Text Based Installer Project

OpenSolaris Text-Based Installer

Preliminary Text Install Images

Preliminary Text Install Images based on b134 are available. Please see release notes at:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+caiman/Text+Install+b134+Notes

UI Design

Text Install UI Specification and Mockup Screenshots
UI and Code Review Comments

Design Notes

Requirements and Scope
Text Install Media Options
Text Install Meeting Minutes 7/10/09
Text Installer Programming Language

Project Documents

Text Install Functional Spec, v3
Design Document v2.0(PDF)
Design Document v2.0(ODT)
UML Diagrams

Documentation

Text Installer Online Help, Alpha Draft

Code Review

An initial code review has been posted to:
http://cr.opensolaris.org/~kemitche/text_v1/

Slides from code walkthrough:
Slides (pdf) 
Slides (odp) 

Project Gate & Build Instructions

All code for the text installer has been moved to a mercurial repository on opensolaris.org. The gate can be cloned by running:
hg clone ssh://anon@hg.opensolaris.org/hg/caiman/text_installer

For those interested in seeing the UI "in-action," rather than trying to code review by solely poring through the source code, below you will find instructions for building the gate, and running the UI directly from your workspace.

As you might guess, running 'installer' code on a live system can be VERY RISKY, and carries the risk of data loss and/or system corruption. While the text installer UI currently has an available flag for running in "no install mode" (meaning, theoretically, no permanent changes are propagated to the system), the installer is still in development, and there is always the possibility of bugs that negate such protections. Please do NOT follow these instructions on any system which has data you're not willing to risk the chance of losing.

Now that you've been warned, here are the instructions:
(Note: $WS = the directory where you cloned the text installer gate to).

1. Build the gate following the standard instructions for building slim_source, as indicated under $WS/usr/src/README. Note that, in addition to the packages required for slim_source, SUNWgnu-gettext is also required.
2. cp $WS/proto/root_<arch>/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/osol_install/libzoneinfo.so $WS/usr/src/cmd/text-install/osol_install
3. cp $WS/proto/root_<arch>/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages/osol_install/tgt.so $WS/usr/src/cmd/text-install/osol_install
4. cd $WS/usr/src/cmd/text-install
5. export PYTHONPATH=`pwd`
6. python osol_install/text_install/text-install.py -n
   Note: This last command must be run with root privileges. Also note the presence of the '-n' flag, which indicates 'dry-run' or 'no-install' mode. Again, no claims are being made that this code is yet 'release quality' or 'bug free,' so run these commands with the utmost caution. 

Summer 2009 CSM Prototype

The Text Installer prototype was implemented by the Colorado School of Mines students Danny Pearson, Mark Godwin, Ryan Holden, Thea Gab. Here is the CSM Initial Prototype Project Summary. Also, the students gave a presentation  about their work on the Text Installer at one of the Front Range OpenSolaris User Group meetings.

Resources

• Mailing list: caiman-discuss
• Browse: caiman-discuss archives

Old Documents

Design Document v1.4(PDF)
Design Document v1.4(ODT)
Design Document v1.5(PDF)
Design Document v1.5(ODT)
Text Install Functional Spec, v1
Text Install Functional Spec, v2