Re: Graphical Installer - Call for Testing.

[myglc2 <myglc2@gmail.com>]

On 01/06/2017 at 21:50 John Darrington writes:

> Thanks for taking the time to do this.
>
> On Fri, Jan 07, 2017 at 03:53:17PM -0500, myglc2 wrote:
>      
>      This is looking really great! I tried ...
>      
>      http://web.fdn.fr/~lcourtes/software/guix/guixsd-graphical-installer-x86-64-linux
>      
>      ... on the headless server where I run GuixSD. I experienced these issues:
>      
>      ATTEMPT 1
>      
>      I started with a previously partitioned disk. I selected the 'Headless
>      server' option. I did not modify the config. The install completed w/o
>      errors. WOW! After restarting, I logged in to root and looked around. I
>      was a bit disappointed that no default user was created. So I figured I
>      needed to edit the config.scm file. But I didn't see it in /etc where I
>      hoped it would be. 
>      
> Odd!  It should have been there.  I wonder what went wrong?

Maybe I missed it. I confess I looked quickly and when I realized emacs
was not installed and I needed to add a user, I proceeded to ATTEMPT 2
figuring I would try to fix up the config in the install
process. Unfortunately that blew away the disk so I can't go back an
double check now.

>      Suggestions:
>      
>      1) Add a user configuration menu/form?
>
> That should be fairly straightforward.  But I wonder if it wouldn't be easier for
> people to add them after the system is installed and run guix system
> reconfigure ?

I agree user management is downstream of the install. But in practice I
need an "admin" user with sudo/su to manage a headless server. Otherwise
I would have to allow login to root over ssh or use the console.

So in practice all I do at the console is provide root and admin
passwords.  If you made it easy to create a single admin user that would
be very handy. The debian install does this.

BTW, I see you followed the doc and set ...

(lsh-service #:port-number 2222)

... for the Headless server.  I don't think this is desirable. The user
will want to ssh into their nice new headless GuixSD server and this
non-standard port is sure to shoot novice users in the foot.

>      2) save the config file in an obvious place?
>
> I will have to find out what went wrong and fix it.
>
>
>      3) install emacs?
>
> I would be reluctant to do that by default:
>
> Firstly it's a slippery slope.  The next person will say "No! install vi! or nano, or ....".
>
> Secondly, I think the intended way for Guix to be configured is to have 
> the system profile relatively sparse.  Editors belong in the user
> profiles.

I have tried it both ways.  In practice the root user will want an
editor to edit the config. So it seems illogical to me not to include an
editor. The problem is that the editor will depend on the politics of
the system admin ;=)

In my case I want emacs, so I put emacs in my system configs.

> Perhaps we could add a page which would allow users to add arbitrary packages
> to the system profile.

That would be very nice.  FWIW, I attach a recent system config to
illustrate some packages that I would find useful.

>      
>      ATTEMPT 2
>      
>      This time I tried to set up the HD from scratch. I successfully deleted
>      old partitions and created new partitions. It was not clear how much I
>      needed to know (e.g., do I need to mark a partition bootable?)
>
> Since I'm currently just execing cfdisk,  I don't have much control
> over that.

My point is that we probably need to provide very basic guidance as
regards the minimum buttons a user need to push to get the system up.
Maybe this could be in a sidebar on the relevant screens?

> But 
> hopefully there's be some nice Guile bindings for parted soon ...
>      
>      Then I got stuck in "Allocate disk partitions".  I could enter a '/'
>      mount point. I could 're-create' the file system. 'Continue' took me
>      back to "select a partition". But I couldn't figure out how to get back
>      to the main menu/form to continue the installation.  I guess 'Go-Back'
>      is supposed to do this, but it was a noop for me.
>
> It's clear that this part of the user interface needs work to make it simpler
> and more intuitive.

I'm not complaining. I think it this is a really good for a first cut. I
just couldn't figure out how to get back to the main thread and complete
the install. Was I missing something?  Or this is a bug?

>
> Thanks again for the feedback.
>
> J'