Hi Alok, Please see my responses inline.
Alok Aggarwal wrote: > Hi Karen, > > On Mon, 6 Jul 2009, Karen Tung wrote: > >> Alok Aggarwal wrote: >>> Currently the Caiman architecture supports two types >>> of installers - a LiveCD based GUI and AI. Each of these >>> installation environments are different in that >>> one is a desktop based environment while the other is >>> not. As a result, they are both built on a different >>> set of packages with AI being built on a significantly >>> smaller set. >>> >>> As we provide more installation environments in the future >>> (text based interactive install, a media based AI and possibly a >>> network based text install), I think there are a couple of high >>> order issues that need to be sorted out. >> >> Another high order issue that you didn't >> list is the user experience. >> >> - Do we include different installers in the same media? Or do we >> have a media for each installer type? Or only include a few >> installers on the same media? > > I didn't call it out specifically but that's > what I was thinking. See one of the follow on > mails. OK, I will read those other emails and respond there. > >>> a) What kind of an image should these new installers >>> (text, media based AI) be based on? Since both these >>> installers are not going to offer a desktop installation >>> environment, does it make sense to base them on the >>> same set of packages as AI? I think it would be a >>> reasonable starting point. >> For installers that does not require the desktop, the >> set of packages used for building the AI image >> sounds like a reasonable starting point. > > I agree except for a media based text installer which > does not support installting from IPS, I think we need > the LiveCD set of packages. Not to bring up the desktop > but to provide a reasonable installed system. That's actually an interesting point for discussion. At this time, the GUI installer installs every single thing that's on the CD. So, that's simple. But for the text installer that does not support installing from IPS, does it make sense? Do we want to provide a choice? If people are using the text installer because their machine's graphics card is not supported, then, they might not want to install the LiveCD set of packages, since they will never be able to use it. On the other hand, if people are using the text installer because they don't want to bother to run the GUI at that time, then, they might want the LiveCD set of packages. Would it be simpler to install just "enough" packages for the text installer if the text installer is used. If people want to, they can install the LiveCD equivalent themselves afterwards? > >>> b) Assuming some of these installers get delivered as >>> part of the same AI image, how should the selection >>> between which installer to use be made? The two obvious >>> choices are to provide them via the GRUB menu or as a >>> separate menu item that comes up as part of boot (kind of >>> like the keyboard and language selection menu in the >>> current LiveCD installer). I think one of the underlying >>> requirement here is to allow this to be scriptable. Also, >> Can you expand on what needs to be scriptable? > > The selection of which installer to pick needs to be > scriptable. In the case of the VMC project, I think > it needs to be able to specify booting AI from media > without user intervention. > > Alok If this is the requirement we need to satisfy, I don't think we need to solve it with scripting. VMC project will be creating the "bootable AI image". If we allow the selection via GRUB, the "booting AI from media" option can be made the default option or even the only option during the process of creating this "bootable AI image". That way, when the image is booted, that option is automatically selected. --Karen
