Hi Ali, But it is much *simpler* than today's installers. My installer is like a bicycle, and the other installers like aeroplanes with the cockpit full of fancy options, and some of them eat a lot of memory.
But it is not beautiful yet. If someone dresses it up with a simple graphical interface, it might be like YannBuntu's Boot-Repair script, but probably slightly simpler. I think we need a simple and robust engine. Then there are many people who like to make nice graphical user interfaces, but rememeber that such things eat memory. Maybe a good solution might be to run it from a minimal text based installed system created from the mini iso. It could be an extremely simple installer (simpler than Windows self-installing exe files). But of course, somehow it must be put onto the live CD/DVD/USB drive, and that might be the hardest step for the newbie, unless there are prepared media. I remember the first time I made a boot CD from a Ghost diskette. I could hardly think it would work. And some years later, all the complicated steps to make a Bart PE CD and later on USB drive. Best regards Nio On 2013-06-25 17:39, Ali Linx (amjjawad) wrote: > Hello Nio, > > Thank you for the time and effort you are contributing to our community > since you joined us until now. I'm really, really, really glad to have > someone like you among us. We do need more people like you ;) > > If you don't mind, I'd like to share my opinion. > > This is all great and nice (without going deep in technical details) but > I'm afraid we are missing a very important note. > > Those users are Fresh New Beginners Users that most likely never ever > heard or seen or used Linux in their entire life. If they have, they > wouldn't still use Windows XP and will still use it until May, 2014 :) > > So, these approaches may find their place among us as average and above > average Linux/Lubuntu Users but IMHO, and hope you don't get me wrong, > this is too much for them. > > We need to make the migration process as easy as piece cake. > Any further technical step, they will be lost :P :D > > Anyway, I promise you that once I will have the time (not sure when? :( > ) I will give that a test or maybe it is better we find someone who is > new to Linux and give him/her this. Whatever feedback will come, it will > help us to know whether they will be happy or not :D > > Please don't take my comment as anything negative. I do love the energy > you are showing but I'd like also to be on the same page. > KISS = Keep It Simple and Short. > > This is the success key in our holy mission :D > > Thanks! > > > On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Nio Wiklund <nio.wikl...@gmail.com > <mailto:nio.wikl...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Hi everybody, > > I think the end of life of Windows XP is a great opportunity for > Lubuntu, and I really hope the Lubuntu community will be happy receiving > [many] new people. > > Will they be happy installing Lubuntu in less than 100 seconds? > > - Installing in a simple and straight-forward way. > - Not yet polished, but simple from the ground. > > I was kind of frustrated, that in order to succeed with low RAM, most if > not all degrees of freedom are lost, and yet the [graphical desktop] > installer feels quite unstable. Yes, I admit that is is much better than > before with zRAM, but anyway, if there are no degrees of freedom you > might as well run a simple deterministic shell-script. > > So I made almost a one-button installer (there are a few yes-no > questions, and a simple cli selector to make it easier to find the > correct target drive). This installer is run from a 'grub-n-iso-swap' > system from > > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/grub-n-iso > > I installed a system from a USB 3 pendrive to a USB 3 HDD in less than 1 > minute and 40 seconds (including answering those questions). Here are > the computer specs. > > http://www.toshiba.se/laptops/satellite-pro/c850/satellite-pro-c850-19w/ > > I hope that it will work well also with old computers, where the > standard installers tend to be slow. > > I created the system on the IDE hard drive of my old AMD Athon XP, and > made the tarball from it, so it was ported across time and > manufacturer's barriers without any problems. > > I think this way might be easy enough for Windows XP users. > > The script does the following main tasks. > > 1. Helps selecting the correct drive with some logic and simple command > line tools. > > 2. Unmounts and swaps off. > > 2. Wipes the first megabyte with dd. > > 3. Creates two partitions with fdisk (fully automatic). > > 4. Makes a file system and swap system. > > 5. Expands a tarball of a freshly installed Lubuntu Saucy alpha > including updates and