Hide the minimal profile so it's only available to advanced users

So to be clear; This issue removes the step of choosing an installation profile, if there is only one.

I think this is a good idea, there are loads of products/distributions that will come out that have no necessity to inform the user about the fact that they are installing the thing they downloaded.

For core, this also makes no sense - because we basically try to use this screen to inform users about the existence of installation profiles - besides this being a really bad place (the first second they use Drupal), the education should happen on Drupal.org.

The underlying idea that chx proposes, is that the packaged Drupal.org big-green-button-version is probably not the only way to serve web developers who are familiar with Drupal. And we could serve them equally well, if we have a less prominent way for them to download the packaged version which includes minimal and standard on Drupal.org.

We saw an issue in earlier testing (2009 Baltimore) that "beginning" users perceived the minimal version as the "less rich" version - what they should be using first.

I can understand the reasoning behind the request ... but don't force me to install git just to download the minimal version.

By all means, make it an alternate package, with a seperate, less obvious download link not tied to the big green button ... but knowledge of Git is a 'developer's' tool, not necessarily something a 'site builder' would be familiar with.

Personally, I appreciate having a 'minimal' option ... it saves me having to go disable a bunch of modules in order to get to a 'clean slate' starting point.

The patch looks fine.

I agree with both sides as to whether or not to package 'minimal', either way there are trade-offs (in this case between first time user and advanced site builder). It would be easy to make a contrib 'minimal' install profile which would be packaged, but who is going to maintain that when git users can get it from core anyway?

It can stay in core, and be a less prominent link on d.o - I think that was the idea.

So the idea is to have custom packaging logic that creates one or more core download tarballs?

I almost think it'd be better to remove the minimal profile from core and have it as a contrib project then. That gives the same effect without needing a tonne of changes to /project/drupal UI to account for multiple variants of the same project, but I'd be fine being overruled by dww.

Could also make the minimal profile 'hidden' and only accessible via drush.

Mentioned in IRC, but posting here for tracking purposes ... along the lines of #6, the minimal profile could be hidden, but enabled through a URI argument to install.php. (eg. http://example.com/install.php?minimal=true)

Granted, this is not the nicest UX for a non-git enabled/drush enabled site builder, but it does still allow them the minimal option when preferred, while hiding it for the 90% of users for whom the 'standard' profile is more appropriate.

yes i agree to jthorson, i dont like the standard version with other modules thats pre-installed, i like the ones that i only need for the site, but still i dont want to install git, its time consuming and git do not support core web based update download vs the downloaded ones.

I agree with jthorson. Minimal is a useful profile for those of us that like to start a site fresh. Git should not be a requirement to get this profile and an URI argument is the most simple alternative to offer to those who want to use it. As jthorson mentioned, the minimal profile could be hidden, giving the possibility of getting rid of the profile selection step of the install process for vanilla Drupal.

The minimal profile is actually nice because it allows us to test edge cases. Like what happens when you post a node without taxonomy and comment module enabled (notices galore, for awhile there) and the like. It was also the an important compromise for balancing the needs of our hardcore vs. new user audiences (and to an extent, helped prevent a fork in D7 over the Overlay module :P~).

So I don't like the idea of having to get it from contrib. It removes an important avenue for catching regressions, and minimizes our hardcore audience—a lot of them are the people who actually work on Drupal, so it's important they're taken care of.

Keeping it in core but hidden is an idea; this would remove a screen from the installer (I assume this is why this is being proposed?) but still keep the capability there for advanced users. "drush en" is not remotely discoverable though; realize that there are people who've used Drupal for years who don't even know what Drush is. I'm wondering at that point though what the difference between "minimal" and "testing" really is, and if we could use the same for both? (I imagine not, or we wouldn't have bothered adding "testing" to begin with.)

Having Drupal randomly come with it or not depending on how you downloaded it, though, is a total non-starter. It would make documentation a complete nightmare, and create a totally inconsistent user experience for seemingly random reasons.

Come to think of it, the only necessary change is to make the minimal profile hidden. http://example.com/install.php?profile=minimal can be used out of the box.

i somewhat agree, in the green eye candy button, lets make it less click, less mistakes to the new users.
but there must be also a download link somewhere noticeable dedicated to hardcore drupal developers who like it very minimal.

i tried testing and it seems same as minimal. its better to propose too, 2 versions:
one for new users and
one for hardcore developers

others should be removed or combined with the first two.

overlay module really suck in slow pc/internet. i preferred the default module to be admin_menu
more use it compared to the bundled one, seems like spam :D | move admin_menu to core and removed that overlay! :))

A patch to add hidden = TRUE to profiles/minimal/minimal.info sounds like a pretty easy task for a Novice.

Re-titling based on most recent discussion.

Hm. Maybe like that.

One more. ;)

Also, it turns out that Drupal will still prevent you with a choice here regardless if there's only one choice to make, so filed #1468282: Skip the installation profile installer step if there's only one visible choice

We saw an issue in earlier testing (2009 Baltimore) that "beginning" users perceived the minimal version as the "less rich" version - what they should be using first.

Note that the core install profiles were completely renamed after that usability testing was done (#420358: Write clear install profile descriptions). Do we actually know that the current screen (where you choose between "standard" and "minimal") is still confusing people?

No, we do not.

I strongly and wholeheartedly disagree with this proposal.

It's approaching the problem space from the wrong perspective and direction. Even the OP starts with:

people downloading from the big green button on the front page of Drupal.org would get only standard.

Let me dissect this statement for you:

1. There is a big green download button on drupal.org.
2. We assume that people who click that button expect to get and install a "standard edition" of Drupal.
3. We assume that those people are confused by the Minimal profile option in the installer.

If these assumptions are true (which hasn't been verified yet), then the proper solution is:

1. Make the big green download button on drupal.org download an actual Drupal distribution, the Standard edition.
2. Change the d.o distro/profile packaging script to hide any other possibly existing install profiles being contained in the downloaded package.

Stumbled across while searching for something else.

There is a mixed response to the proposal, one of which points out that we don't know what about the current screen that is confusing people. Since 2013 the description for minimal states that it is for advanced users. That is pretty clear, even to someone not familiar with Drupal. Plus, with the move to composer the download button is now a link and not as prominent as composer instructions.

I think it is safe to close this as working as designed.