Re: Sysinst GSOC project

["Zach Wegner" <zwegner%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Jeremy C. Reed <reed%reedmedia.net@localhost> 
wrote:
 > Any plan on thoughts on communication from the backend (installer) to the
 >  frontend (user interface)?
 >
 >  In other words, if something fails in the real installation, can it fall
 >  back to reprompting the user for different choices?

 Yes. I can't remember if I went through this on the application page,
 or if I just thought of it, but I was thinking that the config file
 itself could contain an option for whether to just report an error or
 to open up the front end to resolve any issues. The way it could work
 is that, if the config file exists, but is not complete, the front end
 just asks the user for anything that isn't there. You could also have
 an option to verify before installing. For normal distributions, this
 would be equivalent to the current last-chance message of "Are you
 sure you want to continue?" You could just bypass that when doing a
 repeatable installation.

 One thing I'm not sure of is whether to have the front end and back
 end in the same executable or not. Doing so would allow easy switching
 between the two when errors arise. Having them separate would allow
 modularity though. I think that the best option would be to have them
 be separate, and make sysinst itself just a shell script that runs
 both. That way, even the shell script is configurable. It might run
 the back end in "check" mode to see if it can fully install, and then
 run the front end it it can't.

>
 >  Or is this for creating a known setup, testing, and then reusing that
 >  installation configuration later (like identical systems in an office)?

 Yes!

>
 >  Also it sounds like NetBSD and the community can provide ready-to-use
 >  configuration files too. And users could bypass the frontend altogether?

 Yes!

 Sounds pretty cool, huh? I haven't thought about pulling the
 configuration file from the net, as Volker mentioned, but that's
 certainly a good idea (though it should probably be delayed until
 later). Perhaps the front end will start up, look for the config file
 on the installation medium (I'll have to learn more about how exactly
 to do that...), and then prompt the user if it's not found. The user
 could start from scratch, or specify where the file could be found.



Also, I'd like to apologize to you (Jeremy) and Alistair. I just sent
my replies directly to you instead of to the list, so you will get
duplicates. I can usually post to mailing lists directly by replying
to a post on them, so I don't know what's happening...