propellor is d-i 2.0
I think I've been writing the second system to replace d-i with in my spare time for a couple months, and never noticed.
I'm as suprised as you are, but consider this design:
Installation system consists of debian live + haskell + propellor + web browser.
Entire installation UI consists of a web-based (and entirely pictographic and prompt based, so does not need to be translated) selection of the installation target.
Installation target can be local disk, remote system via ssh (wiping out crufty hacked-up pre-installed debian), local VM, live ISO, etc.
Really, no other questions. Not even user name/password! The installed system will only allow login via the same method that was used to install it. So a locally installed system will accept console/X login with no password and then a forced password change. Or a system installed via ssh will only allow login using the same ssh key that was used to install it.
The entire installation process consists of a disk format, followed by debootstrap, followed by running propellor in the target system. This also means that the installed system includes a propellor config file which now describes the properties of the system as installed (so can be edited to tweak the installation, or reused as starting point for next installation).
Users who want to configure installation in any way write down properties of system using a simple propellor config file. I suppose some people still use more than one partiton or gnome or some such customization, so they'd use:
main :: IO main = Installer.main & Installer.partition First "/boot" Ext3 (MiB 256) & Installer.partition Next "/" Ext4 (GiB 5) & Installer.partition Next "/home" Ext4 FreeSpace & Installer.grubBoots "hd0" & os (System (Debian Stable) "amd64") & Apt.stdSourcesList & Apt.installed ["task-gnome-desktop"]
- The installation system is itself built using propellor. A free feature given the above design, so basically all it will take to build an installation iso is this code:
main :: IO main = Installer.main & Installer.target CdImage "installer.iso" & os (System (Debian Stable) "amd64") & Apt.stdSourcesList & Apt.installed ["task-xfce-desktop", "ghc", "propellor"] & User.autoLogin "root" & User.loginStarts "propellor --installer"
- Propellor has a nice display of what it's doing so there is no freaking progress bar.
Well, now I know where propellor might end up if I felt like spending a month and adding a few thousand lines of code to it.