OS Installer
Contents
Introduction
Ideally an operating system is preinstalled on or designed to fit a specific set of hardware. However, in many cases this isn't possible. So, it would be nice for us to have a simple, easy to use, and safe install process for installing the OS onto the hardware.
Objectives
Goals
- Install the OS on hardware safely and efficiently - place onto a physical disk for regular use
- Be coherent with the resulting OS user experience
- Don't belabor the point - be a vehicle not a destination
- Defer decision making
- Limit the amount of time in a the non-operational mode
- Don't assume knowledge of or understanding of the resulting system
- Never ever fail during the install - fail up front if at all
- Limit complexity to reduce potential for failure
- Streamline the process
- Install to evaluate prerelease testing versions
- Install released versions
Non-Goals
- User specific setup
Relevant Art
Discussion
Tentative Design
Comments
Downloading a live image to test things without installing first is very nice. However, one problem they have is that they don't let you evaluate things with your existing data - i.e. with your existing home directory - and an empty desktop is not very useful. Maybe the live images, or the installer, should make an effort of letting you test the OS with your existing home directory? (I'm not sure if this should go into Initial Setup, but it seems to be installation-related...) - FedericoMenaQuintero
* Couldn't it allow the user to set up accounts and connexions during the time it's installing in order not to let the user wait in front of the computer watching the progress bar and limit the time the initial setup takes ? - LucGuillemin
I assume the underlying technology is going to be package agnostic. I don't know about what the challenges are in this as I know nothing about how much an installer depends on the underlying package format. It would be really great if we could agree to using a particular package format. - SriramRamkrishna