PostgreSQL installation CD based on Morphix - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Dear friends,

In the past, there were several discussions in order to find suitable answers
for MS Windows users willing to install and run PostgreSQL.

Some of you suggested that users should "install GNU/Linux over Windows". Not
so easy for the basic MySQL or Ms Windows user, who need technical
assistance ... and fear to destroy their machine.

Therefore, I would like to draw some attention on the Morphix CD project from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/morphix.

Morphix is an auto-bootable Debian GNU/Linux distribution based on Knoppix.

What makes Morphix different is that the project has several graphical
installers and wizards in preparation (written in plain C, using GTK-2
libraries and Glade-2) ... which could possibly be used to install GNU/Linux
and PostgreSQL tools over MS Windows.

You can download a preview CD of Morphix from this address:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/morphix/MorphixCombined-Gnome-0.4-1.iso?download

Except for the installer itself, the wizards are not yet available in the main
Morphix CD. To have a look at them, you will need to checkout from CVS
(http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/morphix) and open the files in
Glade-2.

I also made some screenshots here:

- morphixinstaller: once Morphix has booted in demo mode, you can use this
wizard to install Morphix on the disk. Screenshots:
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step1.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step2.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step3.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step4.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step5.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step6.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/morphix_installer_step7.png

- isomorphgui: graphical distribution maker (select the requested packages for
your distribution and burn the ISO). Screenshots:
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/iso_morph_gui_1.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/iso_morph_gui_2.png

- partitionmorpher: resize partitions on the fly (GTK-2 interface to
libparted). Screenshots:
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/partition_morpher_1.png
http://developer.pgadmin.org/jean-michel/morphix/partition_morpher_2.png

IMHO opinion, there is a need to study the Morphix project in more details.

Morphix could be a possible solution to the MS Windows migration problems. It
probably involves 50 times less work than migrating PostgreSQL to MS Windows
(and is a complete different project except for the fact that it could well
bring as much new users to PostgreSQL than a native Win port and is less
risky).

The possible steps for such a project could be (just a guess):

1) Validate Morphixinstaller, isomorphgui and partitionmorpher wizards. These
wizards are still in early stages of development. They are developed by one
person, who would probably like to receive some help.

2) Create a wizard for PostgreSQL post-installation steps using GTK-2 and
Glade-2: configuration of hosts and authentication, tuning and optimization
of various parameters (Mainly a graphical interface to pg_hba.conf and
postgresql.conf).

3) Gather all known PostgreSQL related Debian packages, including pgAdmin III,
PhpPgAdmin, as well as PHP, Apache and report tools (and much more) and burn
Morphix-PostgreSQL CDs.

There could be a "light PostgreSQL CD" as well as a "complete PostgreSQL CD".

4) Create a single website in 30 languages (http://installer.postgresql.org?)
dedicated to releasing the installation CD.

Based on the pgAdmin experience, there could well be more than 50.000
downloads every month, out of which 70% would be migrating from MS Windows to
GNU/Linux.

Comments and ideas are welcome. I would like to help anyone interested in
becoming the lead of such a project.

Best regards,
Jean-Michel Pouré