On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 04:14:42PM -0800, in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jeff Griffiths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Brian Dwornick wrote: > > I do agree that gentoo is good for people that want to learn. > Wanting to > >learn and a pretty GUI are not on the same path. I am more trying to make > >a > >point that the people that would truely benifit from an installer are > >sysadmins that are trying to mass load and do not want to resort to disk > >imaging. While a pretty GUI is good for a first time linux user, if they > >really want to learn, they should use the install guide and go at it the > >old > >fashoned way. > > why does installer equate with GUI? it also does not neccesarily equate > with 'dumbing down'. a lot of the learning involved in the gentoo > process that is valuable is about the linux / gentoo system itself. i > have spent lots of time trying to figure out hardware issues during > various linux installs but i can't say that i learned much from them. Good point. Gentoo already has an "installer": the bash prompt. A few handy functions that walk the admin through the install process would fit perfectly into the Gentoo idiom. Just off the top of my head, I can think of putting the following in the LiveCD bashrc:
alias '?'=what_am_i_doing_helpfunction
PS1='Gentoo [? for help] ${PWD}>'
function install_status() {
ebegin Network connectivity
[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_NETWORK == "yes" ]
eend $?
ebegin Partition drives
[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_PARTITION == "yes" ]
eend $?
ebegin Build filesystems
[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_FILESYSTEMS == "yes" ]
eend $?
ebegin Unpack tarball
[ $GENSTALL_FINISHED_TARBALL == "yes" ]
eend $?
source /tmp/the-rest-of-this-function
}
In the end, the "installer" is the person sitting at the keyboard,
regardless of what is on the screen.
>
> $.02
Singapore or Australian dollars?
--
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"?
Kusanagi: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action.
--Ghost in the Shell
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