Call for 1.2 installer testing.

Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Mathieu Othacehe]

Hello,

The 1.2 release is on its way. So here's the traditional call for
installer testing. This time, the CI is building latest installer
images, which should ease testing.

I propose that we first concentrate our efforts on this image:
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/download/654 which corresponds to commit
29a2eb3.

Testing different partitioning schemes on different hardware is really
important to spot issues that our virtualized automated installer tests
would be missing.

Thanks for your help,

Mathieu

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Brendan Tildesley]

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Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I could 
say about it :) hope there is something helpful here:


Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I rebooted 
with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon, 
but it doesn't stop anything.


Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English, 
Rarely in the native language. What's the difference between "Mandarin 
Chinese" and "Chinese"?. I guess this just requires translation data. 
The names of languages in their respective languages is something that 
already exists in a million different projects already, can we just copy 
them in?
Even when choosing Mandarin Chinese, nothing in the installer is in 
Mandarin. I guess one also needs to choose the final system language too.
Random thought: could we adapt the installer to use the same sentences 
from an existing installer, like the ubuntu one, so that all the 
translations can be copied in for free? All the basic quesions like 
please choose a password are surely shared between these installers.

The installer allows choosing the installation USB its self as a target, 
which I imagine would result in a disaster? People can shoot themselves 
in the foot if they want I guess?

No indication of what buttons one needs to use what: space, enter, tab, 
nor that there are other TTYs with documentation and how to get to them.

Enter selects and takes you to the next line when its an input box, but 
it does not select and take you out of it to the button below if it is 
the bottom most checkbox. one must then move to the tab button.

Down arrow in a checkbox list takes you down to the bottom of the list, 
but then it will not jump out to the button below. It does take you from 
Ok to Exit though, like left-right, but it wont cross the barriers.

space doesnt select menu items, but does select and move down checkbox 
lists, and selects buttons

I found my self switching between enter, tab, and space to get through, 
by going of intuition and thinking "do what i mean".

Perhaps Esc should escape when it makes sense.


After getting through the install with encrypted root, The install 
finally fails trying to install grub with:

|Installing for i386-pc platform. grub-install: warning: this GPT 
partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be 
possible. grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is 
required for RAID and LVM install. |



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Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Efraim Flashner]

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On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 05:23:30PM +1100, Brendan Tildesley wrote:
> Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I could say
> about it :) hope there is something helpful here:
> 
> 
> Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I rebooted
> with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
> Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon, but it
> doesn't stop anything.
> 
> 
> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English, Rarely
> in the native language. What's the difference between "Mandarin Chinese" and
> "Chinese"?. I guess this just requires translation data. The names of
> languages in their respective languages is something that already exists in
> a million different projects already, can we just copy them in?
> Even when choosing Mandarin Chinese, nothing in the installer is in
> Mandarin. I guess one also needs to choose the final system language too.
> Random thought: could we adapt the installer to use the same sentences from
> an existing installer, like the ubuntu one, so that all the translations can
> be copied in for free? All the basic quesions like please choose a password
> are surely shared between these installers.
> 
> The installer allows choosing the installation USB its self as a target,
> which I imagine would result in a disaster? People can shoot themselves in
> the foot if they want I guess?

Having somewhat recently played with them, I don't remember if Debian
allows that, I'm pretty sure NetBSD does. In any case, that's exactly
what I would want on an ARM device.

