Arch Linux

Stoffi

Member

Registered: 2007-03-15

Posts: 107

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I would very much like for having the norwegian dvorak keyboard layout included in the installation setup.

smitty

Member

Registered: 2008-01-17

Posts: 73

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Some suggestions I have are to have an additional option to use an ncurse based installer, such as that which is in Debian's installer. Debian also give you descriptions of the packages right on the screen. This should try have even more flexibility and simplicity. From what I understand ArchLinux is about being simple and powerful. Flexibility means giving options on the command line, for instance,  to enhance the installer and increase performance issues if available, such as DMA and nondma transfers or toggles to turn things on. I think ncurse based installer would "easier" from a programming point of view than an Xorg installer. This may tie into having the software in "groups" of packages that people talk about here, too.

scorpyn

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 66

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I would very much like for having the norwegian dvorak keyboard layout included in the installation setup.

Svorak (swedish dvorak) as well please

Misfit138

Misfit Emeritus

From: USA

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 4,189

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Some suggestions I have are to have an additional option to use an ncurse based installer, such as that which is in Debian's installer. Debian also give you descriptions of the packages right on the screen. This should try have even more flexibility and simplicity. From what I understand ArchLinux is about being simple and powerful. Flexibility means giving options on the command line, for instance,  to enhance the installer and increase performance issues if available, such as DMA and nondma transfers or toggles to turn things on. I think ncurse based installer would "easier" from a programming point of view than an Xorg installer. This may tie into having the software in "groups" of packages that people talk about here, too.

Uhhhmm, Arch Linux does not have an Xorg installer. Its installer is ncurses based. (??)

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LTSmash

Member

From: Aguascalientes - Mexico

Registered: 2008-01-02

Posts: 348

Website

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I would like a Live DVD version, with compiz, and availability to choose between propietary and open source Nvidia and ATI drivers. As easy to install as Ubuntu or Sabayon ones.

With klik installed, and links to this awesome page.

And a USB stick live installation, where profiles can be added to an special start menu, where you can choose life or any other configuration you've set and save before.

Go and get Ubuntu...

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Proud Ex-Arch user.
Still an ArchLinux lover though.

Currently on Kubuntu 9.10

longhornxtreme

Member

Registered: 2004-07-10

Posts: 131

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I would vote that the grub install actually work more than half the time, rather than say "grub successfully installed" but it didn't even touch the MBR of the drive...

remote

Member

Registered: 2007-12-28

Posts: 44

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I would like to have iptables as part of the simple built in list of packages. And a blank script page to edit like with the other configuration files. This way I could at least setup my firewall on install and add the IP of the $repo so nothing steps in between via some corrupt DNS or the likes.
Any others vote for iptables?

FizDev

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 57

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I don't know if it's already been suggested but... adding an option to automatically partition the free space on a hard drive (similar to auto-prepare) would be great!

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 323

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I just installed Archlinux for the first time. That older computer was virtually rejuvenated and now seems to work almost as snappily as my main machine.

However, I don't have much good to say about the installer. My suggestion: throw it somewhere nobody is able to find it! It is counter-intuitive, buggy (didn't manage to set my keyboard layout correctly), and placed the bootloader in the MBR without even asking. GRR!! I have installed quite a few distros and all the installers have been better than the Archlinux one.

Get rid of it.

shining

Pacman Developer

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 2,043

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

However, I don't have much good to say about the installer. My suggestion: throw it somewhere nobody is able to find it! It is counter-intuitive, buggy (didn't manage to set my keyboard layout correctly), and placed the bootloader in the MBR without even asking. GRR!! I have installed quite a few distros and all the installers have been better than the Archlinux one.

Get rid of it.

That means you already wrote a replacement for it, right?

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pacman roulette : pacman -S $(pacman -Slq | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))

whaler

Member

From: Oslo, Norway

Registered: 2008-03-25

Posts: 323

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

That means you already wrote a replacement for it, right?

No - it simply means I am answering the OP's question.
Of course, I can always look into it when I've finished reinventing the wheel.

wantilles

Member

From: Athens - Greece

Registered: 2007-03-29

Posts: 327

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I just installed Archlinux for the first time. That older computer was virtually rejuvenated and now seems to work almost as snappily as my main machine.

