Re: SEUL: Installation steps

[Greg Bell <winston@atlantic.net>]

Michael Peck wrote:
> Sorry, but I had to throw this in: 'MAC' isn't really a good
> abbreviation for Macintosh, but 'Mac' is. 'Mac' doesn't stand for
> anything, it's just an abbreviation. 'MAC', on the other hand, stands
> for the hardware address of an ethernet card.

sorry a goof on my part but let's not get too nitpicky alright

 
> Video, serial ports, and printer would be difficult to get from BIOS, not on an IBM clone (note that I asked for help from Mac users) this information is already stored in bios 

> The best way
> would be to develop a sort of plug-in architecture that allowed a
> default VGA plug-in to be used initially; later, the appropriate plug-in
> (when developed) could be inserted. This way, the user need not wait for
> a whole new release (a la XFree86) but instead could simply plug in the
> appropriate "stuff". This would be nice because it would allow us to
> bundle a lot of video-type info at once: acceleration options, etc, etc.
> Monitor timings could be another plug-in.
> 
> Serial ports are not foolproof from the BIOS. I added a PCI serial
> expander and the BIOS knew nothing about it. The best thing to do would
> be to run setserial on each COM port individually and find out what's
> available.
> 
> Printers need to be handled at a much higher level.
> 
> Other things that *could* be addressed by BIOS: Hard disk, floppy,
> CDROM, DVD?
> 
> > 2) A minimule linux should be loaded onto a ram disk (the kernel should
> > have modules enabled).//Example Slackware install//
> 
> This may be a no-brainer, but we should be sure to compile the default
> kernel for 386 processors. My AMD machines have fits over
> Pentium-targeted kernels, and the 386 kernels don't give much of a
> performance disadvantage.

Good point the installation should determine what type of machine linux
is being installed to (see my comments on bios, the information is
there)
 
> > 3)Fdisk - setup a linux partition (if enough memory is available skip
> > installing a swap disk?)
> 
> Fdisk needs replacing. One good reason is the fact that changing a DOS
> partition without separately running DOS FDISK can be extremely
> problematic.
> 
> > 4)Add needed drivers
> 
> How does SEUL handle drivers? Suppose the user wants to use an
> experimental driver, that we have not prepackaged. How would they go
> about doing this?

This is something that can be looked at after, note the AFTER, there is
a working installation system available

> One thought is that we might have a generic "kernel compiler" interface
> program. It would let the user configure a kernel safely, then compile
> it with some sort of GUI front-end and install it (a la make zlilo).

The answer to this is the use of modules, build a bare kernel with only
those things that are necessary for it to run then let the user select
what modules are wanted/needed from a list of already pre-build modules.
Quick simple and doesn't require a recompile of the kernel (which is an
area many new linux users are scared of)

>Compiling programs is a Linux way of life;

Yes to a linux user, but to the new, repeat NEW, user it is a somewhat
intimadating process
 
> My vote on LILO is simply to make it standard. Until a better boot
> loader comes along, I say simplify matters and just use LILO. I've never
> done it any other way; can someone point out the potential pitfalls?

Actually I myself like OS2's boot loader, but that is besides the fact
as it still requires LILO to work.  For better or worse LILO is the
de-facto standard for a boot loader for Linux (unless you boot directly
from a floppy which may be another to go.  Sort of a tryout system?)
 

> How much of this might we do? Are we talking about some sort of
> interface to setterm, stty, xterm, etc.? Or just X Windows stuff? And if
> just X Windows, how can we do this before we know a) The video
> specifics, and b) The window manager in use?

Oh just off the top of my head you can change the type font for command
line linux, change the colors for color-ls, install sounds (if wanted). 
You know what I mean, just the little homey things that make life with
Linux better than win95

As for the window manager my idea is set one up and after it is set up
give the user the opportunity to change to a different window manager. 
Lets face a simple fact this group is going to have to make decisions on
certain things or else nothing will ever get done.  This is a good
example there are a number of window managers available so which should
we pick?? Simple the one that is easiest to change (my personnel
choice,at the moment is Afterstep).  Slackware has settled on fvwm so it
all boils down to just pick one and go with it. 


                      Greg

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