On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Dieter Plaetinck <dieter@plaetinck.be> wrote:
Dieter Plaetinck wrote:
Thought I would give you guys a little update...
Several things have been changed/refactored/re-thought out again eg - phases are now just arrays listing the workers, not functions, it's easier to override and it's cleaner. - exit codes of all phases/workers are tracked automagically which can be useful for reporting at the end, simplifying flow control etc. - functions for logging and debugging added (long overdue ;-) - ...
My TODO file has had a makeover and now contains the roadmap of where I want to go with this. (See http://github.com/Dieterbe/fifa/tree/master/TODO ) Basically: - pre-alpha: (now): a few showstoppers remaining, but we're pretty close to having a workable version of both an ftp-based and cdrom-based installation. - alpha: when ftp-based and cdrom-based installations "work" I would like to get more input from other developers/community so I/we can fix more bugs, refactor, iron everything out,... basically make everything better. For this I would like to setup a bugtracker (or get a category on some already existing bugtracker would be nice too *cough* ;-) ). It's in this phase that still a lot of refactoring and cleaning can be done. - beta: get fifa on the (beta) installcd as an experimental, alternative installer. -> more input from more people -> improve even more - "release" -> someday, fifa might become so good it could become the primary installer...
Obviously you guys are more familiar with the whole process of developing for Arch. This is just my limited view on it so I would be glad to hear your input.
Code, readme,howto,... @ http://github.com/Dieterbe/fifa
Dieter
Okay, the /arch/setup is now ported to the new framework and most of the big refactoring is done. I got rid of the showstoppers too. I've been trying different combinations in virtualbox (cdrom / ftp install, automatic partitioning / manual partitioning/mounting, 'crazy' fs'es like xfs, jfs etc...) and it all seems to work. (eg the installer produces an arch installation that boots and works in all tested procedures) There are obviously bugs remaining (There is especially one bigger bug that causes /home not be on a separate filesystem during the auto-partitioning, I'm still trying to fix that one) but then again, during the porting there are also a few bugs in the original code that got fixed/improved, and some things made more useful.
According to my previously explained master plan, this means we're now in the alpha phase and it would be cool if I could get input from developers and some power users both on the code/design level as on the functional level.
Can you guys maybe give your opinion on my plan and give me some support? I can still work on this but I need input.
My honest opinion is that this is awesome. You're the reason I love open source 8) That said, we haven't release a 2.6.27 ISO just yet, and I need to go in panic mode and get it out this weekend. But for the next release, or even a smaller release before then, I'd *love* to incorporate this. It looks very clean and easy to follow. The only minor quibble I had was that in order to track things down, I felt like I was opening too many files. Ok this calls, blah, which is in this file, and blah does nothing but call bar, which is in this file, ...., ah there we go! But it's not a bad thing, really. In order to help us along... could you possibly stick a binary package somewhere (see https://dev.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/archlinux-installer/)? This will help me if I want to build an ISO using your installer. 8) Just letting you know: I'm not silent because I don't care. I'm silent because I'm watching and drooling 8)