AltimatOS Installer is a custom installation software for AltimatOS that guides new users through the installation process. It uses AI technology to simplify the task of setting up the operating system.
The main technologies used in AI are Perl 5, PerlQt, RPM5, and GNU PartEd. The goals of this project involve developing an easy-to-use and easy-to-maintain installer for AltimatOS. To achieve these goals, the user interface must conform to standard human interface design paradigms, be well documented both in the code and externally, and be flexible enough to be extended for other purposes.
The rapid application development aspects of Perl and Qt provide developers with the ability to speed up the development of AI and ensure that the interface remains visually attractive. To develop the partitioning software, developers aim to wrap the GNU PartEd command-line tool with their PerlQt frontend. To optimize the application to run quicker, developers use the Inline::C Perl 5 module to gain access to system-level APIs that make certain slower code paths in Perl execute much faster. Finally, AI uses RPM 5, the main upstream development version of RPM, to install the operating system and lead the way for other distributions.
AI is comprised of two separate applications: ai and aftwizard, along with a number of reusable PerlQt and plain Perl 5 modules. The ai application has been designed to install the packages from the planned live DVD and to get the common required configuration files written to disk. The second application, aftwizard, is meant to guide the user in completing the system's configuration. Various libraries and modules developed for AI will be reused for other tools in AltimatOS.
AI has specific system requirements, including KDE 3.5.x. The latest release of AI migrates the application to PerlKDE instead of straight PerlQt to gain access to KDE's widgets. Overall, AI is a user-friendly and flexible installer designed to make the installation of AltimatOS an effortless process.
Version 20080321: N/A