Installer Progress Report

Hi again. It has been a while, for that I apologize. It seems the school year snuck up on me last Monday, and to say I wasn't prepared/aware of it would be a major understatement. This was a very hectic first week of school and I admittedly didn't get a whole lot accomplished. I feel more comfortable with that knowing that I will continue to contribute to my project well into the future; I'm not just leaving the people that hired me hanging in the wind. I did get some work accomplished tonight, however.

• I updated the C++ code that checks dependencies and it now checks for Tomcat. The mechanism for this is actually sort of neat. You see, BitRock has built-in actions to test for the existence/execute-ability of files. So, in the C++ code I simply obtain a list of directories located inside of the standard installation location for Apache Products. Then, for every directory that it finds there, I verify that it has the text "Tomcat" in it, and also that it contains a decimal point. I check for both of these items because they are tell tale signs that there is a standard Tomcat installation located there. From here, I parse out the version number from the directory name and compare it to the minimum version number required by OpenMRS. If it satisfies this, the C++ code logs that installation as valid. Here's the neat part: Inside of BitRock when it provides the user with a drop-down box of all valid Tomcat installs that were detected, it only displays those install locations that also have a /bin/tomcat6.exe OR /bin/tomcat5.exe. This sort of thing would have been really complicated to do in the C++ code, but with BitRock's built-in actions it's simple.
• As I was adding in the Tomcat checking, I noticed a bug in how I was handling version numbers with more than once decimal point. This is fairly common in software as there are major/minor releases. In the Math world, though, you can't make comparisons between 2 numbers unless they have a valid number of decimal points (0 or 1). The way I was handling this for MySQL was incorrect in that I was just assuming that by trimming the version at the last occurrence of the "." that I would be alright. That's all fine and well except for when there is only 1 decimal point... In that case, it was truncating it at the FIRST decimal point since find_first_of() and find_last_of() would point to the same location. I added in a simple 'if' statement to take care of that issue.

I'm currently waiting on a response from BitRock in regards to some advanced conditional evaluation logic that I need to implement. This is the code that is responsible for only displaying Tomcat installs that actually contain the tomcat5/tomcat6 binaries as opposed to just trusting that if the folder is there it's valid. The code I have in there is 90% correct, but the BitRock reference manual differs from the actual release so I'm having a tough time finding the "new" way of doing some of these things. They used to have a 'ruleGroup' in which you could group rules together and each would have their own 'ruleEvaluationLogic' being "and" or "or" but that seems to have since been removed. Once they get back to me on that, I will have enough of the dependency checking code completed that I'll feel satisfied using that in my final submission to my mentors.

I say "satisfied" because given the circumstances I've stated before, I believe I've really accomplished a lot. Not as much as I'd have liked to, but I can only look forward now. I've acknowledged my mistakes and I have already learned from them.

With that last bit of code in place, the heart of the dependency checking will actually be complete, only lacking in the testing area. Of course testing will reveal some small bugs, but the core code and logic is complete and in place. It will give me a very good base to work from during the upcoming future after the SoC program ends.

I'll make another post tomorrow after my final submission is complete and give an update on the project. I'm not sure how the updates will work once the program ends, but I feel it logical to continue to give the community updates on the installer project. Whether that happens through this blog or some other medium, I'm not yet sure.

Take care!

Self Evaluation

As we near the end of the SoC program, I thought it would be helpful to conduct a self-review of myself. I think this is important because you should be your own worst critic. Anybody that is great at anything is always hard on themselves to succeed, and to continue to improve. I'm no different.

A good example would be bowling. I'll go to the "Cosmic" bowling (dark, black lights, loud music, teenagers, etc...) because it's cheap and I can get a lot of practice in. Everyone else is there to "have fun". I'll be bowling next to people that are struggling to break 60 in their games, and then you have me...cursing up and down every time I leave a 10 pin standing, on my way to shooting a 190.

On with the evaluation...

