On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Jean McCormack<Jean.McCormack at sun.com> wrote: > > There are several issues with respect to the addition of software selection > in the installer that need to be addressed. > > 1) The user interface > > A user should have the option to install different software collections > (Desktop, AMP, HPC, ... etc.) > during installation that accompany the default installation. Each collection > should not include the 'kitchen sink' but be representative of a useful and > popular selection of software that users typically use for that task. > > Frank has a screen shot of what he has come up with here: > http://xdesign.sfbay.sun.com/projects/solaris/subprojects/install/design/screensSlim08-11.html > If the number of collection choices ?is larger than about 6, we may have to > add a "Software" screen following the Welcome screen.
Can this be made available externally? Alternatively, can I get access to SWAN? :) > 2) What do we want to display in terms of data for the user with regard to > software collections? > > -Do we want to display the list of packages included in a software > collection to the users? ?-Do we want to provide the ability for users to > pick and choose > outside the collections? > -Marketing requirements seem to indicate we don't need to let users > pick individual packages(see above) > > Frank's response was the following which is reflected in the link from #1 > above: > The short answer is that I think we want to provide a short list > (<10?) of purpose focused "collections" without listing specific > packages, though we might provide a short description next to a > collection that lists the major "applications" in that collection. > I believe that the collections should contain a reasonably complete > set of packages for that function, but selecting all collections > would not necessarily load all packages in the repo. The package > manager could be used to fine tune the package set after > installation. Can the collections just be specially named incorporations rather than some magic that is contained on the install media? There are several reasons for this: - It allows AI users to select the same software groupings - It allows zones installations to select the same software groupings - It allows me to change or augment my decision at a later time with a simple pkg command - It allows individual sites to augment their repositories with the software groupings they are willing to support (e.g. Helpdesk, Web Developer, Lobby Kiosk, Factory Test Station) - It allows third parties to say "use the standard installation media. When prompted for extra repositories, add http://feezlebub.kenai.com/pkg-repo/. When selecting the software collection to install, select FeezleBub." Rather more interesting than selecting individual packages may be selection of facets. Simple options like "64-bit Support", "Developer Files" (e.g. .h and similar), and "Documentation" (including man pages, README's and pdfs) can go a long way toward reducing the number of files installed. > 3) How can we maintain the list of packages now, since IPS does not > currently provide an API for querying for the info.classification tag? > > Evan did some research on this, the summary of which follows: > "The current Package Manager is maintaining it's own set of "collections" or > groupings and ?that using the currently available tools we would have to do > the same, using something like the .p5i files to define these. > > Going forward the IPS client API will be enhanced to allow us to use the > info.classification tag and query IPS for this information for dynamically > building up these collections or groupings. " > > > 4) Method of installation > > > I had a discussion with Sarah about our current methods of installations: > ?1) Everything is installed from media (current liveCD). Fast but not easily > customizable. > ?2) Everything is installed from IPS repo (current AI). Customizable but > slow. > > > This project proposes to implement the following: > ?1) LiveCD contents are installed from media. > ?2) Selected package collections are available to customize the installation > via IPS. > > Phase 1 of the project will install the software collections from the > network > Phase 2 of the project will allow installing the software collections from > the IPS repo on a disk. > > > > _______________________________________________ > caiman-discuss mailing list > caiman-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/caiman-discuss > -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
