Since AI is a very rich feature set and provides for our current level of
server and install customization, could the text installer be a front end
to creating a manifest for an AI install (which could then just be kicked
off and reported up through the text installer)? This would prevent
needing to add more hooks into libtransfer, etc. for yet another
presentation format?
Thank you,
Clay
On Wed, 13 May 2009, Dave Miner wrote:
> Shawn Walker wrote:
>> Karen Tung wrote:
>>> Keith Mitchell wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> In my opinion, the text installer should:
>>>>>
>>>>> - work on both x86 and sparc
>>>>> - offer a similar installation experience and feature set as the
>>>>> existing slim GUI installer
>>>> Should it offer a similar installation experience? What does this mean?
>>>> Is the target audience for the text installer the same as the target
>>>> audience for the GUI installer (I would say that it's not). In that case,
>>>> the experience - and feature set - should be tailored to the text
>>>> installer's anticipated user base.
>>> For me, a "similar installation experience" means similar questions will
>>> be asked. Same things
>>> can be configured/selected during installation. Not more, not less.
>>>
>>> I agree that the text installer's anticipated user base should be
>>> considered. So, let's talk about that.
>>> From what I can see, users that can benefit from using the text installer
>>> are:
>>>
>>> - all sparc users, since AI is the only way to install SPARC machine at
>>> this time.
>>> - All x86 users who can not use the GUI installer now, because their
>>> machine doesn't have enough
>>> memory to run GNOME, or because their machine can't use the window
>>> system..etc..
>>>
>>> Based on the above user groups, I don't see why we need a different
>>> feature set for
>>> the text installer. Offering the same feature set would provide the same
>>> installation experience,
>>> and we can re-use a lot of existing code.
>>
>> I would hope that caution is taken to not use the presentation of the
>> installer (text-mode), to add a bunch of options or configuration ability
>> that the GUI installer doesn't feature. The reasons provided for not
>> having the GUI installer ask configuration questions should apply equally
>> regardless of the presentation of the installer.
>>
>
> It's more a matter of identifying whether the target user for this particular
> presentation is satisfied with similar capabilities. We have some data
> suggesting that server installations (the primary target of a text installer,
> IMHO) expect a somewhat, though not entirely, different experience than the
> laptop/desktop experience for which the GUI was designed. That doesn't mean
> going to the extreme represented by the Solaris 10 installer, but some
> adjustment of feature set may be appropriate.
>
> Dave
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