Re: Installing 9front

[Uriel <uriel@berlinblue.org>]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 4:57 PM,  <sl@9front.org> wrote:
>> 4) Yes, there is disk size advice in the Wiki Install page, but why
>> should I look at the wiki? Anyway the install page is HUGE and is full
>> of useless screendumps from the installer. Most of the useful bits of
>> info from that page should just be incorporated into the installer
>> itself (which anyway already prints too much useless shit, like
>> endless streams of "config:").
>
> The endless stream of "config:" is just output from the cwfs console
> as it returns to the prompt ("config:") after each command is performed.
> Perhaps the output could be run through sed or awk to remove things
> we don't want to print on the screen.
>
> The purpose of the wiki page is to demonstrate a typical install

A typical install should be: press enter repeatedly until you are done.

And we are already quite close to that.

As for explaining what is happening in each step, the installer should
be self-documenting and tell you what it is doing.

The install guide should cover things that are technically hard to
cover in the installer itself, like perhaps how to setup network
booting, what to do if something goes wrong or if you can't even get
the installer started, and things like that.

But probably the most important is we need an easy way to test changes
to the installer, building a new iso and then re-installing in a vm is
not practical for little script changes.

Maybe we could have a 'fake' install environment somehow that is easy
to reset and where you can run the whole installer system inside a rio
window. Not sure how practical and difficult this could be to arrange,
but seems like it should be feasible and should make it much easier to
polish the installer script(s).

Uriel


> and explain what each step of the process is doing. This is intended
> to provide some insight for new users into how each necessary piece
> of the system is configured. I agree, the portions that cover the installer
> itself are too sparse in some places. If the installer were a bit clearer in
> some places we could probably do without such an elaborate walkthrough.
>
> I decided to include the complete text of the install because I couldn't
> determine a good way to cut things out without potentially confusing
> the reader. Which lines, specifically, should be removed? Keep in mind
> that the purpose of the document is to walk through the install step-
> by-step, providing some idea of what is happening. Also keep in mind
> that edits are always welcome. Especially since you are coming to this
> cold and can see gaps in the documentation we've all been taking as
> givens.
>
> The original wiki page had a bullet point list with six items that
> essentially just said "insert the cd-rom and boot it and follow the
> prompts." The complaints about that page were that it was too
> short and didn't say enough.
>
> -sl