• Dedication - OpenMRS definitely took priority over everything else this Summer, and I often found myself working on OpenMRS at all hours of the day/night, and every day of the week.
• Focus - This was my downfall at the start. When I got started, I was overwelmed with all of the different things that had to be accounted for in the installer. I chose to start developing some code for Linux, as that is my comfort zone. I figured it would be more beneficial to me to get code working in a familiar environment and then port it to Windows rather than start off on unfamiliar grounds. This did prove beneficial, but I lost a lot of time trying to build my bridge out of steel without first laying the foundation in floss. (Hi Paul. =] )
• Effort - I don't think I lacked in this at all. I gave this project all I had to give. This ties in to focus in that I was so concerned with everything working perfectly with the final grand scheme in mind that it hurt my progress a bit. I'd see potential problems with the temporary solutions to the point that I wouldn't even want to implement the temporary solutions. I wanted/want this installer to be as good as it can possibly be. I now know that consistent incremental progress is the only way to achieve this even if you will "waste" time with temporary solutions that get removed later. They help you understand the project better and assist your line of thought. It's not really a "waste" at all, but it may seem that way up front.
• Follow Through - Currently, if a user has a completely bare system, my installer fits the bill (give or take a few small issues that are being resolved). By the end of this week I'll have a better idea of how far my dependency checking version has to go, but I feel it's very close to on task, I just haven't done the full round of testing on it as of yet.

There are a few areas that I would have liked to have been better...

• I missed my release date a few times. I'm not one for excuses, so I'm not going to lay any on you here, but in software development, everything takes 5x longer than you probably initially planned for. Due to my lack of initial process due to lack of a focused plan, I had to play catch-up towards the end once I had my "floss" in place. This meant I was working on both the naive and smart installers at the same time, and addressing issues with both of them. This was a contributing factor in missing my release dates, but I felt/feel it was a necessary evil so that I could get the most production to the OpenMRS team for the money that I was paid.
• I guess I'll say it again: The lack of focus early on hurt the overall progress of the project. This was my first experience as a paid software engineer, so it was a lesson learned; an invaluable one at that.

Overall, I grade myself at a B-.


Once the term ends, my contribution to OpenMRS won't change much. I plan to continue working on the installer. This goes back to my dedication and effort. I want to give the team the product that they need, and that I was hired to give them. If they wish to offer me some sort of employment in the future, I'd be honored and I'd of course jump at the opportunity. Regardless, my work on the installer does not end on August 31st. I like to take any project I start through the finish, and I'm really close at this point. Not to mention the fact that I've become friends with a lot of members of the community. Friendships aren't on deadlines, that stuff is forever.

Installer Progress Report

Hello. Tonight I'm uploading a slight update to the naive installer. My mentors and I are still working on the issue with the runtime properties environment variable, and in parallel with that I've continued to make progress with merging the naive installer with the smart installer.

In my latest testing involving the environment variable issue, I've discovered the following things:

• Despite what some websites say online, all changes to environment variables made by BitRock (whether newly created variables or changes to established variables) are immediately reflected without a reboot.
• Tomcat does not seem to be able to access any new environment variables until after a reboot, despite Windows having refreshed them. The variables are being created/edited prior to anything else in the installer in terms of Tomcat, so that isn't the issue. Moreover, testing the existence of the environment variable in question AFTER the installation has completed and then restarting Tomcat yields the same result of failure to locate the variable.

Changelog

• Cleans up the post-install script to do away with some unnecessary variables that were being passed in. I had since changed the way those variables were used such that all work was done for them within BitRock instead of the post-install script.
• Addressed an issue in which I was incorrectly renaming the WAR file to take on the name specified for the webapp. There was apparently some miscommunication here when this was done, but no worries it's fixed now.
• Added a rename action within BitRock to place the WAR file into the webapps directory. We now no longer need to delete the WAR file in the post-install script
• I've added a "Reboot Required" screen into BitRock to account for the environment variable issue with Tomcat. This is hopefully only a temporary fix as we'd like to not require a reboot.

Issues

• Currently, you will have to reboot in order for the install to work.
• The post-install script is still going to try and launch the web browser to the OpenMRS webapp. I left this in for testing purposes so that you can see right away if Tomcat installed properly. If you see a Tomcat error message, then Tomcat installed fine. If you get a failed connection error from your browser, Tomcat didn't get installed/started: Let me know.

That should be it, let me know how it goes for you though. There will probably be a number of updates this week as we're getting into crunch time, so stay tuned, but keep the feedback coming!

http://openmrs.org/wiki/Special:Downloads/Releases/OpenMRS_Installer/OpenMRS-Installer-1.1.0-5.exe

Installer Progress Report

Hi. Been a while since my last update, I've had a hectic week. School starts up again on Monday, and I've had a lot of things to get organized as far as that is concerned in terms of class registration, loan applications, shifting money from checking/savings/credit/loans etc etc etc... Basically I hate this time of year with a passion because it's the most stressful, the most expensive, and the most busy. Anyways...

