Suggestions for Installer improvements?

raskolnikov · 2006-03-06 20:24:51

Good news ! Does it include the quickinst script, too ?

sodface · 2006-03-06 20:35:59

raskolnikov wrote:

Good news ! Does it include the quickinst script, too ?

Yes it does. I tried it once and it failed, I then went with the regular installer. Again, the failure was probably due to something I did. I like the quickinst script and I'm going to look into what happened with it when I get a chance.

sandstorm · 2006-05-08 13:44:16

Dear iTux,

maybe you can give http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=19101 a try. I had also problems loading modules.

Best regards
Martin

ndlarsen · 2006-06-09 14:32:27

Hey.

This might have been suggested before, honestly I cba to read through all 6 pages. I'm not a guru, although I have gained some knowledge/experience with different linux based distros as I've tried to find one that felt right and suited my needs and skills (or lack of same). Arch does so far, the installer on the other hand doesn't quite.

On an over all basis it's working great, it's simple and easy to use which I like. I'd like to see the package management part of it a bit more intuitive, though. Group selection is mostly working well but resloving package conflicts isn't. If you choose to do a full install you'll be warned that some packages conlicts with others eg. udev with hotplug. You'll be directed back to the package selection screen with default selections. How about a prompt to unselect some/all of the packages causing the conflict as well as having your selections restored when returned to the package selection? This ought to be possible without making a too complicated installer (with horror thinking of the debian one).
Oh, while I'm at it, an option to keep the current filesystem intact when mounting partitions would be nice. I know, manually adding partitions to fstab is not that big a deal for most people, it might be for some, though. Personally I prefer to handle discs and partitions prior to the install as Ive had a few, well, less than good experiences with faulty installers (gentoo's gui based one among others) + every now and then I share my /home between multiple distros and a few fat drives with windows. Adding them to fstab during the install while keeping the filesystem intact is just easier/faster than adding them after (I'm lazy by nature I'm afraid).
Last, how about adding an example entry to grub's menu.lst for booting windows, I'm sure that those who cannot remember the exact syntax and semantics would appreciate it, at least I would as I tend to forget it even though I've done it several times by now.
As a side note, having lynx or similar as a part of the base install would be great, Ive found it to be an invaluable post-install tool during the initial phase of configuration.
Other than that, keep up the good work, you've done well so far.

/BlockOfText

Cheers

Hendrix · 2006-06-16 10:31:34

I'd like to have Ranish on the CD, with support for NTFS, so you can easily get a dual-boot up and running.

V01D · 2006-07-30 04:56:20

In response to the original post:

About the kickstart: I'm actually developing exactly that (I've started a little stub page on the wiki at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kickstart until I find a suitable webserver to host my dokuwiki). It's mostly functional and very simple. I'm going to use this at work (a ~25 node HPC cluster), so I'll probably make it more stable before any release.

On the installer I would like the menu to advance alone. I think it's error prone that the user must select all the steps in order.

ihavenoname · 2006-09-25 03:08:16

I am not sure if this violates the Arch Way but I would like to add that an extra cd with gnome & kde (or one cd for each one) would be nice for those of us without very fast connections.

B15HOP · 2006-11-07 20:12:16

My last attempt to install arch required formatting my hard disk. That is a big no no... I SHOULD NOT have to format a drive that I install to.

kozaki · 2006-11-12 23:55:51

B15HOP > then just go straight to #2 "Install Packages"
I did this 2day and it worked great along with a local FTP that went @ 10 Mb/sec

Romashka · 2006-11-13 11:14:35

B15HOP wrote:

My last attempt to install arch required formatting my hard disk. That is a big no no... I SHOULD NOT have to format a drive that I install to.

If you already have partions you should just set mountpoints. Or do manual partitioning with cfdisk.
If you don't want to format each partition - answer "No" when installer asks for this.
No problems there.

phrakture · 2006-11-13 19:35:44

honestly I cba to read through all 6 pages

I hate this attitude. Hate it.
You honestly believe that if I were to help you, on IRC, I could explain it all in less than 6 pages? Read the document, that's what it's there for... teach a man to fish, and all that.

Seriously, if you "cba" to read, then I "cba" to help you.

ndlarsen · 2006-11-13 22:14:59

phrakture wrote:

I hate this attitude. Hate it.
You honestly believe that if I were to help you, on IRC, I could explain it all in less than 6 pages? Read the document, that's what it's there for... teach a man to fish, and all that.
Seriously, if you "cba" to read, then I "cba" to help you.

Right. What are you on about? First of all, this post is 6 months old, a little late to get pissed off in my honest opinion.
Secondly, I assume you did not read through the entire post, as I was neither asking for help nor easy solutions , I was merely making suggestions. Try rereading the post.
Thirdly, what I might or might not believe you are capable of, is completely irrelevant in this matter.

If you are having a bad day, go take it out on whoever caused it, this is not the proper place. I think an apology is overdue.

phrakture · 2006-11-13 23:53:10

So as not to start a flame war here: I apologize. That was not a personal comment. It was purely based on the statement, not the stating party.

I have removed your name from the quote.

Again, realize that determining "tone" on the internet is difficult. My post was written with the utmost neutrality of tone. I took issue with the sentiment itself. Many, many people come to IRC with the attitude "please help me, document X is too long to read" - many people request help without helping themselves.