third party multimedia (2.1 Gibibytes > uncompressed). > > 6. Installs the grub bootloader. > > I have attached a text file with some output from the text. I timed it > with the following command: > > time sudo ./mktst > > and it responded with > > real 1m38.621s > user 0m22.692s > sys 0m8.576s > > And finished with a fully working portable Lubuntu installed system. > > Beat that record if you can :-) > > Yes, you can, because I'm happy to share the script, and the computer is > fairly new, but not really fancy, so with a faster computer and an SSD > target (or SSD source and target) it will be easy to reduce the time. > > The attached script has two lines commented away (just for the test), > but if you want to use it in serious situations, you should reactivate > them, because they help selecting the correct target drive. > > #####lshw -class disk >> "$hlptxt" > > ##### xterm -geometry 120x40 -title "less $hlptxt" -e less "$hlptxt" & > > Best regards > Nio > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: One button installer for Lubuntu > Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 01:42:59 +0200 > From: Nio Wiklund <nio.wikl...@gmail.com <mailto:nio.wikl...@gmail.com>> > To: Ali Linx (amjjawad) <amjja...@gmail.com <mailto:amjja...@gmail.com>> > CC: Phill Whiteside <phi...@ubuntu.com <mailto:phi...@ubuntu.com>>, > Jonathan Marsden > <jmars...@fastmail.fm <mailto:jmars...@fastmail.fm>> > > Hi, > > Is there a way to make a simple mode to install, provided the whole > drive is to be used, as it is intended in the case of replacing Windows > in fairly old computers with 256 (and 512) MB RAM? > > First I was thinking of some kind of 'batch mode', without questions, > once you have connected to the computer. It should install to the first > drive. > > But I have good experiences of the portability of installed systems on > USB drives. So I would rather do it like this: > > 0. Assume there is one internal drive (/dev/sda), and that it should be > converted to Lubuntu. (Otherwise other methods should be used.) > > 1. Fill the drive with > > 1.1 a root partition and > 1.2 a swap partition, size = sizeofRAM + 1GB > > 2. Expand a compressed image of Lubuntu > > See this example > > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstalledSystemFakePAE > > where there is actually only one crucial command line > > zcat dd-sdb.img.gz | dd bs=4096 of=/dev/sda > > I do not assume we should use that version off the shelf. It was made > for a special reason and limited size. Writing first the bootloader and > then the partition /dev/sda1 from a tarball should do it within a short > script. The host name and user name are easily fixed with a button on > the desktop after installation (let the original user be the admin and > make a new one). A button would be the solution for the proprietary > software too, for graphics as well as for multimedia. > > I don't have it but I could write that script, there is no need for > advanced programming languages if text mode is accepted. But today it > would imply a 2GB USB drive. > > I have not learned how to make the iso for a boot CD. I know of > Remastersys, maybe it still works, but I'm sure Canonical has better > tools. So returning to the first idea about a batch mode: Maybe it would > be fairly simple to add a one-button mode to the alternate installer or > the mini.iso wizard shell (to set all the other variables, if that mode > is selected). > > -o- > > One reason I started thinking about this is that most degrees of freedom > of the installer are cut off anyway, in order to succeed, when > installing into low RAM. And if you have to press certain buttons in a > certain order, it is better to have it fully automatic. > > And the the plans of the city council in Munick inspire ideas to make it > even easier to install Lubuntu. > > What about a > > *One button installer for Lubuntu* > > to make it easy enough to receive a mass migration from Windows XP > > Best regards > Nio > > -- > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-comms > <https://launchpad.net/%7Elubuntu-comms> > Post to : lubuntu-co...@lists.launchpad.net > <mailto:lubuntu-co...@lists.launchpad.net> > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-comms > <https://launchpad.net/%7Elubuntu-comms> > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > > > > > -- > > "All of us are smarter than any one of us." > > *Best Regards,* > *amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad/>* > *Start Ubuntu > <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/CommunicationsTeam/WOWLubuntu/StartUbuntu>* > *My Own Business <http://alilinx.blogspot.com/>* > -- Lubuntu-users mailing list Lubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users
