Chakra liveCD - things to come...

funkyou · 2008-12-09 13:29:41

Hi there,

just to inform you that the project is not dead

We have just released a video on our page which shows a complete installation from one of our pre-alpha builds, check it here:

http://www.chakra-project.org/

We are currently in the "polishing phase", an alpha release will be there in some weeks and the first stable version should be there with KDE 4.2...

If you have any remarks, questions or ideas what could be improved, let us know about it

Allan · 2008-12-09 14:05:22

That does look very cool. What are the licenses you need to agree to during it?

dav7 · 2008-12-09 14:12:33

Okay, here are a bunch of things from my end:

Improvement suggestions
- The close button image for the lightbox doesn't work, and additionally, the lightbox isn't vertically centered on the page.
- Can has <title> attribute for the webpage? ^^
- In the License Approval section, instead of saying eg "jre" map these strings to more descriptive names, so it says "Java Runtime Environment" instead.
- Your idea to run a sequence of images changed every couple of minutes when the system is installing does provide some sense of progress, but it gets boring very quickly - I fast forwarded through the video a bit. Perhaps you could use some kind of "monitor" to figure out where the installer is up to, and display an icon specific to that? So, for example, when the system is installing (coreutils et. al), we see some gears. When KDE is installing, we see a picture of a KDE desktop. And so on. I don't think a "Current file: ..." type thing is a good idea, however - rapidly changing text just detracts from the professional, "PC in charge" feel you currently have and which I like.
- I saw "Please tell us who you are" in the video in the "Create user" section - I don't know if the screenshots are newer than the video, but if you still have that string in there, please change it. It sounds too big-brother-ey.

New ideas
- Instead of just allowing the user to play music (I noticed that, nice one) allow the installer to "minimize" into a tiny window that just prints the installation progress while the user is allowed to work.
- Provide a "log" button at the bottom left where you have a bunch of unused space that pops up a width-maximized, 30%-height panel at the bottom of the screen (resizing everything else appropriately) that shows what the system is currently doing - ie, what file is being copied, etc. Yes, I said this would be a bad idea earlier, but providing the information as an optional extra adds to the professionalism, I think.
- A simple progress bar showing the installation status is okay, but kinda boring. I like the old Macintosh System install animation - I think from version 6 or 7. If I can remember what juggle I did to get it to install the first time, I'll video an installation so you can see what I mean. No promises though.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-12-09 15:06:15)

dav7 · 2008-12-09 14:13:15

Allan: I saw something about Adobe (ie Flash) in the video, and one about JRE in a screenshot.

Zariel · 2008-12-09 14:16:19

and ms-fonts

Fatsobob · 2008-12-09 14:22:38

I am really liking the project from what I have seen. If this turns out to be great, I might put it on my laptop for the sake of simplicity.

Exitium · 2008-12-09 16:07:53

I'll definitely test this when it's released.

Meh likes.

mentallaxative · 2008-12-09 17:00:39

Mmmm, eye candy. Great work guys.

funkyou · 2008-12-09 21:44:45

Thanks for all the fish

Allan wrote:

What are the licenses you need to agree to during it?

Currently we show the licenses for flashplugin and ttf-ms-fonts... I dont know if that is really needed, but for now its better to be on the safe side... Still needs some investigation on what we really need...

We also have a nice hw-detection that will install proprietary drivers (ATI, Nvidia for now) when a compatible card has been detected. Their license will also be displayed on that page.

dav7 wrote:

- The close button image for the lightbox doesn't work, and additionally, the lightbox isn't vertically centered on the page.

First one is Fixed. Second one seems to be a bit more complex = not fixed, but i guess we will survive that

dav7 wrote:

- Can has <title> attribute for the webpage? ^^

Fixed.
Its just a quickly hacked teaser page anyways. It will be replaced later

dav7 wrote:

- In the License Approval section, instead of saying eg "jre" map these strings to more descriptive names, so it says "Java Runtime Environment" instead.

