lubuntu-qa team mailing list archive

["Ali Linx (amjjawad)" <amjjawad@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,


On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 8:12 PM, Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Ali,
>
> But it is much *simpler* than today's installers. My installer is like a
> bicycle, and the other installers like aeroplanes with the cockpit full
> of fancy options, and some of them eat a lot of memory.
>

Eat a lot of memory? well, that was history :)
Above all, none of us know how much RAM those users have. We don't even
know how many are they. We are so far basing our actions on assuming this
and that. No solid and fixed data yet and I guess we will never have that
:) we failed to do a simple survey in the past :D I don't want to go to
that useless discussion anymore :D

So, IMHO,  I don't think there are many of those with less than 256MB of
RAM, unless they don't really update themselves with what is going on in
the world.

How Many Windows XP Users are having 256MB RAM or Less?

10%?
20%?
50%?

I have no idea.

I hope you see my point and what I'm trying to say here.


But it is not beautiful yet. If someone dresses it up with a simple
> graphical interface, it might be like YannBuntu's Boot-Repair script,
> but probably slightly simpler.
>

What is wrong with our current installer? :D
It is really simply and beautiful :D




> I think we need a simple and robust engine. Then there are many people
> who like to make nice graphical user interfaces, but rememeber that such
> things eat memory. Maybe a good solution might be to run it from a
> minimal text based installed system created from the mini iso. It could
> be an extremely simple installer (simpler than Windows self-installing
> exe files).
>

I think this will cost us time and extra work which unfortunately, no one
has :(



> But of course, somehow it must be put onto the live CD/DVD/USB drive,
> and that might be the hardest step for the newbie, unless there are
> prepared media.
>

Whatever will make it harder for our Devs and above all, for the users, I
would strongly suggest to drop it :)
Remember, KISS (Keep It Simple and Short).



> I remember the first time I made a boot CD from a Ghost diskette. I
> could hardly think it would work. And some years later, all the
> complicated steps to make a Bart PE CD and later on USB drive.
>

You need to remember what was your feeling on the very first time you have
seen Linux and tried to install it?
This most likely will be the same feeling of a Windows XP User who most
likely never heard nor seen Linux in his/her entire life.


Again, I do appreciate each and every thing you do but I'd like to share my
opinion and my opinion us:
I would suggest to improve the current installer IF AND ONLY IF it is
really hard as you may think instead of creating new one from scratch.

This is what I have learned from Linux.

We must not confuse them with multiple options. I'm very concern and
worried about our Wiki Area. It must be as simple as pie if we really
really want to have more users. Oh, in fact, as new comers, they might not
read :D I've seen some examples of some guys who need someone to come and
do the clicks for him while he sits back and watch :D we need to expect
that level of users if we really want to make a huge success.

End of my opinions and thoughts about this matter :)




