Improving the installer?

Romashka · 2006-11-03 09:19:25

Phrakture, here's another one

http://www.gobolinux.org/abstk/

It has ncurses and Qt backends. Written in Python.

phrakture · 2006-11-03 15:08:19

Romashka wrote:

Phrakture, here's another one
http://www.gobolinux.org/abstk/
It has ncurses and Qt backends. Written in Python.

Woah.... I may have to look into this - I tried urwid, but the api is overly complicated to use... look at some of the examples... this looks interesting

Romashka · 2006-11-03 15:32:28

phrakture wrote:

Woah.... I may have to look into this - I tried urwid, but the api is overly complicated to use... look at some of the examples... this looks interesting

Yes, though I'm not Python programmer, I see that code is fairly small and simple.

You may rip off some parts from GoboLinux installer, it's GPL.

benplaut · 2006-11-03 21:12:31

.

Last edited by benplaut (2021-06-25 12:34:36)

Romashka · 2006-11-03 21:47:21

benplaut wrote:

I vote for something (curses) along the lines of the Debian installer. Quite simply, it rocks.

I vote for C/ncurses too. Plain dead simple. Though bash/dialog solution is not bad too.

However, currently only phrakture is involved in new installer development, so he decide. He's busy with pacman3 and mkinitcpio base for LiveCD's too. I wonder where he finds time for all this so much needed work.
tpowa has made some improvements/fixes for bash/dialog-based installer, however. So if new installer won't be ready for 0.8 then improved bash/dialog installer will be OK. But even tpowa's improved/fixed installer still needs some inprovements/fixes.

IMHO it's not important for Arch to have "easy" installer with "user frendly GUI" (read "foolproof with bells and whistles"), but more solid, extendable and maintainable one.

I would like to see more options for configuring filesystems before installing something on them (because it's harder to do later), for example option to reduce 5% space reserve for root, ability to format ext3fs with different options (dir_index, journal options etc), abilities to setup encrypted/LVM/raid root etc. Also, don't forget about very useful option to select which interface is connected to Internet during FTP install.
That's much more important than look'n'feel and other stuff, IMHO.

gradgrind · 2006-11-04 07:32:00

Please take a look at my 'archin' installer - developed for larch but independent of it. Even if you don't like it for some reason it might have some useful aspects and I would love to hear about things that are good, stupid, wrong or missing! It is 'dialog' based but could easily get another front end.

See the larch download page for the repository address. It can be installed and run on a normal Arch system as well as on a live CD.

I will consider Romashka's wishes, but I'm not sure I understand this:

Also, don't forget about very useful option to select which interface is connected to Internet during FTP install.
That's much more important than look'n'feel and other stuff, IMHO.

I may be being thick, but could you explain exactly what you mean?

SiD · 2006-11-04 09:18:01

benplaut wrote:

I vote for something (curses) along the lines of the Debian installer. Quite simply, it rocks.

yes!
A installer like the debian one would be great...

Romashka · 2006-11-04 11:10:09

gradgrind wrote:

I will consider Romashka's wishes, but I'm not sure I understand this:
Also, don't forget about very useful option to select which interface is connected to Internet during FTP install.
That's much more important than look'n'feel and other stuff, IMHO.
I may be being thick, but could you explain exactly what you mean?

Arch 0.7.2 installer uses eth0 as network interface for Internet.
IIRC tpowa's modified installer have the ability to select which interface to use.
On a server with two or three network cards it's hard to install Arch from FTP.

About year ago I was struggling with this problem when installing Arch 0.7.2 via FTP on my server with two ethernet cards.
I tried to modify installer but couldn't get it to work correctly.
The funny thing is that this problem was solved with the help of another problem - swapping eth0/eth1 on boot
By using this "feature" (trying to boot few times until my eth0 become correct card) I installed Arch on my server where it lives until now. What would I do if my eth0 & eth1 won't swap on each boot?
Of course, better and logical way was just to swap network cables, but the problem is that my ISP uses MAC for identifying cards, and I should call to their main office in another city to ask them to change that.

lucke · 2006-11-04 13:25:53

Romashka wrote:

About year ago I was struggling with this problem when installing Arch 0.7.2 via FTP on my server with two ethernet cards.
I tried to modify installer but couldn't get it to work correctly.
The funny thing is that this problem was solved with the help of another problem - swapping eth0/eth1 on boot
By using this "feature" (trying to boot few times until my eth0 become correct card) I installed Arch on my server where it lives until now. What would I do if my eth0 & eth1 won't swap on each boot?
Of course, better and logical way was just to swap network cables, but the problem is that my ISP uses MAC for identifying cards, and I should call to their main office in another city to ask them to change that.

Changing MACs addresses is very easy (with ifconfig). Moreover, archbootstrap is (was? - haven't used it for some time) a very nice way of installing Arch off net.

Romashka · 2006-11-04 13:47:42

lucke wrote:

Changing MACs addresses is very easy (with ifconfig). Moreover, archbootstrap is (was? - haven't used it for some time) a very nice way of installing Arch off net.

I know about the ability to change MAC, just haven't think about such hack at that time.
But anyway having the ability to select eth0/eth1/etc. is more logical and easy, especially for newbies. No need for hacks to get Arch from FTP using eth1.

gradgrind · 2006-11-04 19:55:00

I haven't looked at how the installer manages network interfaces, but I imagine this, and other things, are easier when running from a 'proper' Linux system, such as a live CD. You can use the normal system tools to set up your network cards before doing the installation.