> No indication of what buttons one needs to use what: space, enter, tab, nor
> that there are other TTYs with documentation and how to get to them.
> 
> Enter selects and takes you to the next line when its an input box, but it
> does not select and take you out of it to the button below if it is the
> bottom most checkbox. one must then move to the tab button.
> 
> Down arrow in a checkbox list takes you down to the bottom of the list, but
> then it will not jump out to the button below. It does take you from Ok to
> Exit though, like left-right, but it wont cross the barriers.
> 
> space doesnt select menu items, but does select and move down checkbox
> lists, and selects buttons
> 
> I found my self switching between enter, tab, and space to get through, by
> going of intuition and thinking "do what i mean".
> 
> Perhaps Esc should escape when it makes sense.
> 
> 
> After getting through the install with encrypted root, The install finally
> fails trying to install grub with:
> 
> |Installing for i386-pc platform. grub-install: warning: this GPT partition
> label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
> grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for
> RAID and LVM install. |
> 
> 

-- 
Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   אפרים פלשנר
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Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 05:23:30PM +1100, Brendan Tildesley wrote:
> Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I could say
> about it :) hope there is something helpful here:

Thank you for testing!


> Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I rebooted
> with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
> Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon, but it
> doesn't stop anything.

This black screen regression should be “fixed” now (commit
34d436a4082b5c5f23b00e13eb8e5a92d957d704) by passing a kernel argument
“modprobe.blacklist=radeon” which disables the radeon driver.

(This was also blacklisted in the last release 1.1.0 of Guix, see
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599>.  I had removed
“modprobe.blacklist=radeon” because it was for some time no longer
needed on one of my machines.)

Some users will have a black screen in the installed system as well
(if they use Linux-libre).  I don’t think we can do much about that.
Niels <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599#8> only had trouble with the
installer but did not on the installed system.  It seems not feasible
to predict which users would have a black screen in the installed
system, so we cannot add instructions only for them.



> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English, Rarely
> in the native language. […]
> Random thought: could we adapt the installer to use the same sentences from
> an existing installer, like the ubuntu one, so that all the translations can
> be copied in for free? All the basic quesions like please choose a password
> are surely shared between these installers.

Yes, we could copy translations without understanding the language (at
least after our planned switch from the Translation Project to our own
hosted Weblate translation infrastructure).

Regards,
Florian

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Marinus Savoritias]

Hi,

I also encountered an issue with the latest iso just one day before the 
call for testing.

I have already filed the bug here: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/43879

Marinus Savoritias

On 10/11/20 10:32 PM, pelzflorian (Florian Pelz) wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 05:23:30PM +1100, Brendan Tildesley wrote:
>> Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I could say
>> about it :) hope there is something helpful here:
> Thank you for testing!
>
>
>> Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I rebooted
>> with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
>> Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon, but it
>> doesn't stop anything.
> This black screen regression should be “fixed” now (commit
> 34d436a4082b5c5f23b00e13eb8e5a92d957d704) by passing a kernel argument
> “modprobe.blacklist=radeon” which disables the radeon driver.
>
> (This was also blacklisted in the last release 1.1.0 of Guix, see
> <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599>.  I had removed
> “modprobe.blacklist=radeon” because it was for some time no longer
> needed on one of my machines.)
>
> Some users will have a black screen in the installed system as well
> (if they use Linux-libre).  I don’t think we can do much about that.
> Niels <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599#8> only had trouble with the
> installer but did not on the installed system.  It seems not feasible
> to predict which users would have a black screen in the installed
> system, so we cannot add instructions only for them.
>
>
>
>> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English, Rarely
>> in the native language. […]
>> Random thought: could we adapt the installer to use the same sentences from
>> an existing installer, like the ubuntu one, so that all the translations can
>> be copied in for free? All the basic quesions like please choose a password
>> are surely shared between these installers.
> Yes, we could copy translations without understanding the language (at
> least after our planned switch from the Translation Project to our own
> hosted Weblate translation infrastructure).
>
> Regards,
> Florian
>

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Brendan Tildesley]

