improving installer

[almusalimalmusalimah]

hello everyone

i have a favor to ask all of you about it

since i use mandriva from more than three years i never see this important Q has been asked before

ok ..... lets say it

how about making the steps of installing to be appear before installing the distro

i mean

someone will not be near the PC all the times when he installing the distro

that because he didnt have time to be near it you know like because his job or something important and we already know that the distro installer needed him to customize his distro to be like what did he whant from it to be

so lets help those people and make those steps to be appear before installation (( i mean license , desktop environment , passwords , etc....... ))

so how about this idea

[wobo]

This idea isn't bad - somebody like me would like it: at the end of the day you put in the install media, boot your machine, answer all the necessary questions (including partitioning), then hit [Enter] and go to bed. System installs and shuts down the machine. Good night!
In the morning you awake and you have a fresh new system.

Ok, I'm dreaming because I do not know if that is technically possible.

[almusalimalmusalimah]

we can do it

because i see it before at ubuntu installer from 8.04 to 10.10 versions of the distro

but without shutting down job

but that you mention it it will be very good and helpfull idea

so we can do it

[Sfiet_Konstantin]

This idea isn't bad - somebody like me would like it: at the end of the day you put in the install media, boot your machine, answer all the necessary questions (including partitioning), then hit [Enter] and go to bed. System installs and shuts down the machine. Good night!
In the morning you awake and you have a fresh new system.

What ? It reminds me of XP installator that takes a night to complete.
Installing mageia takes only 25 min ... No need of go to bed.

But it is indeed a good idea

[almusalimalmusalimah]

how about

adding other desktop environments to the advanced installing

but without making DVD to containing them

just telling drakinstaller to ignore the other desktop environments that DVD containing them

and focus his installing job to import the choosen desktop environments from mageia servers

and if there any library needed by those desktop environments

then drakinstaller should search the DVD before download it from the server

[juergen_harms]

Have a look at what you find in /root/drakx after installation. I use (an edited copy of) package_list.pl (the list of all non-dependency initially installed packages) to obtain reproducable custom installs, economizing 20% root partition size. I have no experience with auto_inst.cfg.pl, but that may be helpful for what you want to achieve (a script that allows to automatically re-run a first install - helas a script that is still waiting to be wrapped into a GUI)

[nlsthzn]

I really like the way the new Ubuntu Installer already starts installing while the user hasn't even answered any of the questions... so while configuring the time-zone and user information the system is merely on it's way already installing... saves a lot of time...


Neil

[Germ]

I don't care for too much automation. I like to stay in control and actually see what the installer is doing.

[almusalimalmusalimah]

I don't care for too much automation. I like to stay in control and actually see what the installer is doing.

this will give our developers a good idea (( for some people )) bad idea (( for some people ))

then how about making Q before the whole installation

and it will be

what kind of installation do you want (( normal / automatic ))

silly Q hah

will i suppose our developers are the whom will decid to making this real or not

best wishes to all of you

[maat]

Moved to "Ideas and suggestions" forum

[Mag]

How about the two modes are selected with a check box or a selection option?. All the same CDs.

Automatic installation:
With questions, options, and other minimum, automatically configurations and installation.

Custom installation:
Type of current installation.

It is good to use imagination...

[wobo]

I'm not sure, but don't we have this "auto - nonauto" already?
You will always have to answer some questions (language, keyboard layout, etc.) first. But after that:
- If you want an automatic installation, just select KDE or Gnome in the first selection screen and you will not be bothered with any more questions - the system starts installing right away.
- If you don't want automatic, select "Custom" and you have full control down to single package selection.

[iamoverrated]

Hi,
I'd love to see a back button. I know its probably not a priority or might not be possible with the current installer, but if possible could we add some? Almost every other distro out there has this feature and its been noted on several reviews of Mandriva and Mageia that this is a shining flaw in the install process. Also can we change the theme in the installer, La Ora is looking very dated.

[doktor5000]

No, this is not easily possible. That back button was there several years ago, and has been removed because it caused too many problems.
Just think about: you do some repartitioning, format some partitions you want to use, click next and suddenly you realize you want to go
back - how should the installer revert those changes?

The theme should be switched for Mageia2 everywhere to oxygen-gtk.

[wobo]

Well, at some points (like after partitioning or after installing packages) a step back is certainly not possible but it may be possible after other steps - and there you have the back button in the installer.

Of course this is related to the overall structure of the installation process. There are distributions where all questions are asked before partiioning and before installing packages - configuration is saved in RAM. Only after all the config questions are answered the "non-revertible" steps are started. You could compare it with compiling a kernel, all configuration steps are made in the beginning, resulting in a makefile with chances to jump back at all times. Only after this Makefile is written the real "making" starts. In other words: to make a reasonable "back button" system possible, the whole installation process must be changed. If we had the manpower to do that I would certainly vote for this change.

Concerning graphics: I agree to the need for a more modern look of the installer - IMHO just changing to oxygen-gtk is not sufficient. Again we would need some more manpower - this time in the artwork team to create something different. OTOH the installer is something you use once (not counting first time experience where you may do 20 installations during the first month) and then forget about it for 9 months. So top priority should be on ease of use of the installer (which also means good included help (see F1 button)), looks only on second position.

[Max]

Concerning graphics: I agree to the need for a more modern look of the installer - IMHO just changing to oxygen-gtk is not sufficient. Again we would need some more manpower - this time in the artwork team to create something different. OTOH the installer is something you use once (not counting first time experience where you may do 20 installations during the first month) and then forget about it for 9 months. So top priority should be on ease of use of the installer (which also means good included help (see F1 button)), looks only on second position.

Also there's the issue that I noticed that the graphics themselves have errors and stuff in them and don't resize well on certain screen resolutions.
I promised to look into it, but then real life got in the way. And I probably won't make it by the artwork freeze so...