Re: Graphical Installer - Call for Testing.

[Chris Marusich]

Hi Danny,

Wow!  I just looked, and I see that a lot of changes have been made
since January.  Is the wip-installer-2 branch the one I should test with
now?  What's the difference between the wip-installer and
wip-installer-2 branches?  What steps should I take to create a disk
image with the installer (or is a testable image available already)?

I will see if I can test it again in the next couple of weeks.

Danny Milosavljevic <address@hidden> writes:

>> * I think you made the first letter of some commands bold (like the "C"
>>   in "Continue"), but I didn't notice it until I tried the installation
>>   on a machine with a different monitor.  More contrast, or an
>>   underlined character, might help call that out more.
>
> Yeah, the HIG standard is underline.  Does underline work in curses on the 
> Linux console?  Apparently it's always auto-mapped to color.

I don't know.

>> * Partition the disks: when launching cfdisk, consider explaining that
>>   we're going to launch cfdisk to do the actual partitioning, and the
>>   user needs to quit cfdisk to come back and continue the installation.
>
> I'm writing guile-parted bindings now :)

Cool!

>> * The generated operating system configuration should use file system
>>   UUID or label, if possible, rather than device path.
>
> I didn't get that far yet.  Is that still the case?

I don't know.  When I test it again, I'll check.

>> * Choose mount point: since you can also set the label here, maybe
>>   change the title of the section to "Choose file system and mount
>>   point" or something?
>
> In the long run, I think this all should be "disk setup" and encompass 
> partitioning, lvm, encryption, file system creation and mount point setup.

I think it would be fantastic to accomplish all of the following:

* It's easy to configure the disks for the common use cases.

* It's possible to customize the configuration for any use case.

* The installer doesn't overwhelm people with knowledge that they might
  not (yet!) possess, but it invites them to take control and to learn.

I think each of those bullet points is in the spirit of Guix.

>> * The installer takes a "window within a window" approach for
>>   installation phases.  This conflicts with the "replace the whole
>>   window" behavior that occurs when running cfdisk.  
>
> Writing the parted bindings... :)

Excellent!

>>   I think that using a "replace the whole window" approach for the
>>   whole installer would help unify the overall look and feel.  So,
>>   instead of creating a window within the installer window for the
>>   "Partition the disks" phase, just replace the entire window with
>>   the relevant interface for the sub-menu.
>
> I actually like the window-within-window approach, especially since it
> can show some kind of path or status of where the user is nicely.  I
> wonder whether the nesting works for more than two levels, though.

That would work, too.  As long as the choice is consistent, it'll be a
better user interface.

>> * Choose mount point: clarify what the actions Check, Write, and
>>   re(Create) mean.  I wasn't sure until I tried them all!
>
> I think that's cfdisk ?  Or where?

It's been a few months, but I don't think that was in the cfdisk menu.
Maybe that section of the installer has been changed since I last tested
it.  I think it was in a section called "choose mount point".

I'm happy to see that this branch has remained active!  I'm sure having
a graphical installer will encourage more people to try GuixSD.

-- 
Chris

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