I'm going to be about a day late on my release this week due in part to the above reasons, but mainly due to the added complexity that adding dependency checking adds to the installer. I put in some good time tonight and am close to completing the puzzle.

• Now, the post-install script checks variables passed from BitRock to determine which actions to take in terms of installing the MySQL/Tomcat services, starting/stopping those services, resetting the MySQL password, and installing the JRE silently. I can't remember exactly *why* we can't run the JRE silent install from inside of BitRock, but I do remember that we can't. If I get time, this is on my list of things to investigate.
• I cleaned up some "/" vs "\" issues in the dependency code to make Windows happy.
• I cleaned up a lot of logic in the dependency checking BitRock code to properly handle some of the environment variables, as well as the PATH variable.
• As far as dialog screens are concerned, the dependency checking version matches that of the "naive" installer. I'm still holding off a bit on adding in the MySQL/Tomcat/War to cut down on build-times, but that will all come tomorrow after I sort out a few last bugs.

The other reason this release is delayed is due to a tiny bug we're having with the "naive" installer (although it would be an issue with the "smart" installer as well). The issue concerns Windows refreshing environment variables. This poses an issue when the user changes some of the default data, forcing OpenMRS to read the runtime properties files. The idea was that forcing a reboot would solve the issue, but in my efforts today, that wasn't the case. Rebooting refreshed the environment variable pointing to the runtime properties, but Tomcat still had an issue loading OpenMRS.

The guys have been out of town, so it's been a bit harder to get assistance with these issues due to our schedules, so hopefully when they get back IRC will be back in full swing and we can get this issue ironed out. In the meantime I'll continue to work on my dependency code. There are a few improvements that will probably have to wait until next week because they will involve major additions to the C++ code, but I'll have some version of the dependency checking code out within the next day or so.

Stay tuned!

Another day, Another Installer Release

Hi folks. I had a super-productive day today during my visit to OpenMRS headquarters in Indianapolis. Below you'll find a changelog for this release and the link for the download (eventually).

• Added Start Menu link to the OpenMRS website
• Fixed the custom Tomcat port issue. Now, whichever port you specify will be the port used when launching the browser
• Added support for changing the webapp name (the name that Tomcat uses to identify OpenMRS)
• Added option to allow/disallow loading of modules through the webapp
• Fixed the custom OpenMRS database name issue. Now, if you specify a different name for the OpenMRS database (not the default 'openmrs'), this change will actually be respected.
• Added option to change the MySQL OpenMRS account (only used internally). Previously if you changed it, it would ignore you. Sorry.
• Full support for the runtime properties file. Up to this point we weren't using it at all. Now, every relevant option is reflected in the runtime properties file such as MySQL username/password/port/database name, boolean module upload, etc...
• Fixed the top-right logo that was out of proportion. Thanks Ben.
• Tomcat is now installed as an automatic service instead of a manual service.
  

If you tried out my previous installer, follow these steps to obtain a "clean" system to test this one.

• Open a command prompt - Start, Run, "cmd"
• net stop mysql
• sc delete mysql
• net stop "apache tomcat"
• sc delete "tomcat6"

That will stop both MySQL and Tomcat, as well as delete them as Windows Services. Those are the main testing points for the installer as the silent Java install never fails, so don't worry about it. It may also be a good idea to delete the previous installation directory after executing those commands. If you try to do it before hand, chances are MySQL and/or Tomcat will still be running and it will fail.

I think that's about it. A few issues to keep in mind...

• Somtimes, for no reason at all (most likely a timing issue), Tomcat does not get installed as a service. This will cause the net start "apache tomcat" command to fail, clearly, since it hasn't been registered as a service. I'm working on this, but it's random and it I'm nearing cluelessness on this one...
• Again, sometimes the MySQL database does not get created. I'm confident this is a timing issue because it only happens for me when I'm at home on my laggy VMware image. Today at OpenMRS HQ, the only thing that gave me trouble was the occasional failed Tomcat Service install. The MySQL worked every single time
• Sometimes, the browser will launch prior to Tomcat finishing starting. In this case you will see an error that you can't connect. Wait a few minutes and refresh the screen. If you continue to get the unable to connect error, Tomcat probably never installed as a service and thus didn't start. If you see a Tomcat error page stating that OpenMRS could not be loaded, this means that the MySQL database wasn't created. Let me know either way and I'll help you out.
  