> Best regards
> Nio
>
> On 2013-06-25 17:39, Ali Linx (amjjawad) wrote:
> > Hello Nio,
> >
> > Thank you for the time and effort you are contributing to our community
> > since you joined us until now. I'm really, really, really glad to have
> > someone like you among us. We do need more people like you ;)
> >
> > If you don't mind, I'd like to share my opinion.
> >
> > This is all great and nice (without going deep in technical details) but
> > I'm afraid we are missing a very important note.
> >
> > Those users are Fresh New Beginners Users that most likely never ever
> > heard or seen or used Linux in their entire life. If they have, they
> > wouldn't still use Windows XP and will still use it until May, 2014 :)
> >
> > So, these approaches may find their place among us as average and above
> > average Linux/Lubuntu Users but IMHO, and hope you don't get me wrong,
> > this is too much for them.
> >
> > We need to make the migration process as easy as piece cake.
> > Any further technical step, they will be lost :P :D
> >
> > Anyway, I promise you that once I will have the time (not sure when? :(
> > ) I will give that a test or maybe it is better we find someone who is
> > new to Linux and give him/her this. Whatever feedback will come, it will
> > help us to know whether they will be happy or not :D
> >
> > Please don't take my comment as anything negative. I do love the energy
> > you are showing but I'd like also to be on the same page.
> > KISS = Keep It Simple and Short.
> >
> > This is the success key in our holy mission :D
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx
> > <mailto:nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> >
> >     Hi everybody,
> >
> >     I think the end of life of Windows XP is a great opportunity for
> >     Lubuntu, and I really hope the Lubuntu community will be happy
> receiving
> >     [many] new people.
> >
> >     Will they be happy installing Lubuntu in less than 100 seconds?
> >
> >     - Installing in a simple and straight-forward way.
> >     - Not yet polished, but simple from the ground.
> >
> >     I was kind of frustrated, that in order to succeed with low RAM,
> most if
> >     not all degrees of freedom are lost, and yet the [graphical desktop]
> >     installer feels quite unstable. Yes, I admit that is is much better
> than
> >     before with zRAM, but anyway, if there are no degrees of freedom you
> >     might as well run a simple deterministic shell-script.
> >
> >     So I made almost a one-button installer (there are a few yes-no
> >     questions, and a simple cli selector to make it easier to find the
> >     correct target drive). This installer is run from a 'grub-n-iso-swap'
> >     system from
> >
> >     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/grub-n-iso
> >
> >     I installed a system from a USB 3 pendrive to a USB 3 HDD in less
> than 1
> >     minute and 40 seconds (including answering those questions). Here are
> >     the computer specs.
> >
> >
> http://www.toshiba.se/laptops/satellite-pro/c850/satellite-pro-c850-19w/
> >
> >     I hope that it will work well also with old computers, where the
> >     standard installers tend to be slow.
> >
> >     I created the system on the IDE hard drive of my old AMD Athon XP,
> and
> >     made the tarball from it, so it was ported across time and
> >     manufacturer's barriers without any problems.
> >
> >     I think this way might be easy enough for Windows XP users.
> >
> >     The script does the following main tasks.
> >
> >     1. Helps selecting the correct drive with some logic and simple
> command
> >     line tools.
> >
> >     2. Unmounts and swaps off.
> >
> >     2. Wipes the first megabyte with dd.
> >
> >     3. Creates two partitions with fdisk (fully automatic).
> >
> >     4. Makes a file system and swap system.
> >
> >     5. Expands a tarball of a freshly installed Lubuntu Saucy alpha
> >     including updates and third party multimedia (2.1 Gibibytes
> >     uncompressed).
> >
> >     6. Installs the grub bootloader.
> >
> >     I have attached a text file with some output from the text. I timed
> it
> >     with the following command:
> >
> >     time sudo ./mktst
> >
> >     and it responded with
> >
> >     real    1m38.621s
> >     user    0m22.692s
> >     sys     0m8.576s
> >
> >     And finished with a fully working portable Lubuntu installed system.
> >
> >     Beat that record if you can :-)
> >
> >     Yes, you can, because I'm happy to share the script, and the
> computer is
> >     fairly new, but not really fancy, so with a faster computer and an
> SSD
> >     target (or SSD source and target) it will be easy to reduce the time.
> >
> >     The attached script has two lines commented away (just for the test),
> >     but if you want to use it in serious situations, you should
> reactivate
> >     them, because they help selecting the correct target drive.
> >
> >      #####lshw -class disk >> "$hlptxt"
> >
> >      ##### xterm -geometry 120x40 -title "less $hlptxt" -e less
> "$hlptxt" &
> >
> >     Best regards
> >     Nio
> >
> >     -------- Original Message --------
> >     Subject: One button installer for Lubuntu
> >     Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 01:42:59 +0200
> >     From: Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:
> nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx>>
> >     To: Ali Linx (amjjawad) <amjjawad@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:
> amjjawad@xxxxxxxxx>>
> >     CC: Phill Whiteside <PhillW@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:PhillW@xxxxxxxxxx>>,
> >      Jonathan Marsden
> >     <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>>
> >
> >     Hi,
> >
> >     Is there a way to make a simple mode to install, provided the whole
> >     drive is to be used, as it is intended in the case of replacing
> Windows
> >     in fairly old computers with 256 (and 512) MB RAM?
> >
> >     First I was thinking of some kind of 'batch mode', without questions,
> >     once you have connected to the computer. It should install to the
> first
> >     drive.
> >
> >     But I have good experiences of the portability of installed systems
> on
> >     USB drives. So I would rather do it like this:
> >
> >     0. Assume there is one internal drive (/dev/sda), and that it should
> be
> >     converted to Lubuntu. (Otherwise other methods should be used.)
> >
> >     1. Fill the drive with
> >
> >     1.1 a root partition and
> >     1.2 a swap partition, size = sizeofRAM + 1GB
> >
> >     2. Expand a compressed image of Lubuntu
> >
> >     See this example
> >
> >     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstalledSystemFakePAE
> >
> >     where there is actually only one crucial command line
> >
> >     zcat dd-sdb.img.gz | dd bs=4096 of=/dev/sda
> >
> >     I do not assume we should use that version off the shelf. It was made
> >     for a special reason and limited size. Writing first the bootloader
> and
> >     then the partition /dev/sda1 from a tarball should do it within a
> short
> >     script. The host name and user name are easily fixed with a button on
> >     the desktop after installation (let the original user be the admin
> and
> >     make a new one). A button would be the solution for the proprietary
> >     software too, for graphics as well as for multimedia.
> >
> >     I don't have it but I could write that script, there is no need for
> >     advanced programming languages if text mode is accepted. But today it
> >     would imply a 2GB USB drive.
> >
> >     I have not learned how to make the iso for a boot CD. I know of
> >     Remastersys, maybe it still works, but I'm sure Canonical has better
> >     tools. So returning to the first idea about a batch mode: Maybe it
> would
> >     be fairly simple to add a one-button mode to the alternate installer
> or
> >     the mini.iso wizard shell (to set all the other variables, if that
> mode
> >     is selected).
> >
> >     -o-
> >
> >     One reason I started thinking about this is that most degrees of
> freedom
> >     of the installer are cut off anyway, in order to succeed, when
> >     installing into low RAM. And if you have to press certain buttons in
> a
> >     certain order, it is better to have it fully automatic.
> >
> >     And the the plans of the city council in Munick inspire ideas to
> make it
> >     even easier to install Lubuntu.
> >
> >     What about a
> >
> >     *One button installer for Lubuntu*
> >
> >     to make it easy enough to receive a mass migration from Windows XP
> >
> >     Best regards
> >     Nio
> >
> >     --
> >     Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-comms
> >     <https://launchpad.net/%7Elubuntu-comms>
> >     Post to     : lubuntu-comms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >     <mailto:lubuntu-comms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > "All of us are smarter than any one of us."
> >
> > *Best Regards,*
> > *amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad/>*
> > *Start Ubuntu
> > <
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/CommunicationsTeam/WOWLubuntu/StartUbuntu
> >*
> > *My Own Business <http://alilinx.blogspot.com/>*
> >
>
>


-- 

"All of us are smarter than any one of us."

*Best Regards,*
*amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad/>*
*Start Ubuntu<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/CommunicationsTeam/WOWLubuntu/StartUbuntu>
*
*My Own Business <http://alilinx.blogspot.com/>*