Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
I tried it on a MacPro G5 (64-bit) with the netinst CD. At the boot: prompt I entered install desktop=xfce, then answered the usual questions and watched it happily install xfce. So that works. I have an xfce-CD1 CD that I intend to try with install desktop=gnome and see which desktop (xfce or gnome, or both?) it installs. The problem that I foresee here is the the yaboot.conf file on the xfce-CD1 already has its own clause append=desktop=xfce -- which may conflict with the user's. I'll report on that later. We may have to figure out how to only include the extra instructions (about desktops) on the netinst CDs, which would be no real loss, because all the other desktops have dedicated CD1's of their own. I haven't tried it on a G4 (32-bit) machine yet. I'll report on that later, too. Thinking about 64-bit vs 32-bit, I don't think the code that prints the boot: prompt (and the preceding boot.msg file) is aware of the bit-width of the hardware. So we may have to either make the added text more comprehensive to warn the user about install desktop=kde vs install32 desktop=kde, or find some other way of dealing with the problem. Which raises the question of do we dare make boot.msg any longer? It may already be too long -- long enough that most folks won't bother to read all of it, and miss something important. An alternate approach would be to refer folks to the appropriate section of the installation manual, where there should be a fully comprehensive discussion of the available boot options and why you might want to use them. Something like this: The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice Details are discussed in the installer manual at URL Enjoy! Rick On Mar 7, 2013, at 11:55 PM, Rick Thomas wrote: OK, Sounds great! I'll give it a try on a couple of old Macs over the weekend. Enjoy! Rick On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:16 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:49:54AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: # cat /proc/cmdline # in the F2 console during the installation ro ramdisk_size=10240 desktop=kde -- It installed kde as expected. I'm not sure what the -- is all about. It was not present when I installed with the netinst CD and typed expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. As noted, that installed xfce4. So the -- may not be strictly necessary. Take a look at the stuff in /install/yaboot.conf on the install CDs. I think that's where all this is originating from. OK, cool. Thanks for confirming. I've taken your text, tweaked slightly, and added it into debian-cd. I've also added some code to work out the default desktop so we can list that. I'm building a weekly powerpc set right now with the changes in - please test and make sure all works OK? I can see the code looks ok from here, but I don't have easy access to a powerpc machine to be able to check that text fits on screen correctly, silly things like that... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/a1df3e26-e920-405a-b729-40b4b1f5f...@pobox.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/7dc9ba41-4265-4b60-88fa-f6c84f5ee...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:49:54AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: # cat /proc/cmdline # in the F2 console during the installation ro ramdisk_size=10240 desktop=kde -- It installed kde as expected. I'm not sure what the -- is all about. It was not present when I installed with the netinst CD and typed expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. As noted, that installed xfce4. So the -- may not be strictly necessary. Take a look at the stuff in /install/yaboot.conf on the install CDs. I think that's where all this is originating from. OK, cool. Thanks for confirming. I've taken your text, tweaked slightly, and added it into debian-cd. I've also added some code to work out the default desktop so we can list that. I'm building a weekly powerpc set right now with the changes in - please test and make sure all works OK? I can see the code looks ok from here, but I don't have easy access to a powerpc machine to be able to check that text fits on screen correctly, silly things like that... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130307081631.gh8...@einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
OK, Sounds great! I'll give it a try on a couple of old Macs over the weekend. Enjoy! Rick On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:16 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:49:54AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: # cat /proc/cmdline # in the F2 console during the installation ro ramdisk_size=10240 desktop=kde -- It installed kde as expected. I'm not sure what the -- is all about. It was not present when I installed with the netinst CD and typed expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. As noted, that installed xfce4. So the -- may not be strictly necessary. Take a look at the stuff in /install/yaboot.conf on the install CDs. I think that's where all this is originating from. OK, cool. Thanks for confirming. I've taken your text, tweaked slightly, and added it into debian-cd. I've also added some code to work out the default desktop so we can list that. I'm building a weekly powerpc set right now with the changes in - please test and make sure all works OK? I can see the code looks ok from here, but I don't have easy access to a powerpc machine to be able to check that text fits on screen correctly, silly things like that... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/a1df3e26-e920-405a-b729-40b4b1f5f...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Mar 3, 2013, at 5:07 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 01:46:06PM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: On Mar 3, 2013, at 7:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: Gah. Looking further, at the moment I don't see how (if at all) the powerpc boot stuff passes through any of the kernel boot options to specify a default task. Rick, what happens if you try with kde CD#1 right now? Does it actually do KDE, or does it still default to Gnome? I'm glad you're thinking of things here, it's been a while since we've had many people interested in ppc stuff like this! :-) I'll try it. Just to be clear -- What you want me to do is download and burn the RC1 KDE CD#1 install CD. Boot it. Take the default install option at the boot: prompt. Look at the /proc/cmdline from a text console during the install process. Wait til it gets to running tasksel. Leave desktop task checked. Watch and see what desktop it installs. Report back here. Right? That's exactly correct, yes! :-) Thanks for helping with this, it's great! # cat /proc/cmdline # in the F2 console during the installation ro ramdisk_size=10240 desktop=kde -- It installed kde as expected. I'm not sure what the -- is all about. It was not present when I installed with the netinst CD and typed expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. As noted, that installed xfce4. So the -- may not be strictly necessary. Take a look at the stuff in /install/yaboot.conf on the install CDs. I think that's where all this is originating from. Hope it helps! Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/db15c680-d098-4338-aa24-bbc18a257...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Feb 26, 2013, at 2:47 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote: Basically, we put a lot of effort in for the isolinux-based x86 boot menus to give the options here. I've added code to debian-cd to convert those same menus into grub format for UEFI x86 booting. AFAIK none of the other arches have that support. If you'd like to play with yaboot and see if you can get it to play ball, I doubt anybody would be averse to adding that as a feature. :-) To be honest, it may be too late for Wheezy, but I guess it depends on how big the changes would be. I'm quite impressed with the effort you-all have put in on isolinux and grub for x86. The yaboot bootloader for PowerPC doesn't have so much flexibility, so if it is to be done, it has to be done brute force. Fortunately, brute force works in this case. All that's necessary to allow people to set the preferred desktop at install time is to add the following couple of sentences to /install/ boot.msg : The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? If so, which package? Thanks! Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/92d13c35-7bce-4c76-add8-0d7f74d69...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 12:56:10AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: To be honest, it may be too late for Wheezy, but I guess it depends on how big the changes would be. I'm quite impressed with the effort you-all have put in on isolinux and grub for x86. The yaboot bootloader for PowerPC doesn't have so much flexibility, so if it is to be done, it has to be done brute force. Fortunately, brute force works in this case. OK, cool! All that's necessary to allow people to set the preferred desktop at install time is to add the following couple of sentences to /install/boot.msg : The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? If so, which package? The message there comes from debian-cd, so I'm simply adding it now. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Armed with Valor: Centurion represents quality of Discipline, Honor, Integrity and Loyalty. Now you don't have to be a Caesar to concord the digital world while feeling safe and proud. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130303145250.ga17...@einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 02:52:50PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 12:56:10AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? If so, which package? The message there comes from debian-cd, so I'm simply adding it now. Ahh, hmmm. It should probably be modified appropriately at runtime, in fact, so we say the right thing on each variant of the CD. I'll tweak it to do that now. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Because heaters aren't purple! -- Catherine Pitt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130303145854.gb17...@einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 02:58:54PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 02:52:50PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 12:56:10AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? If so, which package? The message there comes from debian-cd, so I'm simply adding it now. Ahh, hmmm. It should probably be modified appropriately at runtime, in fact, so we say the right thing on each variant of the CD. I'll tweak it to do that now. Gah. Looking further, at the moment I don't see how (if at all) the powerpc boot stuff passes through any of the kernel boot options to specify a default task. Rick, what happens if you try with kde CD#1 right now? Does it actually do KDE, or does it still default to Gnome? I'm glad you're thinking of things here, it's been a while since we've had many people interested in ppc stuff like this! :-) -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com You can't barbecue lettuce! -- Ellie Crane -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130303150324.gc17...@einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Mar 3, 2013, at 7:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: Gah. Looking further, at the moment I don't see how (if at all) the powerpc boot stuff passes through any of the kernel boot options to specify a default task. Rick, what happens if you try with kde CD#1 right now? Does it actually do KDE, or does it still default to Gnome? I don't know what happens if you use the KDE CD#1. What I did to test was this: Boot the netinst installer CD. Enter at the boot: prompt expert desktop=xfce Answer all the questions until it gets to running tasksel. Leave the desktop task checked. Watch it install xfce4. Be happy. At one point in this process I switched to the F2 console and typed cat /proc/cmdline and saw the desktop=xfce phrase there. Does that help? Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/17b6b280-d8f0-4394-bff1-7fc4c8f7c...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Mar 3, 2013, at 7:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 02:58:54PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 02:52:50PM +, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 12:56:10AM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? If so, which package? The message there comes from debian-cd, so I'm simply adding it now. Ahh, hmmm. It should probably be modified appropriately at runtime, in fact, so we say the right thing on each variant of the CD. I'll tweak it to do that now. Gah. Looking further, at the moment I don't see how (if at all) the powerpc boot stuff passes through any of the kernel boot options to specify a default task. Rick, what happens if you try with kde CD#1 right now? Does it actually do KDE, or does it still default to Gnome? I'm glad you're thinking of things here, it's been a while since we've had many people interested in ppc stuff like this! :-) I'll try it. Just to be clear -- What you want me to do is download and burn the RC1 KDE CD#1 install CD. Boot it. Take the default install option at the boot: prompt. Look at the /proc/cmdline from a text console during the install process. Wait til it gets to running tasksel. Leave desktop task checked. Watch and see what desktop it installs. Report back here. Right? Enjoy! Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ffe7f934-03a9-4563-a401-65b710b1f...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 01:46:06PM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote: On Mar 3, 2013, at 7:03 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote: Gah. Looking further, at the moment I don't see how (if at all) the powerpc boot stuff passes through any of the kernel boot options to specify a default task. Rick, what happens if you try with kde CD#1 right now? Does it actually do KDE, or does it still default to Gnome? I'm glad you're thinking of things here, it's been a while since we've had many people interested in ppc stuff like this! :-) I'll try it. Just to be clear -- What you want me to do is download and burn the RC1 KDE CD#1 install CD. Boot it. Take the default install option at the boot: prompt. Look at the /proc/cmdline from a text console during the install process. Wait til it gets to running tasksel. Leave desktop task checked. Watch and see what desktop it installs. Report back here. Right? That's exactly correct, yes! :-) Thanks for helping with this, it's great! -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com Google-bait: http://www.debian.org/CD/free-linux-cd Debian does NOT ship free CDs. Please do NOT contact the mailing lists asking us to send them to you. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130304010722.gd17...@einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
On Feb 27, 2013, at 3:25 AM, Steven Chamberlain wrote: On 27/02/13 06:04, Rick Thomas wrote: Is it as simple as appending something like desktop=xfce to the boot command line? Actually yes, that should work; the install media for GNU/Hurd and kFreeBSD are doing exactly this. So I tried it. And it works. Here's my proposed patch -- Add the following to /install/boot.msg : The following desktop environments are available: gnome, kde, xfce and lxde. The default is gnome. If you prefer a different one, append desktop=your choice. E.g. to do an expert install with the xfce desktop environment, type expert desktop=xfce at the boot: prompt. Would it help if I submit a wishlist bug report? Thanks! Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/446c6728-9ab8-42e4-b6ba-c31893d12...@pobox.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
Hi, On 27/02/13 06:04, Rick Thomas wrote: Is it as simple as appending something like desktop=xfce to the boot command line? Actually yes, that should work; the install media for GNU/Hurd and kFreeBSD are doing exactly this. Regards, -- Steven Chamberlain ste...@pyro.eu.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/512ded32.3010...@pyro.eu.org
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
Rick Thomas wrote: With the amd64 netinst CD I have found a spot in the maze of helpful expert options offered when the CD first boots that lets me choose which Desktop Environment will be installed later on by tasksel. This is really nice because it means I don't have to have a separate (and much larger) CD image for each DE I might want to install. Unfortunately, the PowerPC[*] netinst installer has nothing comparable. How difficult would it be to provide an optional target (analogous to install and expert) in the yaboot configuration file, that defines the preferred Desktop Environment? Or failing that, can the instructions be changed (similar to the video=ofonly instruction) to tell people about a boot-time option to set the preferred DE? Best of all, of course, would be to have tasksel provide a menu option to let the user pick at runtime whether to use gnome or kde or xfce or whatever, but that's been discussed before. Just thinking... Rick [*] Having only tried the PowerPC and amd64 installers, I don't have any data on other architectures. Does anybody know how, for example, SPARC or MIPS handle this problem? Basically, we put a lot of effort in for the isolinux-based x86 boot menus to give the options here. I've added code to debian-cd to convert those same menus into grub format for UEFI x86 booting. AFAIK none of the other arches have that support. If you'd like to play with yaboot and see if you can get it to play ball, I doubt anybody would be averse to adding that as a feature. :-) To be honest, it may be too late for Wheezy, but I guess it depends on how big the changes would be. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com It's actually quite entertaining to watch ag129 prop his foot up on the desk so he can get a better aim. [ seen in ucam.chat ] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1uatj8-m8...@mail.einval.com
Re: Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
Is it as simple as appending something like desktop=xfce to the boot command line? If so, maybe it could be as simple as adding a couple of sentences to the text in /install/boot.msg ... I'll see if that works. If it does, I'll suggest some wording for the message. On Feb 26, 2013, at 2:47 PM, Steve McIntyre wrote: If you'd like to play with yaboot and see if you can get it to play ball, I doubt anybody would be averse to adding that as a feature. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/791bb431-927c-466f-83c5-ded32e985...@pobox.com
Choice of Desktop environment at install time using netinst CD.
With the amd64 netinst CD I have found a spot in the maze of helpful expert options offered when the CD first boots that lets me choose which Desktop Environment will be installed later on by tasksel. This is really nice because it means I don't have to have a separate (and much larger) CD image for each DE I might want to install. Unfortunately, the PowerPC[*] netinst installer has nothing comparable. How difficult would it be to provide an optional target (analogous to install and expert) in the yaboot configuration file, that defines the preferred Desktop Environment? Or failing that, can the instructions be changed (similar to the video=ofonly instruction) to tell people about a boot-time option to set the preferred DE? Best of all, of course, would be to have tasksel provide a menu option to let the user pick at runtime whether to use gnome or kde or xfce or whatever, but that's been discussed before. Just thinking... Rick [*] Having only tried the PowerPC and amd64 installers, I don't have any data on other architectures. Does anybody know how, for example, SPARC or MIPS handle this problem? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/cc7668cb-1274-4cee-a02a-dcdb4a5a3...@pobox.com
