Dave Miner wrote: > Kyle McDonald wrote: >> Which suggestion? >> >> Did the old installer create a JumpStart profile and then call >> pfinstall? >> > > Yes, it did. > Oh wow. I didn't know that. Why didn't it leave the profile around where it could be reused, or if it did why wasn't that documented? >> While a hared library could eliminate most of the duplication between >> an interactive installer, and an Automated one. It seemed like >> (given that one requirement of the interactive one was to ask all >> questions upfront befroe starting the install) having the interactive >> GUI create an AI profile, and call AI, would also eliminate >> duplication (and therefore QA and bug-fixing costs) Not to mention it >> would actually 'test' the profile generated by using it. >> > > A simple installer such as the GUI isn't going to test anything > interesting; we'll write real test cases for testing. In general, > yes, any install path will be generating an internal representation > equivalent to an automated installation profile and using the > appropriate interfaces from there; they'll mostly be common. I agree that the simple installer isn't going to create complicated profiles. What I meant by 'testing', is that the user would know without a doubt that the profile left behind by the installer would definitely recreate the install, because it *had actually been used* to do the original install.
There's a difference between saying: "Here's what I used to do the install, use it if you want to repeat it." and "I used something thing else, but this should recreate it if you need to." -Kyle
