Hi, I've really enjoied the current Arch setup. I've only started using the Arch CDs in the last few weeks due to Chris Brannon's efforts to produce an accessible talking boot iso for those who are blind or visually impaired like myself. This is largely what has been driving me away from Arch CDs. First, I had a suggestion for the release-engineering project. Accessibility is extremely chriticle for users that are completely blind. I know that Chris and Arron have been in discussion about producing accessible Arch Isos before (his Isos are just remastered iso images containing several extra packages) like Alsa-utils. Speakup, (a Linux screen access program that provides the possibility of speech-output, for the console, of course, and a few others. Has anyone in the Arch-release project taken a close look at this stuff?
aif What is Aif exactly? The other question is, what is wrong with the current installation process? And for the final question, (I know bugs are fixed in your latest media) but what happens if you can't aford to purchase Cds all the time etc to burn Isos too? If you're just going to use the FTP iso, (not the core) is it necessary to still obtain latest media? I'm curious if there are any severe consequences for not doing this in particular? I assume that there must be, otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned grabbing this stuff in the official and beginner guides for the Arch installation process. I'm simply an Arch Linux user, I'm no developer, but thought I'd be free to at least ask my questions. Thanks much! Regards, --Keith
On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:15:30 -0700 Keith Hinton keithint1234@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, I've really enjoied the current Arch setup. I've only started using the Arch CDs in the last few weeks due to Chris Brannon's efforts to produce an accessible talking boot iso for those who are blind or visually impaired like myself. This is largely what has been driving me away from Arch CDs. First, I had a suggestion for the release-engineering project. Accessibility is extremely chriticle for users that are completely blind. I know that Chris and Arron have been in discussion about producing accessible Arch Isos before (his Isos are just remastered iso images containing several extra packages) like Alsa-utils. Speakup, (a Linux screen access program that provides the possibility of speech-output, for the console, of course, and a few others. Has anyone in the Arch-release project taken a close look at this stuff?
Yes we are interested in this. I know there was a thread about this (probably Chris' first announcement) but I couldn't find it back. I personally didn't have time to look at it yet.
aif What is Aif exactly? The other question is, what is wrong with the current installation process?
Aif improves over archlinux-installer in a few ways: 1) make libraries of backend logic instead of spaghetticode 2) this follows 1): ability to easily create different installation scripts/methods (interactive, automatic, ...). both from a user and developer perspective. 3) various bugfixes and improvements
And for the final question, (I know bugs are fixed in your latest media) but what happens if you can't aford to purchase Cds all the time etc to burn Isos too? If you're just going to use the FTP iso, (not the core) is it necessary to still obtain latest media? I'm curious if there are any severe consequences for not doing this in particular? I assume that there must be, otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned grabbing this stuff in the official and beginner guides for the Arch installation process. I'm simply an Arch Linux user, I'm no developer, but thought I'd be free to at least ask my questions. Thanks much!
Depends on what you want to do. If you are talking about bringing your system up to date: you can keep any arch system up to date with 'pacman -Syu', no need to download new cd's.
Regards, --Keith
Dieter
Keith Hinton schrieb:
aif What is Aif exactly? The other question is, what is wrong with the current installation process?
The process is okay, but the installer code has become a great mess and Dieter did some work on it and changed some things. This library-based method could even be useful for accessibility, as one could create a special installation routine that has been optimized for screen-readers without having to rewrite all the lowlevel code.
And for the final question, (I know bugs are fixed in your latest media) but what happens if you can't aford to purchase Cds all the time etc to burn Isos too? If you're just going to use the FTP iso, (not the core) is it necessary to still obtain latest media? I'm curious if there are any severe consequences for not doing this in particular? I assume that there must be, otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned grabbing this stuff in the official and beginner guides for the Arch installation process.
Arch constantly changes, and it is often happens that our old installers are not only buggy, but also not compatible with newer Arch repositories from the FTP. If you have 2008.06 or newer CD and have a network connection during the installation, you can run "pacman -S archlinux-installer" or "pacman -S aif" to update to the latest versions of archlinux-installer or aif respectively. This should make it easier to use old installation media.
As for the costs: You can use rewritable CDs or pen drives and reuse those when you get a new medium.
I'm simply an Arch Linux user, I'm no developer, but thought I'd be free to at least ask my questions. Thanks much!
This list is not restricted to developers, anyone can participate in discussions here. The same goes for arch-general.
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