Differences between revisions 41 and 43 (spanning 2 versions)
Revision 41 as of 2006-09-28 19:20:17
Size: 6007
Editor: ?fiandro
Comment: Added results of my PPC survey
Revision 43 as of 2006-09-29 10:50:18
Size: 5747
Editor: EddyPetrisor
Comment: is a powerbook
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||alessandro de zorzi lota@klez.it||27/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NV||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)||no-hardware||disable-module=linux_input||||
||Jack Malmostoso jackmalmostoso@freesurf.ch||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,3 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon /c||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies INC M9+ 5C63 [Radeon Mobility 9200 (AGP)] (rev 01) ||no-hardware disable-module=linux_input||||||
||Elena Grassi grassi.e@gmail.com||26/09/1980||ibook G3||PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon LW||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500] ||no way to make this work||||It needs video=radeonfb to be specified at boot time, otherwise even the textual console is corrupted||
||Luca Suriano luka@linux.it||26/09/1980||ibook G3||PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon LW||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]||no way to make this work||||||
||Marco Bertorello marco@nosgoth.homelinux.org||26/09/1980||ibook G4||||0 ATI Radeon /c||ati radeon mobility 9200||no way to make this work||||||
||Attilio Fiandrotti||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NV||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)||no-hardware||disable-module=linux_input||||
||Rick Thomas rbthomas55@pobox.com||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerMac3,5 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh ||0 ATI Radeon QW||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV200 QW [Radeon 7500] ||no way to make this work||||||
||Mirko Grava mgrava@rhx.it||27/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook5,4 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NP||VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA])||no-hardware||||||
||Eddy Petricor eddy.petrisor@gmail.com||27/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook5,2 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh ||0 ATI Radeon NP ||0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] ||no-hardware disable-module=linux_input disable-module=radeon ||||||
||alessandro de zorzi lota@klez.it||27/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NV||ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)||no-hardware||disable-module=linux_input|| ||
||Jack Malmostoso jackmalmostoso@freesurf.ch||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,3 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon /c||ATI Technologies INC M9+ 5C63 [Radeon Mobility 9200 (AGP)] (rev 01) ||no-hardware disable-module=linux_input|| || ||
||Elena Grassi grassi.e@gmail.com||26/09/1980||ibook G3||PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon LW||ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500] ||no way to make this work|| ||It needs video=radeonfb to be specified at boot time, otherwise even the textual console is corrupted||
||Luca Suriano luka@linux.it||26/09/1980||ibook G3||PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon LW||ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]||no way to make this work|| || ||
||Marco Bertorello marco@nosgoth.homelinux.org||26/09/1980||ibook G4|| ||0 ATI Radeon /c||ati radeon mobility 9200||no way to make this work|| || ||
||Attilio Fiandrotti||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NV||ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)||no-hardware||disable-module=linux_input|| ||
||Rick Thomas rbthomas55@pobox.com||26/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerMac3,5 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh ||0 ATI Radeon QW||ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV200 QW [Radeon 7500] ||no way to make this work|| || ||
||Mirko Grava mgrava@rhx.it||27/09/1980||ibook G4||PowerBook5,4 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh||0 ATI Radeon NP||VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA])||no-hardware|| || ||
||Eddy Petricor eddy.petrisor@gmail.com||27/09/1980||powerbook G4||PowerBook5,2 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh ||0 ATI Radeon NP ||ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] ||no-hardware disable-module=linux_input disable-module=radeon || || ||

Introduction

Overview of open issues and things to be done for the ["DebianInstaller/GUI"].

A complete list of bugs affecting the g-i can be found in the [http://bugs.debian.org/cdebconf-gtk-udeb bug reports against cdebconf-gtk-udeb] page.

