[haiku-development] Re: Demo CD (was Re: Re: BButton colors?)
- From: "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:06:41 -0800
François Revol wrote:
Not at all and not for an alpha. We just need something that makes
installation possible. In any case, a Installer in the BeOS
tradition is
(basically) just something able to copy everything from the CD to
a
disk partition, There is no secret about that.
[...]
is also missing is the Bootscript.cd which is supposed to be used
when the
regular Bootscript detects a read-only boot volume. Just like on
BeOS, this
will then run the Installer and not Tracker/Desktop. As long as
several
applications/servers have problems with running from a read-only boot
volume, I would recommend to not try to act like a Live (Demo) CD. If
Well, fixing those would also help for later multiuser support, as
touching an application binary as a user should not be permitted
anyway...
people want a demo, they can use VMWare images. If they want to know
if
Haiku runs on their hardware, the CD would provide this info
regardless of
wether Tracker or Installer are launched when booting.
What people really ask is demo cd... though it currently seems quite
slow to boot, so it would probably not give a good first impression :-(
Yes, that seemed to be the reaction from many people that tried that
Zeta live cd (no offense to anyone intended) and the Basho live CD
(Basho is Haiku + a few apps done by one of the guys at JPBe.net).
I did a little test with a Haiku live CD that Urias facilitated me (rev
24227), and here are the results:
Boot screen displayed 00m00s
Desktop displayed 04m40s
Mouse moves 05m50s
Terminal displayed 08m10s
Deskbar loaded 08m30s
Tracker loaded 09m20s
This was timed on an (cold booted) AMD/XP 1.7G with 1GB of RAM. On the
same rig, the Ubuntu live CD (Gutsy) came to a fully usable desktop in
less than half the time (about 04m40s).
Short boot time is one of our selling points, and these results do not
reflect that quality of Haiku at all. I also thought that the lack of
feedback of what's going to the user (both during and after the booth
screen) makes the wait seem even longer. In other words, there is a lot
that needs to be improved if you want Haiku a live CD to make a positive
and enticing impression on the user.
I know that you guys have been talking about how to improve the live CD.
My take is that it would not be wise to rush things and risk creating a
perception that Haiku is slow. So I think it would be wise not to
release any live cd (supported or unsupported) at the very least until
you can bring down the boot time to something shorter than the
mainstream Linux distros out there. Until then, try to keep the cat in
the bag. :)
As usual, all FWIW and IMHO disclaimers apply.
Cheers,
Koki
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