idea for installation - web

[Adam Williamson]

On Sat, 2013-12-14 at 23:22 +0200, חץ בן חמו wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> As a long time Fedora user, I find my self installing Fedora on many
> systems, and I thought about an idea about the whole installation
> process.
> 
> 
> IMHO, at the moment, the current installation process is quite ..
> confusing. text mode installation has gone,

No it hasn't. Boot with parameter 'text'.

>  and so VNC method (last I checked),

No it hasn't. Boot with parameter 'vnc'.

>  and we have a graphical installation which has it's own issues like
> weird places for buttons, and weirder setup for the disk. Again, it's
> only my opinion.
> 
> 
> So I thought about it for a long time and I would like to purpose a
> different installation method - a web installer. 
> 
> 
> Think about it - currently Anaconda knows how to detect most of the
> network cards (which is what we need to setup IP/Subnet/Gateway/DNS),
> and everyone has either a laptop or a tablet or a smartphone. All the
> other parts that needs to be added to the installation are small web
> server (nginx?), and the HTML/JS and graphics files. All of it won't
> be bigger then few dozens of MB to the DVD ISO.
> 
> 
> So the web installation will do something simple:
> 
> 
> * Upon booting the DVD ISO and selecting web installation, it will
> detect the network card and show them so the user could select which
> network card to use
> * The user will select the card and enter the IP/Subnet Mask/Default
> Gateway and the DNS
> * The installer will show the user a URL that he can connect to in
> order to continue the installation
> * The user will connect to this IP using his laptop/tablet/smart phone
> through it's web browser.
> * The user will select and do all the installation.
> 
> 
> Advantages:
> 
> 
> * No more graphics issues if you're in a place where you don't have a
> mouse or you got some really crappy CRT on a hosting company wanting
> to install a new OS.
> * There are basically tons of people who would be happy to contribute
> either HTML/JS code or graphics for the installer, which could give a
> really good look to the installer
> * Easier way to install Fedora using your browser
> * You don't need to sit in a freezing colo place just to install your
> OS :-)
> 
> 
> What do you think about this idea?

I don't think it'll be any use to most people as port 80 won't be open,
and I think you're badly under-estimating the difficulty of writing an
installer UI. I don't think it really provides anything that VNC install
doesn't...
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net