The proposed changes for the Ubuntu 10.10 installer will make installation faster, friendlier and smarter.

New features are already being discussed for inclusion in Ubuntu 10.10 regarding the installer and the Live CD, which address the difficulties and inconsistencies inherent in the installation process. The goal is to make this process a super-duper fast, friendly and encouraging for new users.

What is it for?

For many users, the installation is like the first piece of cake - if this slice is not tasty, the user may never return to try the second part. By overhauling the ubiquity installer to add elegance, the user will feel more controlled, informed and more confident in using Ubuntu.

As such, the installer will strive to behave much more intelligently, carefully and easily to use. Particular attention will be paid to the markup process that tames / scares many new users.
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“Ubuntu Live CD is the first experience of many new users who are going to install Ubuntu. The installation process should be attractive and easy to assure new users that Ubuntu is the right choice. The process should make you feel safe and should only pay attention when there is a certain risk (for example, when the data can be destroyed). ”

Short review

The design specification detailing the proposed changes is comprehensive and perfect, but below are some of the outstanding changes that will reduce the headache for beginners.

Don't ask the obvious

Some of the cool ideas that can be implemented in the installer are automatic language detection, WiFi, keyboard layouts, time zone, settings from other installed operating systems or the Internet, etc. This is an additional advantage over the forced two steps of this installation process, which does not require user input, which makes installation faster.

Install the necessary user

Switches will be introduced for installing codecs and applications during the installation process! This will allow users to start working on their desktops, if they consider it necessary immediately after installation - now there will be no annoying warnings when playing MP3 files

The benefit is in the simplicity of the disk layout.

Disk marking is another area where it is supposed to create more transparent and intuitive markup. There are no fields for manual resizing (which confuse many newbies), instead, there are now simple ways to do this (“replace all” or “use half the free disk space”.) The new slider widget also aims to provide more efficient distribution settings size.
Proposed Interface:


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Quiet installation

As can be seen from the design, yet another key goal is to inform and confirm user intentions during the installation. By doing this through the “get ready” screen or through the “time left” feature decorated during the actual installation, users will be aware of all events, whatever happens, forcing them to feel much more confident about switching from one system to another.

Special attention will be paid to not unnecessary notification of the user by messages about data loss and other warnings, but, after confirming the relevant actions, everything will continue calmly. Another wording will be changed to make more sense for the end user (One of the small examples is the text “Password strength: weak” will be changed to a more plausible “Weak password”.)

All information about you

Improved user account creation dialog will offer many frequently requested features - including the ability to add user photos from your webcam!