If you encounter either one of these issues, please let me know. I'll have you up and running with very little effort. If you encounter any other issues, or you have suggestions, please let me know those as well. Thanks!

http://resources.openmrs.org/OpenMRS-1.0-windows-installer.exe

Installer Release

Yay! I got it to work! Here were the major issues holding my progress up:

• Timing of commands - When you execute commands in a script as opposed to on the command line, the behavior is completely different. The operating system essentially goes down the list of commands and spawns each one off. If a command takes longer to execute than you may expect, and your next command depends on the previous one: disaster. Normally you would fight this using the built-in 'start /wait ' mechanism, but the nature of how Bitrock executes post-install scripts really hinders this because sometimes the installer will just hang if you use the /wait switch. Couple this with the fact that Windows XP doesn't have a 'wait' or a 'sleep' command, and you've got yourself a headache. To fix this issue, I started the MySQL server first, then I did the silent install of Java to kill some time, and THEN I reset the root password for MySQL. That handled the timing, and fixed the SQL script issue.
• Behavior of 'service.bat' - This script is provided with Tomcat for a simple way to install Tomcat as a Windows Service. The problem is, if you call it from within a script, nothing else in your script will get executed after 'service.bat' finishes. No combination of switches can save you here, the reason being is that while you may say '/wait', 'startup.bat' executes a number of other commands that don't use that method of execution. So, instead of calling 'startup.bat' as part of the post-install script, I call it from within Bitrock prior to the execution of the post-install script, and then I simply start the Tomcat service in the script.
• Build times - As I've stated before, this really killed me. Any change I wanted to implement and test would take a total of 15 minutes before I would know if it worked or not. That's a lot of time lost, especially considering the hit-or-miss nature of the testing environment due to the issues I listed above. Something will behave one way locally in the script, but how it behaves in Bitrock is entirely different.
  

Well, those are a summary of the issues. I bottled them up nicely and it only seems like 3 things, but there are a number of painful individual things within each of them.

Installation Tips

• This installer assumes you have none of the dependencies. Please make sure this is the case. No JRE, No Tomcat, and No MySQL.
• At the MySQL Information screen, the dialog is a bit misleading. These will be cleaned up, but for now just know that the username MUST be 'root'. The password can be whatever you want it to be.
• At the Tomcat Information screen, the dialog is on task, but to be safe and sure that you are experiencing the same installer that I did, leave the username as 'admin'. It shouldn't matter, but I can't recall how I setup the tomcat-users.xml file just now, so I make no guarantees. (Although, this would be good info for your bug report feedback).
• When the installer tells you that it's executing the final installation script, be patient. It will take a relatively long time, but trust me, it does finish. You may see an error box pop-up that says something about "Error sending parameters to program..." and it will display the URL for the OpenMRS system. I'm not sure why this comes up, but just hit "OK" A browser should pop-up and display the OpenMRS system. You may have to refresh it, but probably not. Once the script finishes, you'll have the option of displaying a Readme, and then you'll be done.
• The installer currently places Tomcat and MySQL inside of the installation directory. This is not permanent, but I have some issues to work out involving the dependency checking and setting path/environment variables accordingly, so that's why I'm not placing them in their proper locations just yet.
  

Strange Behavior

• As seems to be par for the course, sometimes the script doesn't execute properly for seemingly no reason at all. If this is the case, you'll probably get an error saying the script didn't execute successfully, and you'll see an error page for Tomcat. For example, I just ran a new build of the installer that had no effect on the SQL scripts, but for some reason all of the SQL scripts failed saying that they couldn't find the "openmrs" database. I ran the SQL scripts manually, and guess what? No errors, I restarted Tomcat, and the system was fine. It honestly and truly makes no sense. There must be some strange timing issues going on, and I just don't have the time to waste fixing them right now. Let me know if you have this issue and I can get you up and running very easily. All you need to do is finish the installer (not cancel it), and then run the SQL scripts located in ${installdir}/model (where ${installdir} is the location you chose to install OpenMRS). You'll have to follow the instructions from the website on how to execute those scripts (if this becomes a widespread issue I'll type up an updated tutorial), but once you do, simply restart Tomcat and you're good to go. I'm not going to ignore this issue, I just need to focus on other elements of the installer currently; this isn't something that fails every time. I think the issue for me is that my Vmware image runs very slowly. Given that, if the createdb script doesn't finish in time, then the rest of the scripts will fail. I'm almost entirely certain that's what happened in my last run. I'd have to do some string modification to alter the SQL script commands to be executed using the 'start /wait' mechanism, but once that was in place it would solve the issue.

