Proposal for 1.4 Installation CD

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

.... no not really ... i just changed the topic so you guys gonna read this as i think this is really important. so this is actually a proposal on what we could do to make it a better distro.

this is about the INSTALLATION CD's - NOT about the Distro in General (which imho ROCKS!!!) - keep reading!!!

hi everyone,

as you might have noticed, the recent broad and public releases of the release candidate cd's is causing LOTS of trouble in the forums. main reasons for that are:

missing kernel drivers like network cards & pcmcia support (there have benn much more issues reported in the forums and LOTS of people had much trouble with these iso's)
unnessecary focus on the cd's due to the unreal tournament packaging
inclusion of RELEASE CANDIDATES in the OFFICIAL RELEASE DOCUMENTATION (which is imho the biggest fault of all)

to the first point: it is clear that a general installation cd should contain as much as network device drivers as possible, all filesystem drivers, full multi-device support, most ide and scsi-device drivers, isdn, pppoe and modem support (which of course also means inclusion of all nessecary network protocolls). having all this stuff enabled as modules means supporting most machines.

looking at the current 1.4.1 iso (which imho doesnt deserve the version number at all) reveals that there are some drivers but lots are missing - but also shows that there are drivers which are completely unnessecary for the vast majority of gentoo users like parallel port ide device support. ok, nice to have but basically unnessecary on a BOOT INSTALLATION CD. i also dont see any sense in supporting LSI MPT. also the usb support is pretty bad .. what about ohci and uhci ... you need to have them as modules as you get in trouble many boards as they have often problems when both are drivers present statically. i also dont see the point in supporting NON x86 filesystems on a x86 installation cd (e.g. adfs - acorn disc filing system, affs - amiga fast filesystem, apple hfs etc.) ... you'll surely get the point.

second point: oh well, it's nice to have ut2003 on the cd and i enjoyed the demo too (and i will surely buy the game as soon as it hits the stores around here) but again, we're talking here about a damn beta cd which thousands of people downloaded and finally found out that the game isnt working online as the network drivers are missing .. e.g. eepro100 .., so what basically has been done was packaging a near-final product (namely UT2003) in a beta product (gentoo 1.4x) which got just because of this more attention than the stable operating system which imho still is version 1.2 which should be and here we are at point three, the one and only version to be noted in the official documentation until we have a final version 1.4.

just because other big companies promote and sell their beta versions as final products doesnt mean gentoo has to do the same. honestly, i really love gentoo and i've told anybody + dog that this is the best linux distro i've ever seen. but right now, i doubt to tell anybody about it because of the reasons mentioned above.

so here my proposal (which i've seperated in again 3 points):

remove the 1.4x isos from the documentation and place 1.2 there instead. also make a seperate page for beta-ware where 1.4x should be found.
announce these kind of isos (also in the future) as ALPHA or BETA versions and have a real beta testing phase to ensure that the RELEASE version is actually STABLE.
put the forumguidlines directly on the root page on forums.gentoo.org to ensure that people read it at least once

ok ... thats it for the moment ... waiting for your comments ... :)
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rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

*push*
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Alfred Renyi (*1921 - †1970)

pizen · Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2002 3:56 pm Post subject:

I agree with you. I was somewhat unaware of the problems since I have avoided going to 1.4 because of the "_rc1" appended to it and I have little desire to play UT2003 (not that 1.4 is any sort of requirement for UT). An effort needs to be made to make sure that as many network cards are supported as possible off of the boot CD. My laptop's PCMCIA network card doesn't work during the install and I had to install using a wireless card (and that was 1.2)...that royally sucked trying to get that working. I also agree that the documentation should focus on the stable version. Perhaps Gentoo1.4_rc1.iso should be renamed
Gentoo1.4_rc1_BETA_DONT_USE_THIS_UNLESS_ YOU_KNOW_WHAT_YOU_ARE_DOING_AND_ ACCEPT_THE_CONSEQUENCES.iso

EDIT (rac): added a couple of spaces to the file name to allow linebreaking. Sorry pizen, but I think this thread is too important to let that annoying phpBB behavior of widening HTML display when it can't break lines make it really hard to read.

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

same applies to the 1.4.1 iso which actually should be named 1.4rc2 iso ...

the current 1.4x isos are everything else but stabl or release versions ...
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Alfred Renyi (*1921 - †1970)

ZagiFlyer · Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2002 4:42 pm Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

progster · Apprentice Joined: 16 Jul 2002 Posts: 271

Uhm if I'm correct gentoo always uses beta's or even alpha's of software when you emerge something?

That's hardly stable, not that I mind... I think it's way better then the stable tree of i.e. debian which is terribly out dated.

Humm this sound a bit like flamebait :-/

~Progster

fmalabre · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 376 Location: Chicago

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

@fmalabre & @progster... i'm talking about the INSTALLATION CD's here - NOT the portage tree !!!

gentoo itself is fairly stable, but the lately distributed ISOs are even WORSE than all redhat, suse, mandrak, united linux cd's TOGETHER.
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Alfred Renyi (*1921 - †1970)

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

DancesWithWords · Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2002 8:20 pm Post subject:

I was one of those ppl that tried to install .14rc1 on a laptop with a Xircom Cardbus and was not able to get things working. I was quite disappointed. Now I need that this was a beta version, but the way things have been state on the web site, you would think that this was an officel release. I happen to agree with your suggestions. Lets hope that those in charge see fit to rectify the situation.

--
Sincerely
bruce

arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ

Alright, so let me get this straight...
a person comes on to complain about 1.4_RC1's installer. Alright, I can understand that, as it doesn't exactly support a whole plethora of hardware.
Then, all of a sudden it starts boiling into a conversation on how stupid 1.4_RC1 is? Jesus.. it's a release candidate. There will probably be more like it, at that. Not only that, but it's a brand new compiler. (new ABI, everything) This isn't a matter of slapping together a couple of apps, making an iso and distributing it.. the rc1 is to test it out there.. everywhere. What doesn't work, write a bug report, and then rc2 will more than likely have some if not all the fixes.

I honestly don't know what to say if the installer doesn't support a wireless networking install over an X25 connection through an makeshift MQ series message passer to a mainframe with a direct connection to a novell server with a POTS connection to the corporate office who happens to run IPX to communicate with the netbios neighbors that each of a dialup connection to the 'net. (all shared by the corporate conglamorate to "save money")
Yes, it's a bit of an exaggeration (well, not a bit...) but dang.. if something isn't supported, bug report it. I'm sure something would be done about it if it isn't something totally obscure.

If all else fails, slap in a normal ethernet card, and go at it.

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

Curious · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 3:07 am Post subject:

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

Curious · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 3:42 am Post subject:

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

rac · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 6:21 am Post subject:

Can we turn down the temperature a notch? It's getting a bit hot in here for my tastes.

Yes, there have been some problems with the install CDs. Yes, they need to be fixed. Yes, informative bug reports should be filed against them. Yes, people should be made aware of the fact that many people have had trouble with the install CDs. Yes, we should make sure that everyone knows that there are ways to install a current Gentoo without needing to touch a livecd.

I read this thread when it had one post in it and it was called something like "Proposal for 1.4 Installation CD", and I thought that the post at the top of it raised some valid concerns about the install CDs, and made some useful concrete suggestions. I thought that it maybe expressed itself in a bit of a hyperbolic manner, but rojaro often chooses stronger language to express points than I would have chosen, so I read it through my rojaro filter, and thought that it was a nice thread, but I didn't feel I could add anything useful as I have never touched an x86 Gentoo install CD.

I don't know when the title was changed, but it sure reflects the general level of discussion that this thread has degenerated into, and that is not a Good Thing. I still think the initial discussion has merit, and so I'm trying to avoid locking the thread. But the next personal attack in here will be the last. We're all on the same team here, folks. We don't have time for intramural squabbling.
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progster · Apprentice Joined: 16 Jul 2002 Posts: 271

I agree that the documents should mention that it's a release candidate or refere to the stable release, same for the unreal2003 cd... other then that I think you should indeed post some bug reports ;-)

My 2 cents

~Progster

klieber · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 4:12 pm Post subject:

Folks --

I changed the title back to what it was originally (or similar enough). Posting a flamebait title just to get people to read your post is bad netiquette. Please don't do it.

Furthermore, as rac said, the temperature in this thread is way too high (caused partly by the flamebait title, IMO). Good points have been raised, but they need to be done in a professional manner. Please ratchet things down a few notches.

Don't make me break out the trout.

--kurt
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The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

when i initially wrote my little proposal, all i had in mind was to share my thoughts on how we could make the gentoo distro a just little bit better. im sorry that i've changed the topic and im even more sorry that i've actually thought that there are people here which would like to contribute something to the distro. after all this is a community project, just like the linux kernel. it lives from the thoughts and ideas of it's users. but as it seems i was completely wrong...

ok, a few things i've learned from this thread:

1. dont share your ideas & thoughts
2. dont try help other people with their problems if you dont have the same problems

so i wont bother you folks anymore with my thoughts.
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Alfred Renyi (*1921 - †1970)

klieber · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 7:31 pm Post subject:

rojaro · l33t Joined: 06 May 2002 Posts: 732

well thats your opinion ...
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Alfred Renyi (*1921 - †1970)

masseya · Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2002 11:07 pm Post subject:

I have to agree with rojaro about the actual points made (after you "read it in your 'rojaro' filter..) in the original post. I would like to add that I was disappointed that the livecd with ut2003 became such a huge selling point for gentoo 1.4. I think it kinda stole some steam from the movement to a solid and stable distro to a fun 'n' games distro. There are a lot of people who like gentoo for a desktop system and not for a server as it's not 'stable'. Don't get me wrong, gentoo is a really fun distribution to use, but having all these links and discussion about ut2003 took a little chip out of the appearance of stability that gentoo was creating.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Things beta frequently break.
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