don't have to remember to re-run "lilo" every time you change the config file, but other than that they seem pretty much identical to me.
fdisk vs everything else - Fdisk is great, and everyone should use it. :)

Okay, that's enough from me now. :)

Boris · n00b Joined: 22 Jun 2002 Posts: 8

As for me, I'd like to have an installer but never an X-based one. I personally think that the most intuitive one is in Slackware. Slackware also has several nice and easy curses-based configuration scripts like netconfig, pppsetup, xwmconfig, etc.
Why not just take this stuff from Slackware and improve?

KiTaSuMbA · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2002 Posts: 430 Location: Naples Italy

GUI - no GUI flame here... While I personally had no problem with "nanoing" around and honestly the setup was both smooth and fun (as long as you keep in mind the sacred words: RTFM! :twisted:

) I can see the usefulness of a GUI tool to others. This could be optional even to downloade (i.e. stage1 & stage1-gui). Most people here posting against this idea fear that it would alter gentoo's basic idea: NO BLOATWARE, SPEED, CUSTOM OPTIMIZATION. Well, tell you what guys, these do not conflict with an *optional* gui installer. The trouble comes with what other distros contain and "assume" to be necessary/desired not the tool for installing them. The trouble comes with distros trying to breast-feed their newcoming users.
I believe that source based installations is the best future choice for any linux system. With costantly increasing bandwidth, CPU and RAM using "compatible" precompiled binaries is as much a pitty as it is driving a ferrari with automatic gears. What would be the terrible wrongdoing of a gui asking you the CFLAGS to use while explaining them on the side, or any other configuration? If you actually need granular control, expert mode will always be available, allowing to edit single confs (even inside the gui). Plus you can have on-the-fly access to FAQs, HOWTOs, forums and (something that did happen to me) mirrors: I was in the middle of the installation when ibiblio got so slow it was unusable and I had no browser compiled yet to search mirrors (hopefully I had already installed epic4 "just in case" and some helpful guys at #gentoo gave me the necessary info).
Technically speaking, a GUI installer would not break gentoo's dream and ideals, it would only make some people's life easier and allude to a larger userbase (hence, more configurations, more bug reports, more willing testers/debuggers, more and faster quality). The real worry would be that by enabling more inexperienced users , there would be an increased pressure for stupid-friendlyness and ready-to-use bloatware: these are the factors that cripple popular linux distros. But this depends on you actually: how cynical can you get and resist answering/satisfying user ignorant requests with anything else than a bare RTFM? Perhaps a metadistribution based on gentoo should undertakie this task to bring source building to the masses and gentoo keep it pure... bah. Keep in mind that using a stage 3 installation is more damaging than a fancy GUI installer.
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