This bug is for tracking the status of GIA, the gentoo install assistant. Attached is v1, and the latest version can be found at http://shwag.org/gia The gentoo install assistant is simply a bash script, with the eventual goal of being included on the livecd. At and place during a gentoo install off of a gentoo livecd, typing 'gia' at the command line will prompt you with instructions on how you should next proceed. In the future I will be working towards different modes of running gia, such as -verbose (explanations and documentation), -expert (show minimal information and commands), -quick (automatically complete commands that are obvious and gia can do for you), and -quickprompt (to prompt before each thing gia wants to do) Currently gia is in a working state, and can be used, though a lot of text that gia says can still be refined and it may not work on all configurations. Only in a few places does gia automatically complete any steps, (just to shows its ability to do so), and it always says what it does so the user knows whats going on. Feedback welcome. Thanks.
Since I know this one will come up a few times ... <Uranther> as long as it does automate *everything* <shwag> Uranther, nope...actually, the idea is to not automate anything ... and only give hints on what to do next. <Uranther> cool <shwag> Uranther, but I do plan on adding a flag so that it can autocomplete obvious things, to help out people who have to do lots of installs frequently and just want to go through it quickly. <Uranther> not bad :P
What about using dialog to give it a fancy TUI with menus, msg-boxes etc ?
1. x86 specific. not good. 2. why are you recommending reiserfs?
Well, until this is platform agnostic, there's no way we would add it. We strive to keep everything as platform agnostic as possible. I also agree with ciaranm about reiserfs. Why are you recommending it?
As for recommending reiserfs, I was going along with the old install guide and the quick install reference, but I now see that the Handbook remains agnostic...so I will update the script to be agnostic for both file system type and platform.
platform and filesystem specific text has been updated to be agnostic. I'm still developing some more features for it. Right now I'm looking for a way to detect if the script isn't being run from an install at all, so that it can be used for post-install system checks to check for possible user mistakes in the installation process.
Instructions: 1. Boot from livecd. 2. wget shwag.org/gia 3. chmod +x gia 4. ./gia to run the script. 5. Repeate step 4 as needed.
Can I please get some comments on what else needs to be done here in order to get this included on the 2004.2 livecd.
Well, 2004.2 is done and "in the can", so it won't be included. Until this script can work on every arch that we support, it won't be added to the official LiveCD. I'll be honest when I tell you that there isn't much chance on this getting added in the near future, unless it truly becomes what it aims to be, and that is a guided version of the Handbook that helps the user through the install. Perhaps if you added some way to detect the architecture on which you're running, then to display those porttions of the Handbook, taken from the CD (check /mnt/cdrom/docs on a LiveCD) to ensure accuracy. If that were the case, then it would definitely be worth it. The problem is that right now we are working to reduce the number of packages that we ship on the LiveCD, because they've gotten too bloated. There's no need to have an 80MB "minimal" install CD.
also, you really need to talk to the gentoo-installer folk. this is right up their alley.
Eric, reassigning this one to you since a) we cannot handle this one and b) I don't know if there's an alias for the installier folks ;P
Created attachment 77140 [details] gentoo install bash script this is the last revision back when I used to work on this.
Reassigning to the installer team 'cause I'm sure Eric wants nothing to do with this bug anymore :).
Upstream is apparently dead on this, and there's been no activity here for a *long* time.
