J.Rutkowski wrote: > I don't think any of the discussions about an installer included the > idea of mandatory use (discussions on gentoo-user and gentoo-dev). I > don't think any developer would get behind the idea of replacing > current Gentoo installation; it merely is about offering a different > choice to the end-user. Gentoo is all about the freedom to choose. > Want openrc? Go for it. Want systemd? Go for it. Want to compile > everything? Go for it. Want to use pre-built binaries? Go for it. Then > why not add installation to this philosophy? In my opinion, it doesn't > detract at all from the core of what Gentoo stands for. Automated > installation and reproducible builds offer additional choices and, if > implemented, should not replace traditional installation. Users should > be able to choose their system, as always. With that said, this > discussion got sidetracked from the original public relations/outreach > focus :) > > > > J. Rutkowski > > >
But that doesn't replace one point of a manual install. What a person learns about Gentoo and how it works and how to fix things. Odds are, a installer that does it for you is going to take that education away. When I first installed Gentoo way back in 2003, I knew nothing about Gentoo other than the tidbits I had read. I just knew I wanted to be away from a binary based distro that kept screwing up. After I got the install done, I had learned a lot about Gentoo. I knew where the nuts and blots were at least. Given that, I'd hate to see people use a installer and end up with a screen and when some little something doesn't work right, they don't even know where to start to look to fix it. All they remember is using a installer and having a screen pop up later. They have no idea what it takes to get to that screen. I learned more about Linux in general while installing Gentoo than I ever knew from the year or so I ran Linux before that. Before I used Gentoo, I used Mandrake. Because it had a installer and still does, to this day, I know very little about how to fix something that breaks in that OS. One of my biggest problems was a upgrade and a init thingy that rendered the OS unbootable. I had no idea how to fix it so it was a reinstall to repair, sounds windoze-ish I know. Point is, installing Gentoo is part of a learning process. I would compare it to this. Take a kid out of 2nd or 3rd grade and then send them to college. On some rare occasions that may work but the odds are high that that little 2nd or 3rd grader is going to fail and it will leave a mark. Could make the person not want to try going to college again even when they complete the rest of the schooling process and are prepared for it. This is just my two cents worth on this. I don't care if they make one that holds peoples hand and then leaves them dumbfounded as to how they got there or not. I have no plan to use one even now. Dale :-) :-)
