On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 10:52 AM, Gerhard Brauer <gerbra@archlinux.de> wrote:
a) Number of different ISOs/Images:
While you are pro-isolinux, I am pro-grub. I think isolinux is crap and is very inflexible, whereas grub allows us to do much more. For the record, there is hardware that isolinux images fail on too. Regarding our sheer number of ISOs, I would prefer reducing it by providing only ONE iso (the current 'ftp' ISO) and providing additional images that just contain packages. We'd need some functionality in the installer to swap out disks, though. That cuts our images in half. Even if that's the only change we make, it's huge. 1 usb image, 1 iso image, for each arch = 4 images 2 isolinux images = 6 basic images 1 package iso image, 1 package iso = 2 package sets --- 8 images Additionally, releasing dual arch ISOs would be a good idea, but it effectively doubles the size of the images. I would prefer releasing only an i686 ISO, and giving it the ability to install an x86_64 system *if* the hardware supports it. I've been thinking about this a little and have some ideas going forward. This would shrink the above down to 3 basic images, and 2 images that contain packages.
b) Release "branding" I don't like branding each release. It's a focus on marketing and not on technical pursuits. If we're telling people to use the new ISO because it has a better name, and not because it was actually improved, then we've failed.
c) Installer switch Yes, after this is out, we should officially deprecate the archlinux-installer in favor of AIF.
d) Accessibility support on install mediums I would love to be able to support this on our normal install mediums, but I wonder if adding additional features that require things enabled is going to make it difficult. i.e. if a grub param needs to be added to start espeakup (or whatever it's called), is this going to be HARDER for a blind user?
e) Testing and documentation IMHO we should document such things as archiso's work-flow, HowTo for ISO/image building and releasing steps. Also things like torrent setup etc.
I plan on adding information of this sort to the archiso docs, and including that in the git repo. Keep in mind that I will be releasing an archiso 1.0 package once we get this ISO out the door.