?TableOfContents([2])

Per-architecture issues

We're trying to schematize bugs affecting the g-i on a per-architecture base, architectures considered here are i386, PPC, AMD64 .

i386 specific

  • No known bugs affecting i386 is known ATM :)

AMD64 specific

PPC specific

PPC is the most problematic architecture of the three to be supported because ?DirectFrameBuffer seems particulary willing to crash on those machines (we currently experienced more failures that successes) Right now HW acceleration provided by DFB seems to be broken for almost every suported video chipset on PPCs, so it was forced off by default. Reported successes, even those which do not rewuire directfbrc to be tweaked, could not be reproduced with a straight boot into the graphical installer, but testers had to boot textual and then switch graphical. Read also this long [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=342053 thread] about the g-i on PPC machines.

Tester

Test date

Model

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep mainboard

cat /proc/fb

lspci | grep VGA

Magic directfbrc

Bad directfbrc lines

Notes

alessandro de zorzi lota@klez.it

27/09/1980

ibook G4

?PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon NV

ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)

no-hardware

disable-module=linux_input

Jack Malmostoso jackmalmostoso@freesurf.ch

26/09/1980

ibook G4

?PowerBook6,3 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon /c

ATI Technologies INC M9+ 5C63 [Radeon Mobility 9200 (AGP)] (rev 01)

no-hardware disable-module=linux_input

Elena Grassi grassi.e@gmail.com

26/09/1980

ibook G3

?PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon LW

ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]

no way to make this work

It needs video=radeonfb to be specified at boot time, otherwise even the textual console is corrupted

Luca Suriano luka@linux.it

26/09/1980

ibook G3

?PowerBook4,3 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon LW

ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]

no way to make this work

Marco Bertorello marco@nosgoth.homelinux.org

26/09/1980

ibook G4

0 ATI Radeon /c

ati radeon mobility 9200

no way to make this work

Attilio Fiandrotti

26/09/1980

ibook G4

?PowerBook6,7 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon NV

ATI Technologies Inc M11 NV [FireGL Mobility T2e] (rev 80)

no-hardware

disable-module=linux_input

Rick Thomas rbthomas55@pobox.com

26/09/1980

ibook G4

?PowerMac3,5 MacRISC2 MacRISC Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon QW

ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV200 QW [Radeon 7500]

no way to make this work

Mirko Grava mgrava@rhx.it

27/09/1980

ibook G4

?PowerBook5,4 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon NP

VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA])

no-hardware

Eddy Petricor eddy.petrisor@gmail.com

27/09/1980

powerbook G4

?PowerBook5,2 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh

0 ATI Radeon NP

ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]

no-hardware disable-module=linux_input disable-module=radeon

TODO

Porting

The graphical version of the installer is currently available for Intel x86, AMD64 and PowerPC. The PowerPC port [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=341597 needs work] to get different types of system correctly supported. Other architectures the graphical installer could be ported to include Sparc, Alpha and HPPA.

Fonts

For font information, please see ["DebianInstaller/GUIFonts"]

Usability

  • Screen resolution.
    • Currently fixed at 800x600. Should be made flexible (adapt to resolution set by system or user).
    • Interface should adapt itself so that text blocks are never too wide for optimal readability.
  • Improve accessability (for the visually handicapped). One way to do this is to [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=339735 support different themes] (color schemes). (Note: should not lead to a major increase in initrd size.)

  • Progress bar in separate window.
  • Alternative (graphical) ways to start a shell or browse log files.
  • Interface design.
  • Create custom plug-ins for cdebconf to improve handling of some dialogs and make optimal use of possibilities offered by the graphical environment.

Interface design

Most of the work on the graphical side has been done by Eduardo Silva. He has set up a [http://www.geocities.com/jobezone/d-i_gtk.html webpage] with images he designed and some comments about possible future changes.

Reduce size of initrds

The initrds are currently very large which also results in fairly high memory requirements to run the graphical installer. Size has thus far not been a major concern, our focus has been on getting things working.

Options to reduce initrd size.

  • Library reduction for graphical libraries.
  • Remove unused files from udebs.
  • Reduction of space used by fonts (see above).

Update The size of the initrds is now down to around 10MB. Further reduction would be nice, but it is no longer a major issue.