Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Old stuff that should not bother anyone anymore
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JRD
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by JRD »

Ok, I see what you mean...But could you provide me a good partition software in ncurses ?

Also it's a pain to have an i18n installation setup in ncurses. Not anyone speak or understand english. They must try and install "Alcoholix" even without knowing the Shakspeare language.

This is the only two constraints that tends me to preferre a graphical installer (partition-friendly soft & i18n)
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thenktor
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by thenktor »

JRD wrote:Ok, I see what you mean...But could you provide me a good partition software in ncurses ?
What's wrong with cfdisk?
JRD wrote:Also it's a pain to have an i18n installation setup in ncurses. Not anyone speak or understand english. They must try and install "Alcoholix" even without knowing the Shakspeare language.
This indeed is a problem.
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by .:B:. »

JRD wrote:Ok, I see what you mean...But could you provide me a good partition software in ncurses ?

Also it's a pain to have an i18n installation setup in ncurses. Not anyone speak or understand english. They must try and install "Alcoholix" even without knowing the Shakspeare language.

This is the only two constraints that tends me to preferre a graphical installer (partition-friendly soft & i18n)
Well... That's the thing isn't it. There isn't any. If I have to resize/move partitions I use the gparted live CD. So it is a good point. I'm just thinking out loud here, I'm not here to decide on your project. But one has to consider pros and cons. Lack of a graphical parted editor may indeed be a problem for some people. I personally still prefer to resort to gparted before installing if I need any resizing done (well I'm kind of obligated to do so, given that Arch uses an ncurses-driven installer) but again that's just me. I can vividly imagine most people wouldn't want to use two discs when they can get the job done with one.
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JRD
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by JRD »

Yes !
If we didicate a disk to zenwalk, or have spare size on a disk, then yes, cfdisk is ok. But for shrinking a partition to make room for zenwalk, cfdisk is useless.
Most people are in this case (coming from Windows, or using another free OS : another Linux distro, a BSD...).
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thenktor
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by thenktor »

JRD wrote:Yes !
If we didicate a disk to zenwalk, or have spare size on a disk, then yes, cfdisk is ok. But for shrinking a partition to make room for zenwalk, cfdisk is useless.
Most people are in this case (coming from Windows, or using another free OS : another Linux distro, a BSD...).
Hmm, I've never resized and existing partition because I love my data and had to do a backup anyway. So I usually simply create new partitions. But OK, this is just my old fashioned way 8-)
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by Shador »

First of all Hi to everybody and thanks a lot for inviting me. :)

I would vote for a LiveCD which can be used to install the system.
You could add another cheatcode to the LiveCD, which would fire up a text based installer. In the boot menu there could be another install options which selects that cheatcode or like on arch you have to launch the installer yourself and the CD only loads the shell.

I don't mind having a graphical installer too, but the problem with them is that they may not always run and are more work.
We can just offer on the LiveCD's desktop/ menu a graphical installer. But I think for the beginning it's better to concentrate onto text-based installer.


I'm thinking about a bootmenu like this:
1: Codename Alcoholix Live
2: Codename Alcoholix Live - safe-graphics mode
3: Codename Alcoholix Live - text mode
(4: Codename Alcoholix Live - text mode installer)

1 + 2: load the LiveCD and boot to a grahpical X environment (+ shortcut to GUI installer if available)
3: loads the text mode and you can launch installer with setup
4: loads the installer directly via the cheatcode

It would also be possible to check for that cheatcode (they can be accessed anytime by /proc/cmdline) during the autostart of the DE and to autostart the graphical installer in that case.

A thing to consider for the installer is the possibility to choose what to install.
Basically:
* Standard (Default)
* Core


Did anybody invite Akuna and did ask him if he wanted to do a LiveCD for us? I would of course help him again. :)
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thenktor
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by thenktor »

Shador wrote: Did anybody invite Akuna and did ask him if he wanted to do a LiveCD for us? I would of course help him again. :)
I've invited Akuna. As far as I remember he will join us next month. He is buisy at the moment.
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gapan
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by gapan »

Shador wrote:A thing to consider for the installer is the possibility to choose what to install.
Basically:
* Standard (Default)
* Core
I think that is a very good idea! :)
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Sparky
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by Sparky »

Personally I like a LiveCD install because it can be used on its own as a recovery tool, which I need a lot because I'm always screwing up my system. I have other liveCDs to use of course, so that's more of a minor preference.
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thenktor
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Re: Standard installation CD or Live CD?

Post by thenktor »

An idea that came to my mind: With an LiveCD you can surf the internet during the installation :mrgreen:
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