Good catch. I'll add this to our list.

dav7 wrote:

- Your idea to run a sequence of images changed every couple of minutes when the system is installing does provide some sense of progress, but it gets boring very quickly - I fast forwarded through the video a bit. Perhaps you could use some kind of "monitor" to figure out where the installer is up to, and display an icon specific to that? So, for example, when the system is installing (coreutils et. al), we see some gears. When KDE is installing, we see a picture of a KDE desktop. And so on. I don't think a "Current file: ..." type thing is a good idea, however - rapidly changing text just detracts from the professional, "PC in charge" feel you currently have and which I like.

Well, its an OS installer, so we tried to find a good compromise between KISS and eye candy...

Currently we have 3 stages during the installation:
1 - Formatting & mounting targets
2 - Copy the live system to the target(s). (Yes, we dont install packages, but copy the complete live system without the live-specific overlay stuff, just like Ubuntu and several others do it too)
3 - Postinstall. This works mostly in a chroot and installs/removes packages, prepares the system to be usable and configures it.

Well, the "installation visualization" is still work in progress

dav7 wrote:

- I saw "Please tell us who you are" in the video in the "Create user" section - I don't know if the screenshots are newer than the video, but if you still have that string in there, please change it. It sounds too big-brother-ey.

Already fixed

dav7 wrote:

- Instead of just allowing the user to play music (I noticed that, nice one) allow the installer to "minimize" into a tiny window that just prints the installation progress while the user is allowed to work.

I guess thats against our philosophy. We wanted a fullscreen installer from the beginning. It doesnt distract you and its also a lot faster if your're not working with the machine during the installation. Oh, and it also uses fewer RAM, in theory You can even install the system on a 256mb machine, and we hope to bring that down even more...

dav7 wrote:

- Provide a "log" button at the bottom left where you have a bunch of unused space that pops up a width-maximized, 30%-height panel at the bottom of the screen (resizing everything else appropriately) that shows what the system is currently doing - ie, what file is being copied, etc. Yes, I said this would be a bad idea earlier, but providing the information as an optional extra adds to the professionalism, I think.

Tribe + Postinstall provide a full log of the installation, which will be copied to the target after a successful installation. Well, i will talk with the other guys about your idea

dav7 wrote:

- A simple progress bar showing the installation status is okay, but kinda boring. I like the old Macintosh System install animation - I think from version 6 or 7. If I can remember what juggle I did to get it to install the first time, I'll video an installation so you can see what I mean. No promises though.

We are open for every type of eyecandy, so a video would be useful

rson451 · 2008-12-09 21:46:47

This does look very well done. I'm not a fan of KDE but once a release is out there I will certainly try this out in a VM just to see the work you guys put in. Keep it up.

JawsThemeSwimming428 · 2008-12-09 23:28:27

I have been keeping my eye on this project as well. Can't wait until there's something I can try out!

genisis300 · 2008-12-10 17:25:15

regarding the Pictures you show when your installing. What about pictures that give some informaion about diffrent aspects about your OS? for example if you using shaman for the updater give a list of some of it's features etc. A Little MS like but it would be good for people who are new to it. (or even tips and tricks)

Heller_Barde · 2008-12-11 15:06:58

genisis300 wrote:

regarding the Pictures you show when your installing. What about pictures that give some informaion about diffrent aspects about your OS? for example if you using shaman for the updater give a list of some of it's features etc. A Little MS like but it would be good for people who are new to it. (or even tips and tricks)

I partly agree on the tips and tricks bit but no advertising like MS. that's just annoying (to me that is).
What might be even better would be to maybe nudge a new user in the direction of the archlinux wiki...
we could even try and determine an algorithm to figure out whether it was an experienced user installing the system or a new user. based on how long it took them to make certain decisions (just kidding)

cheers Barde

changturkey · 2008-12-11 22:48:22

Heller_Barde wrote:

genisis300 wrote:
regarding the Pictures you show when your installing. What about pictures that give some informaion about diffrent aspects about your OS? for example if you using shaman for the updater give a list of some of it's features etc. A Little MS like but it would be good for people who are new to it. (or even tips and tricks)
I partly agree on the tips and tricks bit but no advertising like MS. that's just annoying (to me that is).
What might be even better would be to maybe nudge a new user in the direction of the archlinux wiki...
we could even try and determine an algorithm to figure out whether it was an experienced user installing the system or a new user. based on how long it took them to make certain decisions (just kidding)
cheers Barde

