Run or install?
I think I prefer David's version.
- Install
- Try without installing
- Cancel and boot from disk
- Advanced options ...
-----Original Message-----
From: Ros-dev [mailto:ros-dev-bounces@reactos.org] On Behalf Of Giannis Adamopoulos
Sent: 05 July 2017 14:03
To: ReactOS Development List <ros-dev@reactos.org>
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] About the bootcd and livecd, and the 1st-stage GUI setup
I'd say that we should show:
- Run or install ReactOS
- Boot from hard disk
- Advanced options
Nothing more should be needed and the first option should be clear that can either lead to a live environment or a setup.
David Quintana (gigaherz) <gigaherz@gmail.com> wrote on Tue, July 4th, 2017, 10:45 PM:I feel like the boot menu is going to be far too busy for the end
user. I'd go with something closer to
blah blah:
- Install Now
- Try without installing
- Show advanced options...
where:
- Install now -- boots into the graphical installer (no desktop unless
you cancel or something)
- Try without installing -- boots into livecd desktop (backed by RAM, I
guess)
- Show advanced options... -- opens a second-level menu with
- Text-mode installer
- Live boot without Ramdisk
- etc.
On 4 July 2017 at 21:45, Hermès BÉLUSCA-MAÏTO <hermes.belusca@sfr.fr> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
>
>
> One of the long-term plan for ReactOS was to have a graphical
> user-mode interface for the 1st-stage setup, similar to e.g. what
> may be found in newer versions of Windows (Vista+), as an
> alternative to our current 1st-stage setup in text-mode
>
> (note that I say “alternative”, not “replacement”, because both of
> them can live together without fundamental changes to either ReactOS
> or our ISO images, both of them can share core functionality, and
> finally because some people may prefer the text-mode either for
> unattended installations or for low-memory conditions).
>
>
>
> You can find some information about the 1st-stage GUI setup here:
> https://reactos.org/wiki/First_Stage_GUI_Setup . In our source code,
> it can be found in base/setup/reactos/ . Currently only most of the
> screens have been implemented, while the core functionality is not
> present. However this functionality can somehow be taken by reusing
> the source code of USETUP (see my branch
> https://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos/branches/setup_
> improvements/base/setup/ ).
>
>
>
>
>
> Abstract (aka. TL;DR): I explain below the needed changes introduced
> experimentally in the “setup-improvements” branch, revision 75273,
> to generate an all-in-one ReactOS bootcd, that includes both the
> 1st-stage text-mode setup + 1st-stage GUI setup alternative +
> live-demo functionality. This is meant to replace our currently
> separated “bootcd” / “livecd” ISOs, where the latter currently do
> not offer the possibility to install ReactOS. Some currently known potential problems are evoked.
>
>
>
> Images: Proposed BootCD contents : http://i.imgur.com/EBA6JHd.png ;
> Proposed Boot Menu : http://i.imgur.com/14n5Ryi.png .
>
>
>
>
>
> Having a 1st-stage GUI setup also means that it’ll also use the
> already-existing functionality that we offer in our “Live-CD” ISOs.
> Currently, the “Live-CD” ISOs we provide only allow for
> demonstration purposes, while the ReactOS installation proper is
> found in our so-called “Boot-CD” ISOs (which currently only contain
> text-mode setup). Thus, the 1 st-stage GUI setup, as an alternative
> to the 1st-stage setup in text-mode, means that both ISOs can be
> merged all in one, and we won’t have to make a distinction between
> both: they will be able to offer both the 1 st-stage in text mode
> AND a graphical mode (à la “Live-CD”) where it is possible to choose
> whether to test ReactOS in demo mode, or to install it via the GUI setup.
>
> Such an all-in-one ISO capability was already present in the trunk
> under the name “hybridcd”, but was used only when we built ISO
> images for the public events where ReactOS participated (FOSDEM,
> CLT, …). But now, having the setup process both in text mode and in
> graphics mode, in addition to the Live-CD demonstration capability,
> really suggests just using the all-in-one ISO and stop doing the “Boot-CD” (aka. only setup) vs. “Live-CD”
> (aka. only demo) separation. We would just generate only one type of
> ISO that contains everything.
>
>
>
> With that in mind, I have committed in my branch
> “setup_improvements”, in revision 75273 :
> https://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos?view=revision&
> revision=75273 such changes to be able to only build an ISO that
> contains everything. These changes are minimal, in the sense that I
> haven’t purposelessly changed the names of the build targets just to
> be fancy. Such changes may be done later, but not now.