Please do not try to start a flame war in this thread, I meant nothing by it directed at you.

ndlarsen · 2006-11-14 00:30:53

I have no intentions on starting a flame war either, it would be an utter waste of time and resources without any constructive result.
As you have clarified the original generalizing intention of the quote, which I clearly misunderstood due to the fact that my handle was part of it, as well as removing my handle to emphasize the intention, apology accepted. No hard feelings from my side, I merely felt stepped upon and patronized, naturally I had to respond.
Right, in order to clear out any misunderstandings. I have been using arch for about a year and currently have a post count at 40, per se I must have been reading and searching.
What goes for this rare deviation, the initial post of the thread dates back to 2004, I assumed that most of the thread would be outdated by then.
And yes, to the general tendency stated here;

Many, many people come to IRC with the attitude "please help me, document X is too long to read" - many people request help without helping themselves.

...a rtfm is in order.

Cheers for replying and proving willing to sort this out.

whitesuit · 2006-11-19 15:40:22

A suggestion (sorry if it has already been suggested, i didnt browse through all the pages):

When I installed arch i did a base install and then updated, installed X, gnome, etc from the command line. While doing this some warnings with instructions that were crucial to make the system boot afterwards scrolled in the terminal. However, after working with the virtual consoles i lost the ability to scroll all the way up to see every message. So i figured they would be logged somewhere in /var/log. I found pacman.log had information only about what packages were installed, but not the instructions (warnings) that appeared during the install. It would be really helpful if those were logged as well (I dont know if they are being logged somewhere else). That's my suggestion.

elasticdog · 2006-11-19 21:43:35

whitesuit wrote:

A suggestion (sorry if it has already been suggested, i didnt browse through all the pages):
When I installed arch i did a base install and then updated, installed X, gnome, etc from the command line. While doing this some warnings with instructions that were crucial to make the system boot afterwards scrolled in the terminal. However, after working with the virtual consoles i lost the ability to scroll all the way up to see every message. So i figured they would be logged somewhere in /var/log. I found pacman.log had information only about what packages were installed, but not the instructions (warnings) that appeared during the install. It would be really helpful if those were logged as well (I dont know if they are being logged somewhere else). That's my suggestion.

Does <code>Shift + PageUp</code> work?

whitesuit · 2006-11-20 04:37:59

elasticdog wrote:

Does <code>Shift + PageUp</code> work?

as I said on my post I lost the ability to scroll up using shift + page up because either i had already used all the buffer the virtual console offered or some other reason. So logging those crucial messages would be nice.

RaisedFist · 2007-01-30 19:49:33

Support for USB cordless keyboards/mice... here's my problem: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=29374

funkyou · 2007-04-03 16:38:09

Along with the speed throttle of the arch server, a menu entry for selecting the country and/or nearest server would be very nice...

fivre · 2007-04-21 18:01:48

For the portion where you set up /etc/fstab (the one after partitioning, not the actual option to edit the file) it'd be nice to have a more detailed readout than just the partition names; after you've configured a partition, it displays what you chose to do. For example:

Partition    Mountpoint    FS    Format?
===============================================

/dev/hda1    /            ext3    Yes
/dev/hda2
/dev/hda3    swap        swap    Yes

It gets confusing jumping around numerous partitions, and I ended up restarting that step several times because I'd forgotten what I did or thought I told the installer to format something it shouldn't.

Code tags don't preserve tabs very well

intsarts · 2007-06-20 11:43:56

If i choose mirror then there isn't mirror like: ftp.sixnix.net(/pub/archlinux) but it is in the list that i choose for pacman mirror. sixnix is the fastest mirror for me.

Fal · 2007-10-17 12:10:10

In very rare cases I've seen dhcpcd timeout when getting IP. You should add dhclient to the FTP installer cd if possible, since it would make installing much easier for me atleast.

Klenje · 2007-10-20 23:02:49

if you don't choose a mirror at the beginning of the installation and then you answer yes when asked whether to use current pacman mirror as default, the installer will write a line

Server =

that breaks pacman. I don't know if it's a bug... I know you are supposed to choose a mirror, but I had to reinstall arch without downloading new packages, so I didn't choose a mirror and got this problem

mitcoes · 2007-10-24 09:41:54

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.

simon1tan · 2007-11-18 21:45:25

Please set default network setting to dhcp instead of static 192.168.0.2. Most people connecting to a network will be using dhcp, even home users plug into a router with dhcp services.

Arch Linux

#101 2006-03-06 20:24:51

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#102 2006-03-06 20:35:59

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#103 2006-05-08 13:44:16

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#104 2006-06-09 14:32:27

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#105 2006-06-16 10:31:34

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#106 2006-07-30 04:56:20

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#107 2006-09-25 03:08:16

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#108 2006-11-07 20:12:16

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#109 2006-11-12 23:55:51

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#110 2006-11-13 11:14:35

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#111 2006-11-13 19:35:44

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#112 2006-11-13 22:14:59

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#113 2006-11-13 23:53:10

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#114 2006-11-14 00:30:53

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#115 2006-11-19 15:40:22

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#116 2006-11-19 21:43:35

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#117 2006-11-20 04:37:59

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#118 2007-01-30 19:49:33

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#119 2007-04-03 16:38:09

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#120 2007-04-21 18:01:48

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#121 2007-06-20 11:43:56

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#122 2007-10-17 12:10:10

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#123 2007-10-20 23:02:49

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#124 2007-10-24 09:41:54

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

#125 2007-11-18 21:45:25

Re: Suggestions for Installer improvements?

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