Good idea.

funkyou · 2008-12-21 00:43:38

We just did a first release

http://chakra-project.org/download-iso.html

archlinuxsagi · 2008-12-21 01:11:00

Yee ahh..
Yahoo.

Me gonna tell my other distro forum posters who are interested in Arch and Kde..
Yeah....

deltaecho · 2008-12-21 04:07:48

Whoo!!!!!!

Heema · 2008-12-21 16:09:33

tried it in a vm and it worked great, great job

had to set the resolution in grub advanced options first

kensai · 2008-12-21 16:37:42

So the installer is the suse one?

What you are trying to achieve looks very good, if after install you have a true Arch Linux system is even better.

funkyou · 2008-12-21 16:58:47

Heema wrote:

tried it in a vm and it worked great, great job
had to set the resolution in grub advanced options first

Thanks. The detection is not 100% ready yet, as we basically use the Xorg detection and add some workarounds... The next alpha will provide a better fallback if the monitor cannot be detected properly, like when using a VM...

kensai wrote:

So the installer is the suse one?

Yast? No
The installer (Tribe) was written from scratch. It took us around 9 months to reach the current stadium - and now we have a relatively stable base and can start adding more features and stuff...

kensai wrote:

What you are trying to achieve looks very good, if after install you have a true Arch Linux system is even better.

Thanks. Chakra was intended to be Arch compatible from the beginnning - the installed system is 100% arch + KDEmod + our tools... Its just a liveCD, not a "new distro". We dont want to do another *buntu or something, just some graphical stuff that stays close to the system, except the hw-detection and so on... Check Arxin for example, its just a "GUI frontend" for rc.conf and other configs, with some enhancements a terminal cant provide... Even with these tools, you should still know what you are doing - and thats the reason why i think that this still has at least some compliance to the arch way

archisart · 2008-12-22 10:51:04

Great work guys.
I just tried the livecd, it`s working like a charm.
The LiveCD xorg.conf is better than my one.

Exitium · 2008-12-22 12:47:00

Downloading via torrent. I'm going to continue seeding after download is done.

If Chakra is tasty I'm going to install it as a primary OS (when stable release has been released). Now I'm just going to test it via Virtualbox. I'll comment later how I liked it.

archlinuxsagi · 2008-12-22 12:59:36

Exitium wrote:

If Chakra is tasty

You goona eat chakra? Hehe.

I got reports from the others that you need to be connected to the Internet to begin installation?
I have yet to install chakra.. Finding the time to do so...

Svlad Cjelli · 2008-12-22 13:26:12

good job guys... but it is not workin for me...

Tribe crashes every time i want to install ...

I tried to install in a virtualbox :-(

Last edited by Svlad Cjelli (2008-12-22 13:27:00)

Heema · 2008-12-24 00:40:22

Svlad Cjelli wrote:

I tried to install in a virtualbox :-(

there is a bug with virtualbox, it installes fine with vmware

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-09 13:29:41

Chakra liveCD - things to come...

#2 2008-12-09 14:05:22

Re: Chakra liveCD - things to come...

#3 2008-12-09 14:12:33

Re: Chakra liveCD - things to come...

#4 2008-12-09 14:13:15

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#5 2008-12-09 14:16:19

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#6 2008-12-09 14:22:38

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#7 2008-12-09 16:07:53

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#8 2008-12-09 17:00:39

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#9 2008-12-09 21:44:45

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#10 2008-12-09 21:46:47

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#11 2008-12-09 23:28:27

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#12 2008-12-10 17:25:15

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#13 2008-12-11 15:06:58

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#15 2008-12-21 00:43:38

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