Author Topic: How to improve the installer of OS/2?  (Read 19309 times)

Martin Iturbide

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How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« on: May 22, 2015, 12:14:07 am »
This looks like an interesting discussion topic that ecomstation.ru is asking.

For what I see on other OSes, it seems that is a tendency to simplify the install procedure. The user no longer choose what should be installed or not on the OS.

It seems that the standard options on OS installation to ask the user is:
a) Easy Install, grabs all the free unpartitioned space on the HDD and install the OS there.
or
b) Advanced install, gives you the option to install the OS on the partition you choose and options to resize partitions.

And that's all...

Of course that there are installers that allows the user to create their own personalized installer of the OS to create their own install image.

I'm not sure if it is right or wrong for the OS2-eCS platform to have an GUI installer without asking which software or drivers to install, but "that menu that I forgot the name" that loads before the GUI installer when you can select which drivers to boot the installation CD is a must have.

If there is some interest maybe it can be good to discuss the idea. What can it be improved on the installer?
Martin Iturbide
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Pete

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2015, 02:19:52 am »
Hi Martin

I gather we are discussing the eCS installer.

What definitely could be improved are simple things: I always *deselect* the following:-

1] DOS/WinOS2 support. At the end of install there are DOS/WINOS2 lines in config.sys and the directory \os2\mdos exists and contains some, but not all DOS/WINOS2, files.

2] All forms of java - but java11 gets installed and has entries in config.sys

I also have to change the line PROTECTONLY=NO to PROTECTONLY=YES

I am sure there were a few other moans but, basically, the current installer should honour the users choice; that would be an improvement.


Regards

Pete




Dave Yeo

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2015, 03:27:06 am »
Personally I like having choices and as most OS/2 users are fairly advanced users, I'd guess most of them can handle having choices as well.
I really don't like the dumbing down of the few recent Linux installers I've used, especially as to make them co-exist with OS/2 means things like installing grub on /boot, something that used to be easy when choosing the advanced install option.
Nothing wrong with having a simple install route as well.
Also as Pete says, the installer as is needs some bug fixes.

Joop

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2015, 01:11:55 am »
I don't understand this. We don't need installers.
The OS/2 directory is only for stuff which belongs to OS/2. Rest of the programs, drivers, dll's in the eCS directory.-
All the important directories are already in the config.sys.
What's left is create a directory for the program, drop the files there. Put it on your desktop or in a menu, ready.




Eugene Gorbunoff

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2015, 01:51:34 am »
When new driver is created for OS/2, the installer is updated (should be updated).

If user interface is updated then the installer should be updated.

If new utilities are created then it's necessary add this files to CD1 and update the installer.


Usually the users are using the system without significant modifications.



Pete

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2015, 03:47:44 am »
Hi Joop

I think you may be misunderstanding something as it is the operating system installer being discussed not an application installer.

Regards

Pete

Martin Iturbide

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2015, 05:23:08 pm »
Hi.

My idea (or what I understood of the original message) was to discuss installer for the operating system, when you want to install OS2-eCS from scratch.

Going back to the idea, it can be great if a new installer, not based on the one included on OS/2, can be produced. I can not count anymore on improvement on the eCS installer, since I don't know what is happening with the development of the OS and who owns the rights of the installer (Mensys/XEU may have the rights to use the installer, but I'm not sure if the own 100% of the source code).

Time ago I remember that Fedora used to have the Anaconda project (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda) but I don't know if it still used in the Linux scene.

What about creating an OS installer based on RPM?  Something that has an easy path, an advanced path (with or without options to select the software) and something else that can allow customize the OS installer with some scripts?

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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ivan

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2015, 08:16:35 pm »
Definitely NOT based on RPM thank you!

For a start it needs to be a two part installer because of the very wide range of hardware that people use.

I would think the first part would use PCI to find out what hardware was available and then give the person installing the opportunity to go with that or to tweak what is found (like excluding components that are known to cause problems).

The second part would give the opportunity to just go ahead and install (dump everything in one very large partition) or to select exactly where different components are to go including making and formatting the necessary partitions.

In other words a very upgraded version of the old IBM installer with additions to allow installing other programs as well.

Also there should be an option to boot into a very simple maintenance desktop on the DVD.
 

Roderick Klein

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2015, 09:01:17 pm »
Definitely NOT based on RPM thank you!

For a start it needs to be a two part installer because of the very wide range of hardware that people use.

I would think the first part would use PCI to find out what hardware was available and then give the person installing the opportunity to go with that or to tweak what is found (like excluding components that are known to cause problems).

The second part would give the opportunity to just go ahead and install (dump everything in one very large partition) or to select exactly where different components are to go including making and formatting the necessary partitions.

In other words a very upgraded version of the old IBM installer with additions to allow installing other programs as well.

Also there should be an option to boot into a very simple maintenance desktop on the DVD.
 


I think its time the people in the community stop having this negative attitude towards YUM.
It makes no sense. Yeh it has issue's but problems can and should be fixed.

One thing I can tell is that plenty of people still use OS/2 and eCS. At the last OS/2 user group meeting I bumped into 2 people who had no clue how to update Firefox. While David Yeo (thanks for doing that!), makes WPI avaliable to install the required DLL's. But they simply do not know! They wanted to ditch OS/2 because the web browser does not work.

Does issue's the community should be more concerned about instead of mentioning YUM/RPM is evil does not work. What ever negative feelings people have. Issue's are around to be fixed and resolved.

So if you do not like YUM come up with an alternative and start coding.

The current eCS installer I worked on for years at Mensys is also just house a cards.