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On October 12, 2020 7:32:08 AM GMT+11:00, "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <pelzflorian@pelzflorian.de> wrote:
>On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 05:23:30PM +1100, Brendan Tildesley wrote:
>> Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I
>could say
>> about it :) hope there is something helpful here:
>
>Thank you for testing!
>
>
>> Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I
>rebooted
>> with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
>> Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon,
>but it
>> doesn't stop anything.
>
>This black screen regression should be “fixed” now (commit
>34d436a4082b5c5f23b00e13eb8e5a92d957d704) by passing a kernel argument
>“modprobe.blacklist=radeon” which disables the radeon driver.
>
>(This was also blacklisted in the last release 1.1.0 of Guix, see
><https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599>.  I had removed
>“modprobe.blacklist=radeon” because it was for some time no longer
>needed on one of my machines.)
>
>Some users will have a black screen in the installed system as well
>(if they use Linux-libre).  I don’t think we can do much about that.
>Niels <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40599#8> only had trouble with the
>installer but did not on the installed system.  It seems not feasible
>to predict which users would have a black screen in the installed
>system, so we cannot add instructions only for them.
>
>
>
>> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English,
>Rarely
>> in the native language. […]
>> Random thought: could we adapt the installer to use the same
>sentences from
>> an existing installer, like the ubuntu one, so that all the
>translations can
>> be copied in for free? All the basic quesions like please choose a
>password
>> are surely shared between these installers.
>
>Yes, we could copy translations without understanding the language (at
>least after our planned switch from the Translation Project to our own
>hosted Weblate translation infrastructure).
>
>Regards,
>Florian

I forgot to mention that the trisquel 8.0 installer did in fact work on the same computer. I was able to boot to the desktop, so it doesn't seem like a Linux libre issue. I wonder where the bug is introduced, and how I could isolate the bug. Maybe I could build versions of the installer with the LTS Linux or other versions to see if they work. Could the use of kmscon  possibly be related?

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Localization of language names

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Brendan Tildesley <mail@brendan.scot> skribis:

> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English,
> Rarely in the native language.

We take language names and their translations from the ‘iso-codes’
package, specifically the “iso_639-3” message catalog.  Quoth
(gnu installer newt locale):

    (lambda (language)
      (let ((english (language-code->language-name iso639-languages
                                                   language)))
        (setenv "LANGUAGE" language)
        (let ((native (gettext english "iso_639-3")))
          (unsetenv "LANGUAGE")
          native)))

I think this is the most exhaustive translation out there and what
everybody uses AIUI.

Do you see better translations in, say, the Debian or Ubuntu installers?

If so, that could indicate we’re doing something wrong, such as using
the wrong message catalog.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Brendan Tildesley]

On 12/10/20 6:32 am, pelzflorian (Florian Pelz) wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 05:23:30PM +1100, Brendan Tildesley wrote:
>> Hi, I went through the installer looking for anything negative I could say
>> about it :) hope there is something helpful here:
> Thank you for testing!
>
>
>> Unrelated driver bug: installer was just a black screen until I rebooted
>> with nomodeset:  https://paste.debian.net/1166581/
>> Even with nomodeset, I get an error about no UMS supported in radeon, but it
>> doesn't stop anything.
> This black screen regression should be “fixed” now (commit
> 34d436a4082b5c5f23b00e13eb8e5a92d957d704) by passing a kernel argument
> “modprobe.blacklist=radeon” which disables the radeon driver.

I think you copy-pasted the wrong link in to that commit. it links to a 
thread about the translation stuff i mentioned below, not about the 
radeon driver.

- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-03/msg00441.html

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Brendan Tildesley]

Actually never mind, you did mention it underneath that, I should have 
kept reading!!

Re: Call for 1.2 installer testing.

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

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Hello,

Here a positive installation experience:

I did my usual bare metal installation of the image linked below on a
ThinkPenguin laptop that has always worked pretty well with Guix.

Ran through the graphical installation, going through configuration
options that have caused problems in the past (Esperanto locale, based
in Brussels, with Neo2 keyboard layout, fully encrypted disk).

The installation proceeded like a charm. Perhaps partly to do with me
now being used to the installer, and having hardware that "just works"
with libre software, but this was super user friendly. And actually also
super fast!

Congratulations and a massive thanks to everyone who's put time and
energy into this!

I can honestly say, with the current state, I would absolutely try a
guix system deployment in the first instance on any laptop I might
consider a GNU\Linux install, and only falling back to Debian if there
are hardware issues.

