[arch-releng] A question regarding the rewrite of the installer and other things...

[Thomas Bächler]

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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