Update
I decided to re-run the first working version that I had tonight. This is a version that worked with no problems at all the first time I ran it. Guess what happened when I ran it this time? It never created the database. This version never had that issue, only the newer one did. This just goes to show you the ridiculousness I've been dealing with. It seems that it randomly just doesn't create the openmrs database. In fact, in other occasions outside of Bitrock, I've gotten strange SQL errors saying that certain "concepts" didn't exist. I think there is some sort of bug behind the scenes with MySQL or these scripts. I'm not losing my mind, I know for a FACT that the version I've uploaded worked on a bare system. I reset my VM, and surprise! It didn't work. Regardless, with the version I put up (the first working version), if you get a Tomcat error saying it can't find OpenMRS, just run the SQL scripts manually and restart Tomcat.

By the way, I decided to not upload the "newer" build. The one thing the newer build fixed was it made Tomcat's service "auto" start. So, for this build you'll have to change that start type in "Settings, Control Panel, Admin Tools, Services, Right-Click on Apache Tomcat, Properties, Startup, Auto".


Please let me know of any issues/bugs/suggestions you may have. Thanks!

resources.openmrs.org/OpenMRS-1.0-installer.exe

Installer Progress Report

Wow. About 6 hours ago I thought I was ready to release. Then everything fell apart on me. By everything, I mean one single line in a 12 line BATCH script. Since that time I've been debugging myself to death over this thing, and it's been rough for a few reasons...

• Vmware is sluggish as hell
• 5 minute build times
• 3 minute copy times to put the installer in the Vmware image
• 5 minute install times
• Different results when BitRock runs the post-install script than when you run it manually
• Timing issues with commands, and how Bitrock handles that (all black box...)
• When I address the timing issues using /w and/or /b, Bitrock will sit forever waiting for an application to exit that is in the background somewhere

I've got the situation narrowed down, and I know exactly what line is "failing". Bitrock is passing in a mis-quoted variable that points to a path. When I try to reset the root password in the script, it fails because of that mis-quoted variable. Thus, none of the SQL scripts get executed because of bad credentials. I spent hours debugging the BATCH script and running it manually, and I got the system running each and every time. So, believe me, the installer works on a bare system, all of my code is absolutely correct. I had issues with Bitrock's variable passing (how they handle spaces as opposed to how BATCH handles them) before, but this time the normal fix isn't cutting it. Combine that with the fact that half of the time I never see the post-install script result, I never see what command it's trying to execute. I have fixed that now, but it's 5:30am and I absolutely have to go to sleep. Once I get the variable into shape, everything will work just as flawlessly as it does when I run the script manually with data that I've fed it. IT WORKS! I PROMISE! You'll soon see it for yourself!

Yep, I've lost my mind. Goodni..morning.

Installer Progress Report

Hello again. Well, I got cracking with Vmware this evening, and I have ironed out a few of the bugs with the "naive" installer.

• When loading the MySQL package silently, some trickery is needed to set the root password since it is initially blank. This requires starting the MySQL server with the --skip-grant-tables (probably not exactly right, but that's the command in general) and then setting the password. After this process, the MySQL server needs to be restarted with the normal options prior to running the OpenMRS SQL scripts. This is something that I had missed earlier. Luckily, you can do process management on the command line with Windows XP; I never knew this. So, I added a "tskill mysqld" line to the BATCH file, and that problem is solved. I then found that the MySQL service was actually being installed properly via the BATCH file.
• There were some hacky environment variable settings in use for this naive installer because at the time I added these features I was working on my production system on-site. Given that, I didn't want to un-install Java just to find out where the silent Java install was going to place the JRE (for use in setting the PATH variable, and the JRE_HOME variable for Tomcat's startup.bat). So, on-site I just hard coded the location of the current Java installation. This would explain why it wasn't working for Paul when he tested it, or myself in my Vmware image. I fixed that in terms of Java, but for some reason the environment variable for Tomcat doesn't seem to be taking effect.

