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DroplineInstaller

Eugene Wissner

==Dropline Installer==

This should be an description of how the Dropline Installer should work and what it should do.

This page will have more details very soon :) Thanks for the initiative to Johnny Mast :)

Rgds Saxa

News

Thursday September 28th 2006

We already have some code for the installer in the svn repository. To check out the code you can do it by executing the following command:

  • svn co <svn: redos.si="" drl_installer="">

The trac server for Dropline Installer is up and you get it here:

Its a non functional code for now :)

What & How it should be

Ok lets begin from the beginning. So what the dropline installer should be. In the text I will use DLGI abreviation for droplinegnome-installer.

So DLGI is an app which runs on a Slackware system and helps you to install the GNOME desktop packaged by the DroplineGNOME team. The DLGI should have the following functionalities:

- Should run in a non X environment, this because we do not have always X installed on Slackware where we want to install DroplineGNOME.

- Should run in a X graphical environment without GNOME installed. As slackware uses XFCE I believe it can be written in GTK+.

- Should run also in a GNOME environment.

- Should check for updates of the new available packages we made available on sf.net and mirrors.

- Should allow you to only download the the packages.

- Should allow you to install packages from a .iso we supply.

- Should allow you to select a mirror from where to download the packages.

Ok lets go to see how the installer should do all the tasks.

Non graphical environment:

If we run the installer as a non root user it should warn you that you will not be able to install the packages until you supply the root password, but it should allow you to download the packages of course storing them into users home dir and let you select the mirror. Same thing is for updating the system. If run as a non root user it should allow only to download the updates.

Also it should check if we have all the required system components (kernel version, X environment, which libs, networking and so on).

We should have a sort of choosing option on which Slackware version we want to install the packages on. So if we choose Slackwares previous release it should automatically download the correct packages released for that Slackware release.

Example: Choose Slackware 10.2 -> installs DroplineGNOME 2.14.x

It should also allow you to install the various dot releases we had.

Example: Slackware 10.2 -> selects DroplineGNOME 2.14.0, 2.14.1, 2.14.2 or 2.14.3

After we have selected the release of DroplineGNOME it should be able to supply us the list of the mirrors where the packages are available on. It can give us also an option to enter an URL of choice. When we selected the mirror It should check if it finds the correct DroplineFiles?2.14 file where the packages are listed. If it does not find the file should warn that without it it can install or cant continue and let us choose again.

when we selected an mirror and it has all the data necessary it should ask if we want to download only the packages or if we want to install them also.

After that the installer should look and download the DroplineFiles?2.14 file and begin downloading the packages from the selected mirror.

When downloading is finished it should check the downloaded packages integrity with the md5 files and if some package is broken it should redownload it, if everything is ok it should begin installing the packages according to the order listed in the DroplineFiles?2.14 file.

The DLGI should use the Slackwares pkgtools like installpkg, upgradepkg, removepkg.

When it finishes to install it should ask the user if it wants to restart the sstem or only logout.

The DLGI should also be able to change the inittab file in /etc to runlevel 4 so when we restart the machine after the successful installation we get the GDM page.

Of course if the DLGI detects that the DroplineGNOME is already installed it should prompt the user what to do. The options can be Upgrade/Downgrade the system to a different version or Uninstall the DroplineGNOME Desktop.

If the Uninstall option is chosen the DLGI should be able to restore the Slackware system according to the Slackware version installed.

Graphical mode:

In the graphical mode the DLGI should act the same way as in the NON graphical mode except that it has a frontend in GTK+.

[If zenity weren't one of our dependencies (and thus, unsuited for this--an upgrade could crash things) it would be a good candidate for quick conversion to Gtk+, but without it that basically leaves us with C programs--which makes the installer substantially more difficult to troubleshoot/fix. Good luck getting this sorted. ...Dagmar]

This is a raw description of how the installer should work. This information will be updated according to necessity during the coding of the installer. Written by Sasa Ostrouska 26-09-2006 , thats also my birthday :))

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/

Engineering (By Johnny)

This is my point of view on the application conforming the gnome HIG (Human interface guide lines)

End-Users

  • Desktop users
    • If they dont have a desktop yet console users.

Application Targets:

  • Could install from Desktop
  • Could install from console
  • Include language translations in the project.