What I mean with that is that it uses CID in the background (behind the graphical installer). But realy down below it still runs all off the seperate old IBM installers. Its a real pitty IBM never backported the installer of the power PC to the Intel based OS/2 version. From what I understood it was ONE installer backend for the WHOLE OS.

The intel version has RSPINST, MPTS, PEER, TCPINST, MINSTALL just to name a few. eCS adds on Warpin.

The eCS installer is pretty good and most problems have been taken out.  That said because of the legacy installers from IBM. No central database is around that tells the OS what files are installed.

And updates via the internet that take into account what other packages are needed YUM/RPM only provides so far. So people can wish away YUM/RPM but what can we then use as an aletrnative ?

Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE

Martin Iturbide

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2015, 11:42:13 pm »
I think its time the people in the community stop having this negative attitude towards YUM.
It makes no sense. Yeh it has issue's but problems can and should be fixed.

We already discussed this subject and I think we already have listed the good and bad about RPM/YUM. While I'm "sucking it up" with RPM/YUM because it is very good to install dependencies, I really hope that the "YUMIE thing" will be a step forward. But from what I had been told having the option to move away the FHS from the root drive is not on their plan.

Neither of us can say what the community should stop taking about, if it is your opinion is good, but it does not mean that we should stop having a positive or negative attitude towards a software on this platform and be silent about it. A community is just a bunch of people that may have different opinions and I want to keep it a free space for people to talk about this platform.

Regards
« Last Edit: May 24, 2015, 12:01:08 am by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Martin Iturbide

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2015, 12:08:49 am »
For a start it needs to be a two part installer because of the very wide range of hardware that people use.

Should an OS installer should ask which drivers to install? Even that there are some people that don't like the "dumb installer mode" I don't see moderns OSes that asks which driver the user should install.  For example, Windows just install the standard drivers it can find , and once the OS is installed and boots the GUI, the user need to install the "good drivers" replacing the one that are not working fine.

I think that moderns PC has simplified a lot the hardware that we knew from the Warp 4 days and there is a lot of hardware that used to be important on the 90's that now has disappeared. Maybe the issue is that on OS/2 sometime the wrong driver will lock the boot process.  It is open for discussion.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Roderick Klein

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2015, 01:12:20 am »
I think its time the people in the community stop having this negative attitude towards YUM.
It makes no sense. Yeh it has issue's but problems can and should be fixed.

We already discussed this subject and I think we already have listed the good and bad about RPM/YUM. While I'm "sucking it up" with RPM/YUM because it is very good to install dependencies, I really hope that the "YUMIE thing" will be a step forward. But from what I had been told having the option to move away the FHS from the root drive is not on their plan.

Neither of us can say what the community should stop taking about, if it is your opinion is good, but it does not mean that we should stop having a positive or negative attitude towards a software on this platform and be silent about it. A community is just a bunch of people that may have different opinions and I want to keep it a free space for people to talk about this platform.

Regards

Its a free world. But certain discussions thst just revolve around issue's that in todays small community
are if little use to the community. I have heard sometimes so much bashing to RPM.
While most of gcc work is done by a hand full of people.

I think as having worked on the installer at Mensys and have given so many customers until last year (before i left Mensys). I kind of know where the problems are.

That people do not like yum. Thats fine. But so far i have not heard people that complain, work on an alternative! And maybe some of the developrs working on gcc ports have got a reason to use rpm ? Of which a lot of software is provided free of charge!

And maybe its time to consider the grand picture and not just your private hard disc.
As I said people left os/2 partly because of the application update issue.
I know also normal users are out their still using os/2 and they are not as knowledgable on os/2 as some os2world members.
A yum/rpm with gui would make live easier.
 
Roderick


Martin Iturbide

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2015, 02:40:24 am »
Quote
A yum/rpm with gui would make live easier.

I agree with that, but even if RPM/YUM will be a success after YUMIE, I still want people to talk/post what they think in a constructive way.

Remember that on the first days people bashed hard on eComStation when it came out, people still wanted to use OS/2 Warp. There was good constructive criticism but also bad personal trolling directed to Bob St. John (which I dislike too).  At the end almost everyone  (in this community) is using eCS now (by necessity?). So maybe it is also a thing of the RPM/YUM maturing with time, being adopted by developers to distribute software and finally user adoption.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Dave Yeo

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2015, 06:45:08 am »
The problem with RPM is that it is basically crap, even on Linux. Not too surprising as it was the first package manager. RPM hell was a common saying at one time and perhaps still is, especially when using multiple repositories.
Yumie is nice as it gives a nice graphical interface to YUM/RPM but when YUM/RPM screws up Yumie also fails.
I wish the developers had gone with the DEB format as it was developed after RPM and lessons were learned but RPM is used by the corporate distributions and is most likely more familiar to the current developers, who are sadly overworked and overextended and doing a wonderful job considering.

Roderick Klein

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Re: How to improve the installer of OS/2?
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2015, 07:27:35 pm »
Quote
A yum/rpm with gui would make live easier.

I agree with that, but even if RPM/YUM will be a success after YUMIE, I still want people to talk/post what they think in a constructive way.

Remember that on the first days people bashed hard on eComStation when it came out, people still wanted to use OS/2 Warp. There was good constructive criticism but also bad personal trolling directed to Bob St. John (which I dislike too).  At the end almost everyone  (in this community) is using eCS now (by necessity?). So maybe it is also a thing of the RPM/YUM maturing with time, being adopted by developers to distribute software and finally user adoption.

Regards

With new things uncertainity for some people may come. But with chance also come new possebilties. If YUM/RPM is perfect I can certainly understand the concerns!  But we need to look at the long haul for OS/2.
And also how other people, less skilled can use the platform.

Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE