>It's easy to do a GUI if you constrain the environment sufficiently that
>you can count on various elements to always be there. Alas, we are in no
>position to do that - most often, the hardware is already there, and we
>take it as it is.

[snip]

>However, that said, I don't think it would be a bad thing to attempt a
>friendlier "GUI" install, subject to particular constraints (e.g. RAM
>minima, CD-ROM drive required, limited set of displays, cards, keyboards,
>mice supported, etc) on specific platforms that are capable of that.
>Perhaps we can find a way to make it work across more than one platform.

I think we will always need a text-only install for the non-x86
systems which don't have graphics adaptors of any kind, and for
whatever graphics cards we don't support (perhaps all non-VGA cards,
which rules out almost all the 68k ports right off.)

I don't see offhand how to make a GUI install significantly more
user-friendly than a raw text-only system (as opposed to just
prettier) without maintaining two separate install systems.

Plus, getting fitting even ncurses into the install boot-floppies may
be problematical. What did you have in mind?  It sounds interesting.