I'm posting this to gentoo-dev in addition to gentoo-installer, but please take
any conversation over to the gentoo-installer ML.
I know we've been saying that the LiveCD for the installer would be done in a
few weeks for the past 5 months or so, but now it will only be a few more weeks.
Just kidding!
We are happy to announce GLI 0.1 (a.k.a "the alpha") along with a *real* LiveCD
(usable X environment with goodies) as opposed to the normal minimal or
universal "LiveCD". It will hit the mirrors under /experimental at the same
time as the 2005.1 release.
The LiveCD contains most of the standard GRP set as usable packages. This
includes (but isn't limited to):
* GNOME
* fluxbox
* enlightenment
* Xfce4
* Firefox
* Thunderbird
* OpenOffice.org (Ximian goodness)
* sylpheed
* xmms
* gaim
* xchat
* mplayer
Obviously, the installer will also be included. In GNOME, there is even a handy
desktop launcher for the GTK frontend! We have strived to allow you to do
anything with the installer that you could do if installing with the current
method. Keep in mind that this is only a first release, and there is a lot of
room for improvement. Here are some known limitations:
* no /etc/portage support in the frontends
* no way to modify runlevels in the frontends
* only supports x86 and probably amd64 (other arches are in the works)
* the GTK frontend's make.conf screen only offers a few options
* no way to custom configure a kernel without a premade .config
* no lvm or software raid support
Of course, to offset these bad things, we have a few features that are
available with the installer that were not available previously:
* livecd-kernel - the installer will install the kernel from the LiveCD into
the new install so that you don't have to wait for genkernel to do its
thing. It is installed as a package with emerge so that certain dependencies
are satisfied (virtual/alsa for example)
* GRP w/o an extra CD - the installer will quickpkg and emerge -K packages from
the LiveCD instead of using prebuilt binary packages. This obsoletes the GRP
CD, which will probably disappear in the next release.
* dynamic stage3 - the installer can build a stage3 equivalent in the chroot
directory from the packages on the CD. This will be useful down the road for
networkless installs. Currently, there is no snapshot on the LiveCD for
space reasons, but play with it anyway.
Along with the GTK frontend, there is also a dialog-based frontend. This is
useful for doing remote installs via SSH. gli-dialog also supports some things
that the GTK frontend doesn't and vice versa. If not using gnome, the
installer can be started by running 'installer' from a terminal. This will try
to launch the GTK frontend first with the 'installer-gtk' script. If this
fails, it will fall back to the dialog installer with the 'installer-dialog'
script. If you wish to use the dialog frontend, you can run 'installer-dialog'
directly.
Now, for the *most* important part...reporting bugs. Gentoo's bugzilla has a
special sub-section for the installer. When you click the link to enter a new
bug report, select "Gentoo Linux" and then "GLI" from the "Component" list.
Please search for the bug you're reporting *before* creating a new bug. We
would much rather see "me too" comments, or even the much more silent act of
adding yourself to the bug's CC, than having to deal with tons of duplicate
bugs. When you do encounter an error in the installer, try to grab
/tmp/installprofile.xml and /var/log/install.log from the LiveCD environment.
We may request them when you file a bug.
If you've actually made it this far, congratulations for having an attention
span greater than that of the average 3 year old! Happy installing :)
--
Andrew Gaffney http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer Installer Project
--
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