Dear Ian.
[...]
1. The manual partition installer that I had to use [...]
there is a kind of medium level of knowledge that allows
manual installation but could benefit with a good practices
overview and a suggestion (even if it may be needed to be
applied manually in a manual install).
I agree with you. It seems like Guix has two options for
partitioning, completely manual setup (outside the installer,
using fdisk, parted, or similar tools), or completely
automatic (in the text-graphical installer). A
"semi-automatic" mode in the installer would be very helpful.
I think that too!
In a way, the same automatic installer we already have could be
reused, only that instead of using "all disk space" could be
pointed to "use free space" or "use that specific partition".
Then it would do the same as when on all the disk, only that
within some specific boundaries.
The graphical installer doesn’t support configuring swap with
encryption. To do this effectively, it would need LVM support.
The approach taken by other distros (ex. Debian) is to create
a LUKS partition holding a LVM volume group, and put root and
swap logical volumes inside it. This setup allows a single
passphrase to unlock all volumes.
Do we have some reference about how to do this? It sounds great,
except that now I must do it by hand.
2. During that installation, there is a question about the
cypher tag (in Spanish "etiqueta de cifrado"). [...]
This is odd, I don’t think I get asked this when I use the
installer with US
English.
Oh! Could it be because I made a manual install? (I mean, not
because of
language but because the chosen path).
4. When the installation ended and after rebooting I've found
with real anguish that the other bootable partition was not
present in the grub menu. [...] *being able to keep their
current working OSs andd partitions lowers a lot the barrier
to try guix*. And more guix users are good for everyone in
this community and the guix mission in general. :)
I agree with this.
/\
5. Contrasting with the previous, this last point is really a
very small one. [...] I'd like to argue that since it is such
a common and fundamental tool for most people these days (we
can debate if this is good and/or desirable), if it is within
our reach by default we should provide one. Anyone would do,
no matter how simple.
The ask is reasonable, but this is difficult to do and
dangerous; on balance, I think we shouldn’t.
Since Guix is a rolling release distribution, and web browsers
are full of vulnerabilities, installing a web browser during
installation means installing a vulnerable one. [...]
OK, nothing from me here. If we can't do it with a minimum of
quality now, we don't do it now.
Thanks a lot for your thoughtful reply... :D
Best...
--
eduardo mercovich
Donde se cruzan tus talentos
con las necesidades del mundo,
ahí está tu vocación.
(Anónimo)
