Project:Installer/Old/Release-0.5

Information regarding the 0.5 release of the Gentoo Linux Installer.

Version 0.5
The Gentoo Linux Installer team would like to announce version 0.5[.4] (we've found a few bugs since the initial 0.5 release) of the installer. This release, which is available on the 2007.0 and  LiveCD/DVDs, has a lot of changes from the previous one (so many that it really should have been a new major version, but we haven't even reached 1.0 yet, so it's a bit hard to jump to 2.0).

The major change is that the installer is now interactive, so instead of configuring everything and then letting the install go, it acts more like every other installer that has ever existed. If you're looking for something to do automated installs, check out the installer's sister project, Quickstart at http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/quickstart.php.

Improvements
As always, there are many improvements (and bug fixes) since the last version:


 * Yet Another Partitioning Code Overhaul: partitioning is now done in real time, so all of the problems that affected previous installer versions are now gone. It is completely and absolutely safe. The worst it can do is mess up when deleting a partition you wanted to delete or creating a new partition, neither of which will result in data loss.
 * GTK+ frontend redesign: most of the screens have been redesigned from the ground up to go along with the new real-time functionality of the installer. The content of the screens is drawn dynamically as you reach the screen, instead of just disabling elements that don't apply anymore due to previous decisions. This makes the interface seem a lot less clunky. We also have some cool new graphics for the splash screen and banner image thanks to blackace.
 * GTK+ front-end allows you to choose from 3 modes: Networkless, Standard, and Advanced.
 * GRP mode is now only available in Networkless mode.
 * When existing prematurely from the installer, it will offer to clean up after itself (unmount partitions, move logfiles, etc.)
 * Dialog front-end has been given an overhaul and now has complete i18n support along with 5 translations.
 * CLI front-end fix up: the non-interactive CLI front-end has been fixed up. It can be used to do automated installs with GLI if you create an install profile by hand if you pre-partition or use the recommended partition layout.

Reporting bugs
As always with improvements, there are new bugs created to go along with them. If you do encounter a bug, make sure to save your and  from the LiveCD right after the install fails. File a bug at http://bugs.gentoo.org/. Select the "Gentoo Release Media" product and the "Installer" component. If you can't find that, just use the following link: http://bugs.gentoo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Gentoo%20Release%20Media&component=Installer&format=guided