>
>
>
> The needed changes are the following: First, the build target that
> will generate the all-in-one CD is called “bootcd”, because this
> also was the main build target for ISOs before the change. Second, I
> completely remove the “hybridcd” build target, because its
> functionality are now absorbed by “bootcd”. Third, the build target
> “livecd” is reduced to its strict minimum. For the sake of building
> a RAMDISK boot drive (see comments after), I continue to generate an
> ISO for “livecd”. But I’ve changed the generated name to
> “liveimage.iso”, to emphasize the point that it has to be understood
> as a (virtual) disk image for RAMDISK purposes, not just as a ISO
> image. Note that I haven’t renamed the build target “livecd” to,
> say, “liveimage” to reduce my commit changes (such a renaming may be
> done later). The “livecd” target builds a list of files that need to
> be present in the image. The generated liveimage.iso is no-more a
> bootable ISO, I’ve removed inclusion of freeloader + El-Torito boot-sector + the USB-ISO-Hybrid functionality for it.
>
> The “bootcd” target has been slightly changed in order to include
> the liveimage.iso as a file (for RAMDISK), and to also add the
> contents of this image in a flattened tree within the bootcd iso:
> the two directories “Profiles” and “reactos”.
>
> The 1st-stage text-mode setup is kept, as said before, but its
> corresponding files + the installation CAB source + the 1st-stage
> GUI setup application proper goes into a (renamed) directory called
> “i386”, corresponding to installation files for an i386 installation
> (technically,
> 1 per architecture when we’ll have a ReactOS ported to other archs).
> These files cannot be present in the same “reactos” directory as the
> ones from the flattened LiveImage, because some of the files are
> different (smss.exe, registry, etc…) Our FreeLdr knows from where to
> boot the 1st-stage text-mode (from i386), as well as the Live-demo
> in graphics mode (from reactos).
>
> I need to adjust the code of few setup components for them to stop
> relying on hardcoded “reactos/” path, and instead use a more
> “dynamic” (determined at runtime) path.
>
>
>
> NOTE FOR DEVS/SYSADMINS: The “bootcdregtest” build target,
> generating the special ISO that is fed to our test bots, remains
> exactly the same, and the files contained in the generated ISO have not changed.
>
>
>
> NOTE about the RAMDISK feature: I enabled it so that a user can
> remove the demo media (CD, …) and reuse the drive for other
> purposes, while still being able to use ReactOS. Of course this
> requires a large amount of RAM available. And that’s also why I
> include the flattened liveimage files so that one can use the demo
> without the RAMDISK (when few memory is available).
>
> As is currently implemented, this makes the ReactOS all-in-one
> bootcd large (it gains a good 100 MB) due to duplicated space (the
> flattened files, plus the same inside “liveimage.iso”). I cannot do
> better (unless ditching either the RAMDISK, or keeping it but not
> include the flattened
> files) because ReactOS currently doesn’t have a way to boot from
> disk images **that are not meant to be a RAMDISK**. The day when
> this difficulty is removed, a single disk image could be used either
> as the RAMDISK or the (non-removable) installation.
>
> A second remark is that I don’t plan to have the 1st-stage GUI setup
> available when booting ReactOS in RAMDISK mode because, as a
> consequence of its current implementation, I would otherwise need to
> duplicate the installation CAB source in the RAMDISK image too, making it again larger.
>
>
>
> NOTE about the FreeLdr Boot Menu: Since ReactOS is not that stable
> currently, we like to boot it in debug mode, and redirect the output
> to a serial port (usually COM1). However some people don’t have
> serial ports on real hardware, so we propose to boot with debug
> output redirected to screen. However this may slow ReactOS down, so
> we also like to boot ReactOS with debug mode disabled. That’s why I
> proposed the declination of these boot modes for each ReactOS
> installation contained in the BootCD (Live+Setup, with or without
> RAMDISK, and with debug enabled or not). The problem is that it
> clutters a lot the boot menu. A remedy would be to implement in
> FreeLdr the functionality of editing **existing** boot entries to
> change their associated boot options, so that one could add by hand
> the options to enable (or disable) debugging. This is currently
> unimplemented. The only implemented feature is to set up a new boot entry on the fly to boot ReactOS afterwards.
>
>
>
> NOTE for regress-testers: Possible remark that I may hear: “I only
> care about installing ReactOS (perhaps just in unattended mode) and
> I don’t care at all about the GUI setup nor about the Live-demo
> thingie, and your new BootCD is too large. I want to be able to
> download & use the good-old bootcd for regress-testing.” . So what
> to do? Since we currently build and store the “bootcdregtest” ISOs,
> but are not publicly available through our www.reactos.org/getbuilds
> interface, I would suggest here to make them available to people, so
> that those who want to quickly DL and/or install/regress-test
> ReactOS could use these ISOs instead (which are really just the good
> old BootCDs, but with unattended installation enabled **and** with
> our test-suite included). They are not that much large, just a bit more than the old regular bootcd.
>
>
>
> Please let me know whether you have other
> remarks/comments/questions/suggestions/etc…
> to make the new BootCDs better.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Hermès
>
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>
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