Charlie Kester wrote:
On Tue 15 Dec 2009 at 07:33:49 PST Jan Husar wrote:http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=1123&tag=nl.e011Others have pointed out that PC-BSD meets the need expressed in this article. As for FreeBSD itself, the question must be asked: do we WANT to get more love from people who judge an OS by whether or not it has a graphical installer?
Heh. It's almost worth implementing a graphical installer just to shut up the constant moaning. While I agree that it is a very basic error to judge by form and appearance rather than by substance, unfortunately much of the rest of the world appears not to agree. As a project, by not having this sort of layer of gloss on what is likely to be the very first thing a new user sees we run the risk of putting off complete neophytes who have no other basis on which to judge the OS, andwho could otherwise develop into the next generation of capable users.
At the risk of being challenged to produce code (Which, alas, I don't have sufficient skill to do. Or sufficient time.) I'd design an installer as aCLI program that reads in a fairly simple fixed script or language to do the installation work, and have separate Curses and/or X based programs to allow
users to create the installation script interactively. I think that would
fulfil just about everybodies' requirements, from the people that want a
*shiny* graphical interface to people wanting to do automatic unattended
installs over serial lines.
Of course, this sort of project has been attempted before, and been a
complete failure.
Cheers,
Matthew
--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard
Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate
Kent, CT11 9PW
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