graphical arch installer

Ink-Jet · 2008-05-02 23:32:17

I seriously can't believe no-ones thought of this before - it's a wonderful idea.
Good luck.

pseudomind · 2008-05-03 23:29:28

peets wrote:

pseudomind, I'm trying to understand what you're going to write. Basically you're creating a lean liveCD that will launch a graphical environment and connect to the internet, and then hand over control to whatever scripts the distros wrote? You're designing a general framework that every distro can conform to in order to quickly get a nice installer?
If you manage to make the interface between what you're making and the distro-specific scripts clear and simple, this could be really cool and a big time-saver!

Yep, that's pretty much the idea. I thinking the most difficult part will be maintaining separation of the graphical frontend and distro-specific backend. Initially I will be writing this program specifically to install arch so in essence the first backend I will write will probably be quite explicit, just as a proof of concept. Once it works successfully I plan to come back and break that script into logical sections and generalize it. At that point it should end up being a set of scripts to perform standard actions such as partitioning, package selection, etc. If it is designed correctly only slight modifications of individual parts should be necessary to accommodate the differences between distributions. While these scripts will probably be used by default, the person creating an installer is not limited to using these and can rewrite portions of it and replace things should the need arise.

One feature I plan to implement with one of the aforementioned scripts is something I think will be quite exciting for the arch community in specific. An installation type selection to essentially target the software that will be installed. A base install of arch will probably be the default install type with minimal xorg-(xfce, gnome, kde, fluxbox) desktops as alternative options. This should be relatively simple since it would only require that different packages get fetched by pacman. Ordinarily such an idea used in conjunction with a rolling release type distribution would only cause problems as things are rapidly updated, removed, and replaced. Problems similar to this are what the remote install script design should be able to overcome.

Currently I am finishing up a course in quantum mechaincs and another in nuclear engineering. It is taking every last bit of my free time. I plan to resume work on this project once the summer begins. So at least for the next couple of weeks don't expect any reports on progress. Thanks for the feedback guys and keep the ideas coming!

-mike

patroclo7 · 2008-05-04 15:35:11

A very interesting project, my compliments! Obviously it is vital to add in such a livecd the largest possible support for internet connections (wired, wireless, dialup, UMTS and what else; drivers, firmwares, scripts, even GUIs for connection), otherwise the installation can not even start for some people.

peets · 2008-05-04 18:20:47

pseudomind wrote:

Currently I am finishing up a course in quantum mechaincs and another in nuclear engineering. It is taking every last bit of my free time.

Yikes I quit my physics degree, but I can relate and wish you good courage!

finferflu · 2008-05-04 18:39:40

Wow! What a neat idea!

alex_anthony · 2008-05-05 19:55:22

pseusomind: suggestion
Perhaps make it able to run from an installed environment. I can't always get internet on LiveCDs and it would just be cool to be able to run a program, then reboot into another install.... And perhaps just call gParted for all partitioning to keep that non-specific.

pseudomind · 2008-05-05 20:41:04

alex_anthony wrote:

pseusomind: suggestion
Perhaps make it able to run from an installed environment. I can't always get internet on LiveCDs and it would just be cool to be able to run a program, then reboot into another install.... And perhaps just call gParted for all partitioning to keep that non-specific.

This sounds quite similar to the one used by unetbootin, unless of course I am misunderstanding what you meant. Check out it's site http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and tell me if your suggestion is different than their implementation. If they are the same then you are in luck, the software you desire already exists and by the way they did a good job too.

cardinals_fan · 2008-05-06 00:27:46

It's interesting to see DragonFly on there. A very good OS.

WernerL · 2008-05-06 10:09:12

Archers don't need a gui.
The current installation process is good enough for me.
But it's a nice project for n00bs though. (don't know if that's good or not, do we really wan't to have more n00bs? )

Last edited by WernerL (2008-05-06 10:09:28)

zodmaner · 2008-05-06 12:28:19

WernerL wrote:

Archers don't need a gui.

Arch already have GUI for a lot of things. For example, we have tons of GUI for pacman for user to choose from, and all of that was made by Archers for Archers.

WernerL wrote:

The current installation process is good enough for me.

This new installer won't replace the official one anyway, so if you don't need/want to use it then don't. Simple.

WernerL wrote:

But it's a nice project for n00bs though. (don't know if that's good or not, do we really wan't to have more n00bs? )

Are we using the same definition of the word n00b?

GGLucas wrote:

..."noob" meant "new person who is arrogant, selfish and refuses to learn"...

If you are referring to this meaning, then I agree, we don't need such person. But if you mean new user in general, then I have to disagree. New user are almost always beneficial to the open source project. They bring new talents, new ideas and, most important of all, manpower (which Arch Linux desperately needs).