Those are the 2 major things I was able to correct tonight. It took me a while to get the whole Vmware system up and running so I could take a decent snapshot of it. An important lesson I learned was to copy the installer exe from your primary source (flash drive/host operating system) to the Vmware image prior to running it. Otherwise, very strange things occurred with the file paths in Bitrock and there was an error generated, although the script seemed to execute fine.

The current issue is with Tomcat. For some reason it is requiring a JDK instead of just a JRE. My understanding up to this point was that OpenMRS only required the JRE... As I did some reading I learned that from Tomcat 5.X and up, Tomcat only requires a JRE and that you could set both JRE_HOME and JAVA_HOME to the location of a JRE's bin folder. This is contrary to the error startup.bat gives stating that JAVA_HOME must be set to a JDK and not a JRE. Feeling hopeful, I tried this, but it failed. If JDK is required instead of just a JRE, that changes things. A lot. The dependency checking code would have to be updated to search for the JDK command, which I believe is just "javac". Luckily the JDK bundles a JRE with it, so as long as the JDK was up to date, we could safely assume that the JRE was up to date as well. I would have to change the installer exe for the Java dependency to be that of the JDK instead of the JRE.

Once I get these questions answered, I'll move forward and get the Tomcat service issue fixed, and you guys will have a release of the "naive" installer tomorrow (Saturday). My goal is to release the dependency checking version on Sunday, but my mother has decided to come to town on Sunday, so it may be Monday depending on how well things go tomorrow with the "naive" installer.

As always I'll keep you updated. Thanks.

Installer Progress Report

Hello. Well, I'm a bit short of my Thursday deadline. Due to some communication breakdown, I didn't receive any feedback on my previous week's installer which suffered from some Windows Service issues. Throughout this week, I focused on implementing the communication between BitRock and the dependency checking. I'm happy to say, that portion is working very well. Between my long hours last night, and today, the installer is very close to completion. However, there are a few kinks to work out; mainly the Windows Service issues. Below is a summary of the new features I've got implemented:

• MySQL / Java Dependency Checking - The installer is now aware of these dependencies. If you have multiple MySQL installations, it allows you to choose which one you'd like to use for OpenMRS. If you don't have them, it presents you with a screen informing you of this, and asking if you'd like to specify the location to the dependency (maybe you have it installed in a custom location), or if you want the installer to load the dependency for you
• User-Specified Dependency Validation - Since the installer allows the user to specify the location of all of the dependencies, I built in vaidation rules that verify the dependency exists where the user says it exists. It asks for the location to that particular dependencies binary, and then validates that it actually exists.
• Smart Environment Variables - Depending on how the dependencies are installed (i.e they were detected, they were specified, they were loaded by the installer), the environment variables are handled accordingly using the given path.
• Windows Services - This is a work in progress, but in my current installer I've implemented the code to create and start Windows Services for MySQL and Tomcat, provided that the user does not already have those dependencies installed. It's all very dynamic now that the dependency checking is in place because only things that need to happen, happen. I think this bullet point here will go a long way towards fixing the current "full" installer.

I've merged the "naive" installer with this current one with the exception of all of the bundled files. The reason is, with all of those files bundled in, it takes 5 minutes to build the installer every time I make a change, and then it takes 5 minutes to unpack those files during the installation (provided they need unpacked). Tonight, I put Vmware on my machine, and have started loading an XP image in it. This will simplify the process for me this weekend as I try to get the Windows Service issues fixed. My original thought was that they were failing due to not having an "empty" system in terms of dependencies, but I just found out tonight that's not the case. I do however feel strongly that using BitRock to install/start the services will fix a lot of issues, as opposed to executing awkward commands in a BATCH script.

There absolutely will be a release (or multiple) before the end of the weekend. I've been re-prioritized in that Paul wants the Windows Services fixed on the "naive" installer before I handle the dependencies, although the dependency work is in place and complete. So, I'll fight that battle tomorrow once Vmware is finished, and once the Windows Service issues are fixed, I'll release that. Then, I'll iron out a few things with the "smart" installer and release that as well. Promise.

This has been the most productive week by far, and it's really exciting. I have a kit things to show everyone, but Paul is adamant that he see the installer work on an "empty" system before he sees anything else, and I don't want to put out a release that doesn't get the system up and running just for the sake of showing off all of the cool features I've added. So please, bear with me on the slight delay and I'll update everyone tomorrow after the Vmware adventure. Thanks.