Very impressed.

Best wishes,

Alex

Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe@gnu.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> The 1.2 release is on its way. So here's the traditional call for
> installer testing. This time, the CI is building latest installer
> images, which should ease testing.
>
> I propose that we first concentrate our efforts on this image:
> https://ci.guix.gnu.org/download/654 which corresponds to commit
> 29a2eb3.
>
> Testing different partitioning schemes on different hardware is really
> important to spot issues that our virtualized automated installer tests
> would be missing.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Mathieu


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Re: Localization of language names

[Miguel Ángel Arruga Vivas]

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Hi,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
> Brendan Tildesley <mail@brendan.scot> skribis:
>
>> Languages listed in the language selection are sometimes in English,
>> Rarely in the native language.
>
> We take language names and their translations from the ‘iso-codes’
> package, specifically the “iso_639-3” message catalog.  Quoth
> (gnu installer newt locale):
>
>     (lambda (language)
>       (let ((english (language-code->language-name iso639-languages
>                                                    language)))
>         (setenv "LANGUAGE" language)
>         (let ((native (gettext english "iso_639-3")))
>           (unsetenv "LANGUAGE")
>           native)))

Yesterday I took a look at this issue and the problem was that the
installed locale during these calls to gettext was the default one: C.
I've attached a patch that fixes this and now the installer shows
language names in the language itself.

Nonetheless, it didn't work when I removed the call from installer to
installer-real, as the there comment says, and set the locale directly
in the line added by the patch.  Therefore I need to take a deeper look
into libc code to really understand what's happening there, and check if
it is possible to remove that extra call in the future, or find a
satisfactory explanation at least.

Happy hacking!
Miguel


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From 69b8d919a802d72fca218b7dfd9e7719c4711544 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Miguel=20=C3=81ngel=20Arruga=20Vivas?=
 <rosen644835@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2020 15:02:00 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] installer: Call setlocale after init gettext.

* gnu/installer.scm (installer-program)[init-gettext]: Change locale
from C, installed at the program start.
---
 gnu/installer.scm | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/gnu/installer.scm b/gnu/installer.scm
index c582a46c14..f401b242f8 100644
--- a/gnu/installer.scm
+++ b/gnu/installer.scm
@@ -308,7 +308,8 @@ selected keymap."
     ;; translated.
     #~(begin
         (bindtextdomain "guix" (string-append #$guix "/share/locale"))
-        (textdomain "guix")))
+        (textdomain "guix")
+        (setlocale LC_ALL "")))
 
   (define set-installer-path
     ;; Add the specified binary to PATH for later use by the installer.
-- 
2.28.0


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Re: Localization of language names

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Miguel Ángel Arruga Vivas <rosen644835@gmail.com> skribis:

> From 69b8d919a802d72fca218b7dfd9e7719c4711544 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: =?UTF-8?q?Miguel=20=C3=81ngel=20Arruga=20Vivas?=
>  <rosen644835@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2020 15:02:00 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] installer: Call setlocale after init gettext.
>
> * gnu/installer.scm (installer-program)[init-gettext]: Change locale
> from C, installed at the program start.
> ---
>  gnu/installer.scm | 3 ++-
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/gnu/installer.scm b/gnu/installer.scm
> index c582a46c14..f401b242f8 100644
> --- a/gnu/installer.scm
> +++ b/gnu/installer.scm
> @@ -308,7 +308,8 @@ selected keymap."
>      ;; translated.
>      #~(begin
>          (bindtextdomain "guix" (string-append #$guix "/share/locale"))
> -        (textdomain "guix")))
> +        (textdomain "guix")
> +        (setlocale LC_ALL "")))

I’ve checked as AFAICS it makes no difference as to the number of
language names translated in the first dialog box.  In fact, the ‘guile’
executable already makes that setlocale(3) early on, so I think it’s
expected that this change has no effect.

Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Ludo’.