However, I don't have much good to say about the installer. My suggestion: throw it somewhere nobody is able to find it! It is counter-intuitive, buggy (didn't manage to set my keyboard layout correctly), and placed the bootloader in the MBR without even asking. GRR!! I have installed quite a few distros and all the installers have been better than the Archlinux one.

Get rid of it.

If you do not like the installer, you can always go back to Ubuntu.

A good installer is one that does the job it was designed to do.

And Arch's installer accomlishes that fully.

Last edited by wantilles (2008-04-02 06:46:15)

Raccoon1400

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2008-04-14

Posts: 853

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

The only problem with the installer is when it installed grub it did not detect my other OSs.(ubuntu and vista) I had to add them manually.

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Fustrated Windows users have two options.
1. Resort to the throwing of computers out of windows.
2. Resort to the throwing of windows out of computers.

Sigi

Member

From: Thurgau, Switzerland

Registered: 2005-09-22

Posts: 1,131

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

The only problem with the installer is when it installed grub it did not detect my other OSs.(ubuntu and vista) I had to add them manually.

That's not a problem - that's a feature. Really.

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Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch.

tnek

Member

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 40

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

- An easier way to choose keyboard (I have some trouble using the km utility) during install. The Ubuntu installer could act as a role model.
- DHCP activated as standard instead of a static IP address.

reasa1

Member

Registered: 2008-06-12

Posts: 8

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

the installer only offers to select one swap partition. what if i have 2 physical hard drives? i heard linux can use swaps on different hdd's and benefit from it

kinection

Member

Registered: 2008-04-08

Posts: 12

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

This seems like a super old thread, is it still relevant? Or should a new thread be started on this topic?

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~kinection

tigrmesh

IRC Op

From: Florida, US

Registered: 2007-12-11

Posts: 794

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Good question.  Send an email to a forum moderator.

AllFather

Member

Registered: 2006-10-03

Posts: 40

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

my wish for the installer is that it reverts back to 2007.8, it was the best installer of the three.
I dont like the new way it behaves, i dont like that its more "fancy".

What was wrong with the old one?
I gave it to several people, and they installed it fine, it made a nice grubmenu they could read and understand.
Now its all a mess with disks beeing labeled by Id isntead of a proper name.

We dont need a livecd, we need a proper ftpinstall cd.
I tried to get them to use 2007 disk, but when they run pacman -S pacman, everything breaks.

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2007.08 - The last proper ARCH install cd.
RIP installer :'-(

dijxtra

Member

Registered: 2008-08-28

Posts: 9

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Huh. It took me 2 installations (I'm using Arch 2008.06) to figure out that packages are selected with space bar. It would be reeeeealy useful if, when starting package selection process, there was a notice that packages are selected with space bar. Or, if that notice exists, then make it more visible, because I couldn't see it and I really tried...

icetonic

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-10-21

Posts: 104

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

I don't know whether that was mentioned (didn't want to read the whole 7 pages) - I think on the CD should be documentation about setting up the internet connection... After this is done I can use the wiki... But establishing the Wireless connection was quite complicated the first time...

sodface

Member

Registered: 2005-12-26

Posts: 38

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Fix PXE installation so that you don't need a CD or USB-stick.

Checkout tams post in this  thread:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51951

+1

I've been messing about with PXE booting quite a bit lately (revamping a PXE boot system I put together a couple of years ago) and the new Arch ISO doesn't appear to be geared to handle this at all - obtaining the previous FTP ISO and moving vmlinuz/initrd to the tftp dir at least lets me boot to the installer via PXE but I haven't actually tried an install yet, and based on tams post in the thread linked above, I probably won't.

And with gPXE and certain other distros you can do something like this:

kernel http://path.to.distro/os/boot/vmlinuz
initrd http://path.to.distro/os/boot/initrd.img
boot

Pretty cool to do a complete install over the internet without having to download an .iso at all...

Last edited by sodface (2008-11-03 04:06:48)

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Now its all a mess with disks beeing labeled by Id isntead of a proper name.

That's a good thing!

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … tc.2Ffstab
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Per … ice_naming

Last edited by Ranguvar (2008-11-19 03:49:09)

viga

Member

Registered: 2007-06-12

Posts: 112

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

Screwing with Xorg sucks.  An improvement in this area will really make Arch the great distro it should be.

SamC

Member

From: Calgary

Registered: 2008-05-13

Posts: 611

Website

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

viga: Installer issues. Not xorg issues. Could you elaborate youre problems?