[arch-general] Fifa: Flexible Installer Framework for Arch linux

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Fri, 2008-10-31 at 10:46 +0100, Thomas Bächler wrote:
> Dieter Plaetinck schrieb:
> > Thanks,
> > Ok, pretty silly.. I was looking at all the projects yesterday, I must
> > have overlooked the 'installer' repo, because after some searching I
> > eventually found the scripts in a subdirectory of the archboot project,
> > so I called them that way
> > ( http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=archboot.git;a=tree;f=installer )
> 
> The installer in archboot is different from the one in the installer 
> repo afaik. On our official ISOs (the last were 2008.06 and 
> 2008.08-froscon) we use archiso and the installer from installer.git.
> 
> Also, the installer does a lot of crap IIRC, so feel free to improve 
> anything you want. If this effort turns about to be good quality in the 
> end, we might even adopt it and use it to create a better console-based 
> installer and a better quickinst/automated installer. Keep us updated 
> here, please.
> 

Okay, I've thrown away the 'lib-archboot' in fifa and started over with
the files from installer.git.
The quickinst functions are ported already (I didn't build a profile to
use/test them yet though).  Right now I'm going over the setup script
and moving it's functionality in different fifa libraries and profiles.
Imho, the setup script consists of 3 things coupled very tightly
together:
- backend "real work" functionality (install grub, packages,...)
- flow control (eg you can't do step x if requirement y or z hasn't been
met yet)
- UI logic (show the progress of a process, ask the user a question,..)

What I'm doing now is moving:
- the UI logic into lib-ui.sh (eg you can ask questions and inform the
user in a mode-agnostic way. set a variable to use dialog mode or plain
cli)
- the backend "real work" code into libraries like lib-pacman,
lib-network etc.
- the flow control functionality in a (draft of) an 'interactive'
profile (what might someday become a replacement of the current setup
script)


It's a lot of work but I'm convinced the end result will be worth it.
If anyone wants to help me out, feel free to contact me.  I'm also on
#archlinux (username Dieterbe)

You can also have a look at the code http://github.com/Dieterbe/fifa
Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Dieter