Personal Installer

Hello,

I am going to write an installer *for me*. Of course it will be open source.
Perhaps it can be useful for others: tips, new ideas, and collaborations are
welcome. I know others have something in progress, if we match some
requirements
we can share some components/code.

Some project choices and requirements:

* Guidelines: simple, modularized and extendable.

* Server (backend) side written in lua, modularized in scripts. Independent
of
  any frontend.

* A configuration file with variables, hooks, comments and examples.

* Multi-mode installation: Automatic, Simple, and Expert.

* Client (Graphic) side responsible only for drawing dialogs/windows.

* Multi-frontend. Implementation priority:
 - TUI. Similar to bsdinstall with new features.
 - File. Settings are read from file(s).
 - CLI. Suitable for a screen reader for vision-impairments users. This is a
   feature request.
 - GUI.
 - WEB. TBD (I am not a web-expert, lua seems to provide some option for
   web programming).

* A menu to select: frontend, mode, and other options, at start-up.

* Frontends have to be totally separated from the server, eventually to be
  easily added/deleted/changed/improved in the future. They could be
designed
  and developed mainly for the installer, neither to be compatible with
other
  tools nor to be general purpose.

* UI new features (something is related to server side):
 - Navigation. New buttons: [Restart], [Prev], and [Next].
 - Multi language.
 - Dialogs for help, at start-up and during installation (F1 or [Help]
button).
 - Options for color blind and low vision users. This is a feature request.
 - Final step to install a desktop environment.
 - Final step to install pkgs for accessibility. This is a feature request.

* Multi installation process:
 - Synchronous. The server waits the user input from the dialog, then it
   performs the "command".
 - 2-steps. Frontend writes the user input to files. When the frontend
finishes
   (showing all the dialogs) the server performs the actual installation by
   reading files.
 - Noninteractive. No user actions, server reads previously written files.
 - TBD a mix of the above.

* Server <-> client communication: lua layer, files, and TBD server web.

* Logging and debug features similar to bsdinstall with extensions.

* Provide bsdinstall variables and configuration files. Ideally these
features
  will be placed in the "centralized" configuration file above.
 - All/most bsdinstall variables with extensions.
 - All/most bsdinstall configuration files (or compliant solutions).

* A menu to select bsdinstall or this installer at start-up.

* Extras & TBD. sade extensions (feature request), pkgbase, and so on.


(I'll create a git repository and a wiki page with the Roadmap. The plan is
detaching bsdinstall from bsdconfig, then rewriting the scripts in lua.)

Again, to avoid any misunderstanding: this is a personal project, bsdinstall
will not be touched. I plan to end by 6-8 months providing a port with the
installer and a script to create the iso.


Thanks in advance for any reply.

Best regards,
Alfonso