Remember, the strength of Arch Linux lies in the fact that a user can customized Arch to suit his own needs, not because we do everything in command line interface. Arch Linux never forces user to use tool he didn't want to, so I don't see a problem if someone wants or prefers to use graphical installer over ncurses interface, it's his decision, and just because someone use GUI doesn't mean he's a newbie (or n00b, for that matter). Like I said, we all have our own preferences.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-05-06 13:18:32)

alex_anthony · 2008-05-06 16:10:50

pseudomind wrote:

This sounds quite similar to the one used by unetbootin, unless of course I am misunderstanding what you meant. Check out it's site http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and tell me if your suggestion is different than their implementation. If they are the same then you are in luck, the software you desire already exists and by the way they did a good job too.

Never seen that before. looks quite interesting. I suppose I'm going to have to try it now...
I'm not sure if that is the same. It says that it downloads the system after rebooting into unetbootin, so wouldn't it be basically like running the Arch FTP CD from the hard drive? What I was envisaging was running a program on an installed system, which downloads the files and installs without rebooting, using your already configured internet to download them. So basically it runs totally on your system thats installed already, then you just reboot and you get the option in grub of your newly installed OS.
If you're confused, don't worry... I am too now

peets · 2008-05-06 17:18:55

alex_anthony, can't you just mount the arch install cd and run /path/to/cd/arch/setup? This is an honest question, I haven't tried.

pseudomind · 2008-05-10 20:32:18

Status update-
Even though I should have been focusing exclusively on finals I still managed to find some time to work on this project. Anyhow, I have been working on some of the suggestions made in this forum and have also come up with some new ideas myself. As a result I am going to approach this project from a fundamentally different position than I had previously anticipated. Here are some suggestions and my responses to each.

Use gparted as the standard partition editor/formatting utility.
--done, I like this idea also.

I would like to put this program on my XXXX live-cd.
--originally I had intended to make this program run on one specific live-cd environment and make use of its package management software to handle things. This manner of doing things would probably be more simple but likely incompatible with any other live-cd. Nevertheless I think this is a very important aspect that the installer should address.

How I plan to address this live-cd problem.
--I have begun writing/designing my own package management system that will work with nearly any live-cd environment. In its current form the package management system is very simple to work with (slackware packages with a twist!) and has produced what I think are good results. To better understand why this is being done I'll give examples of its current usage. When the installer program is run if it does not detect pygtk (which it is written in) on the live-cd it installs both it and its dependencies and then restarts itself. From the perspective of the end user the operation is completely seamless. I have also succeeded in installing gparted and its various dependencies using this very same method. As of now I have not written the ftp portion of the program and so these packages must be locally cached for this to work, however this is the next thing I intend to work on.

Why might you ask is this even the slightest bit interesting.
--I have abandoned the idea of creating a live-cd with an installer that can install various distributions. What I am doing instead, is creating an installer that can be used with pretty much any pre-existing live-cd as long as it meets some fairly minimal requirements (x86-linux, has python2.5, tar and gtk). All a person would have to do is go to the project website and download a fairly small script. Upon running, the script makes the live-cd into the environment it needs to be to perform the installation.

As of now I have only completed a few parts of the program however, these parts have worked very well. They have been successfully run on both a slax live-cd and an ubuntu 8.04 live-cd. I plan to test for compatibility with other live-cds later as the program approaches a more usable state. I guess in essence you can think of my eventual goal as a kind of wine-doors of sorts but for linux distributions instead.

Anyhow... sounding board, do your thing!

nickmarkham397 · 2012-03-02 05:23:21

i dont know if anyone cares about this topic anymore but i am trying to make an arch bassed distro and for the common man the terminal installer is a little intimidating. i am fine with it but it is a little ugly so i want to know how to get a nice looking installer for arch

tomk · 2012-03-02 07:02:34

Well.... one doesn't exist, so you would have to create it yourself.

Arch Linux

#26 2008-05-02 23:32:17

Re: graphical arch installer

#27 2008-05-03 23:29:28

Re: graphical arch installer

#28 2008-05-04 15:35:11

Re: graphical arch installer

#29 2008-05-04 18:20:47

Re: graphical arch installer

#30 2008-05-04 18:39:40

Re: graphical arch installer

#31 2008-05-05 19:55:22

Re: graphical arch installer

#32 2008-05-05 20:41:04

Re: graphical arch installer

#33 2008-05-06 00:27:46

Re: graphical arch installer

#34 2008-05-06 10:09:12

Re: graphical arch installer

#35 2008-05-06 12:28:19

Re: graphical arch installer

#36 2008-05-06 16:10:50

Re: graphical arch installer

#37 2008-05-06 17:18:55

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#38 2008-05-10 20:32:18

Re: graphical arch installer

#39 2012-03-02 05:23:21

Re: graphical arch installer

#40 2012-03-02 07:02:34

Re: graphical arch installer

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