There are plans to make the official installer live CD based, so maybe these problems will be eased. Of course, in Arch the normal system tools are manual tweaking of configuration files and scripts ... but at least they are (after a while of using Arch!) quite familiar files.

For now you can always do an Arch ftp install from pretty well any live CD (knoppix, slax, whatever), and larch also offers installation of the CD's (Arch) contents. I can't remember when I last used the official installer.

Mr Green · 2006-11-04 20:09:20

can you tell me where I can find out how to do an ftp install....?

gradgrind · 2006-11-04 20:46:57

can you tell me where I can find out how to do an ftp install....?

Would you believe there's a wiki page or two about it (somewhere)?

Of course, IMHO the easiest way is to use my 'archin' package, or for just the ftp install bit the 'pacin' package (which is used by 'archin').

Mr Green · 2006-11-04 20:53:32

was not being funny I put search for arch ftp install did not see it on wiki ....

Of course I can use larch lol

When my poor mans server turns up I may install Arch base.....

gradgrind · 2006-11-04 21:06:11

Mr Green wrote:

was not being funny I put search for arch ftp install did not see it on wiki ....

See:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Qui … stallation
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … m_a_LiveCD
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … her_distro

'newarch' is a predecessor of 'pacin'

Share and Enjoy!

Mr Green · 2006-11-05 07:58:04

emmm I was not looking for newarch .... but thanks for the links

Looked under Howtos ... see em now .... why so many guides to do the same thing?

Can I use larch on my server?

gradgrind · 2006-11-05 09:11:12

Mr Green wrote:

Looked under Howtos ... see em now .... why so many guides to do the same thing?

I guess that's the sort of thing the current wiki clean-up should, well, clean up.

Mr Green wrote:

Can I use larch on my server?

I'm not sure I know what you mean ... longer explanation for my ageing grey cells very welcome.

Mr Green · 2006-11-05 11:08:56

Ok I'll install Arch when I get it ...

Server only needs bare system console ... do not think X is required might use it to serve up media that kind of thing

gradgrind · 2006-11-05 14:49:13

Mr Green wrote:

Ok I'll install Arch when I get it ...
Server only needs bare system console ... do not think X is required might use it to serve up media that kind of thing

You can try the 'mini' profile that comes with larch if you like, that is fairly minimal and console only.

Mr Green · 2006-11-05 14:52:46

cool ... that will do just nicely ;-)

kamagurka · 2006-12-15 12:55:32

Personally, aside from the fact that it generates wrong grub.conf, I think the installer is fine. It doesn't hold your hand, and coupled with the documentation (which is concise and pretty good) it even learns you something.
EDIT: On the other hand, I agree that a way to review your changes and a description for the packages would be pretty cool.

iphitus · 2006-12-15 13:14:34

kamagurka wrote:

Personally, aside from the fact that it generates wrong grub.conf, I think the installer is fine. It doesn't hold your hand, and coupled with the documentation (which is concise and pretty good) it even learns you something.
EDIT: On the other hand, I agree that a way to review your changes and a description for the packages would be pretty cool.

last time I used it, it didnt even generate one, there was just a template, and there were no automagical tools.

udev didnt load your modules for you, you specified them yourself in the MODULES=() array. anything auto was foobar.

back in the days....

James

dtw · 2006-12-15 13:41:08

I just installed on my new box and it was REALLY annoying that the installer insisted on re-formatting all my partitions, which had already been set up in ext3 with some nice journal options - and like to see that fixed BIG STYLE!

kamagurka · 2006-12-15 13:42:51

Um...the installer doesn't want to reformat all your partitions.

Romashka · 2006-12-15 21:17:15

dtw wrote:

I just installed on my new box and it was REALLY annoying that the installer insisted on re-formatting all my partitions, which had already been set up in ext3 with some nice journal options - and like to see that fixed BIG STYLE!

That wasn't the case for me, neither with official 0.7.2 CD nor one of the latest tpowa's ISOs. :?

Arch Linux

#51 2006-11-03 09:19:25

Re: Improving the installer?

#52 2006-11-03 15:08:19

Re: Improving the installer?

#53 2006-11-03 15:32:28

Re: Improving the installer?

#54 2006-11-03 21:12:31

Re: Improving the installer?

#55 2006-11-03 21:47:21

Re: Improving the installer?

#56 2006-11-04 07:32:00

Re: Improving the installer?

#57 2006-11-04 09:18:01

Re: Improving the installer?

#58 2006-11-04 11:10:09

Re: Improving the installer?

#59 2006-11-04 13:25:53

Re: Improving the installer?

#60 2006-11-04 13:47:42

Re: Improving the installer?

#61 2006-11-04 19:55:00

Re: Improving the installer?

#62 2006-11-04 20:09:20

Re: Improving the installer?

#63 2006-11-04 20:46:57

Re: Improving the installer?

#64 2006-11-04 20:53:32

Re: Improving the installer?

#65 2006-11-04 21:06:11

Re: Improving the installer?

#66 2006-11-05 07:58:04

Re: Improving the installer?

#67 2006-11-05 09:11:12

Re: Improving the installer?

#68 2006-11-05 11:08:56

Re: Improving the installer?

#69 2006-11-05 14:49:13

Re: Improving the installer?

#70 2006-11-05 14:52:46

Re: Improving the installer?

#71 2006-12-15 12:55:32

Re: Improving the installer?

#72 2006-12-15 13:14:34

Re: Improving the installer?

#73 2006-12-15 13:41:08

Re: Improving the installer?

#74 2006-12-15 13:42:51

Re: Improving the installer?

#75 2006-12-15 21:17:15

Re: Improving the installer?

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