new contributor

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 02:04:15PM +0600, Pema Geyleg wrote:
> I had been working on customizing Debian Installer for the last three years
> and had been involved in creating a customized Debian Installer for my
> country. I had been actively involved in getting our language "Dzongkha"
> support in Debian Linux. I am familiar with building the Debian CD/DVD etc..
> from the d-i source file using debian-cd. I had used preseeding extensively,
> am familar with Debian Package management and can build packages from
> scratch. I am comfortable with most of the programming languages like C,
> C++, Java etc..

Cool. (We don't use C++ or Java in d-i, though C will stand you in good
stead as will POSIX shell.)

> I had gone through https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallerDevelopment and wanted
> to contribute in the development of the alternate ubuntu installer. However
> I am still confused on how its been branched from the d-i. Could some one
> point me to the right documentation?

It may help to note that d-i is just a collection of packages (the
binary objects produced are rather unusual, but the source packages are
more or less perfectly normal), and so, just like the rest of Ubuntu, we
started out by just taking a snapshot of Debian unstable and modifying
packages as we went from there. Later on we started importing things
into revision control.

Are you confused about the process (why packages are changed, when we
merge with mainline d-i, etc.), or the mechanism (source packages,
revision control, how the images are built, etc.)?

> And How can I contribute to the ubuntu-installer development?

It all depends on your interests. I wrote
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/InstallerDevelopment/ToDo a while ago, and much
of it is still valid. What sort of areas are you interested in helping
out with?

(I started in d-i by helping out a bit with the powerpc kernel udebs,
then got into bootloader installers and then the partitioner via that,
since that was what was needed to get the installer working on my
PowerBook. After that I just gradually drifted into more and more bits
and pieces that annoyed me personally until I had a very broad
familiarity with the whole thing.)

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]