From owner-freebsd-config Sun Jan 19 22:30:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id WAA14092 for config-outgoing; Sun, 19 Jan 1997 22:30:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id WAA14087; Sun, 19 Jan 1997 22:30:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA17180; Sun, 19 Jan 1997 22:30:13 -0800 (PST) To: Keith Leonard cc: chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 19 Jan 1997 17:07:02 EST." Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 22:30:13 -0800 Message-ID: <17176.853741813@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Freebsd should have installation options for a straight forward simple 'I > got a 14" vga monitor with a keyboard and mouse' setup. Let the user > choose X setup, developers setup, users setup without the 1x10^65 > questions he has no idea or desire (at the moment) to know. They'll > eventually want to know but if knowing Unix is a prerequisite (sp?) for > even getting it up and running then many(vast majority) will fall by the > wayside in utter frustration. Hey, you write it and I'll take it! :-) I never claimed to have the best install, or even to be the best person to write one (I'm not, really, I hate installation tools! :-). I simply did it because nobody else would or wanted to, and I hated the thought of FreeBSD being without a reasonable installation. Now, unfortunately, having done the first install, I've now got all kinds of *ideas* about how the second one should look and how to avoid the various pitfalls in the current installation's approach and yadda yadda yadda, and so I talk about them all the time and How Good It's Gonna Be When We Get There and I probably scare anyone with an idea for a "rival implementation" away. That's kind of too bad, if so, because all I and the other install hackers *really* have at this particular stage is the following motley assortment: o /usr/src/lib/libdisk for abstracting away the disk interface (which is good - it makes the installer a lot easier). o /usr/src/release/sysinstall, which is an aging pile of C that, like so many things in this category, was already obsolete before it was finished. Can you say "stop-gap technology" boys and girls? :-) o A couple of TCL packages for putting up dialogs and talking to libdisk. This was to be the nucleus of the new "setup" program to replace sysinstall but progress on that halted when we all realized that libdialog and curses really sucked for writing the "GUI" and we needed to go off and deal with that part of the problem first. I think that was about 3 or 4 months ago. :-) Maybe I'll get my act together soon and get things moving on that front again, but I'll say here and now that if someone ELSE has a brilliant shining picture in their head and the will to execute it in C, C++ and/or TCL (no PERL please - we haven't room on the boot floppy for that approach!), I'd love to talk to them. A fresh set of eyes on FreeBSD's installation and configuration framework would be interesting too. Damn, a hand-off worked so well with Satoshi and the ports collection, why can't I seem to do it again with the installation and configuration tools? :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Mon Jan 20 03:43:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id DAA25691 for config-outgoing; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 03:43:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from wakko.gil.net (keithl@wakko.gil.net [207.100.79.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id DAA25686; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 03:43:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (keithl@localhost) by wakko.gil.net (8.8.3/8.8.2) with SMTP id GAA30533; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:45:13 -0500 Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:45:13 -0500 (EST) From: Keith Leonard To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: <17176.853741813@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk First: A formal appology to Jordan. My ramblings were in no way intended as jab agaist BSD installation system. The fact of the matter is I have pointed a number of other groups to Freebsds installation as a model they should implement. With its single disk boot to the automatic dependancies it a wonder to behold. My thoughts were strictly a general direction I felt this project should be looking towards (from a users point of view) in the spirit of "click your shoes together and you'll be home" I know the feeling of a frustration when you sweat blood for days and have a person not knowledgable in your craft start pickin' on it. I have no experience in the construction of installation programs and with my limited intelligence probably never will. As of now FreeBSDs installation is probably the cleanest in the 'free' world. My comments were strictly directed to the general flow of conversation about grabbing the market place. Keith keithl@wakko.gil.net ------------------------------------------------------ Character is what you are in the dark - John Warfin ------------------------------------------------------ From owner-freebsd-config Mon Jan 20 04:53:03 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id EAA28465 for config-outgoing; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 04:53:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id EAA28460; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 04:53:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id EAA22591; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 04:52:56 -0800 (PST) To: Keith Leonard cc: chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:45:13 EST." Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 04:52:56 -0800 Message-ID: <22587.853764776@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > A formal appology to Jordan. My ramblings were in no way intended as jab > agaist BSD installation system. The fact of the matter is I have pointed a > number of other groups to Freebsds installation as a model they should > implement. With its single disk boot to the automatic dependancies it a > wonder to behold. There's nothing to apologise for, really. I was entirely serious in my own criticism of the installation system and believe me, even though the current installation system offers a pretty good mix of features and people seem to genuinely like it, it's in bad need of a rewrite. We're supposed to be software engineers in this project, damn it, and I know we can do better! :-) Truly, the problem is not a lack of ideas or vision. The problem is lack of skilled programmer time to write all that code! :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 00:14:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id AAA06760 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 00:14:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id AAA06754; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 00:14:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.126]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with ESMTP id AAA11306 ; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 00:13:42 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.8.4/8.8.2) id PAA20592; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:03:00 +0900 (JST) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:03:00 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <199701210603.PAA20592@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com Cc: keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 19 Jan 1997 22:30:13 -0800. <17176.853741813@time.cdrom.com> From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.19PL2] 1996-01/26(Fri) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article <17176.853741813@time.cdrom.com> jkh@time.cdrom.com writes: >> Maybe I'll get my act together soon and get things moving on that >> front again, but I'll say here and now that if someone ELSE has a >> brilliant shining picture in their head and the will to execute it in >> C, C++ and/or TCL (no PERL please - we haven't room on the boot floppy >> for that approach!), I'd love to talk to them. A fresh set of eyes on >> FreeBSD's installation and configuration framework would be >> interesting too. No perl? I like it but I admit it's too fat :-) (my second favourite is C/Tk). I started working on translating LINT config file to SGML file and implementing the translator (using sgmls with DTD file) of this meta-config file to ordinary config files. I think this enables us to make automated config file generator tools like Linux's menuconfig and xconfig smartly. I think that the same approach can be used for automatic and semi-automatic system configuration tool for network and storage management. What do you think about it? (I'm planning to port sysinstall to X11 :-). I think it's not difficult to install FreeBSD from X interface like RedHat Linux) -- HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 04:13:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id EAA15922 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:13:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id EAA15917; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:13:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id EAA14446; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:13:25 -0800 (PST) To: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) cc: keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:03:00 +0900." <199701210603.PAA20592@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:13:24 -0800 Message-ID: <14442.853848804@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > No perl? I like it but I admit it's too fat :-) (my second favourite > is C/Tk). Well, I hate to admit that BSDI went the perl route and so far they seem to really like it. They did, somehow, manage to get a kernel and a single perl interpreter onto an installation floppy but damned if I know how they did it. Perhaps they're using a specially hacked and trimmed down version of perl, something which would be pretty evil for us but is a *possibility* I suppose. :-) I guess what I'm saying is that if someone really wants to use PERL in their install solution and is willing to do the work, I'll bite the bullet and learn the damn thing (and I hate PERL! :-). However, I think that TCL would result in a lot more people on these mailing lists being happy with the final solution. It's small, it's easy to parse (wow, a regular and well-defined syntax! :-) and a version which supports dynamic loading of modules is already in our tree. To get that with PERL we'd have to import perl5 instead of perl4, and that's a political battle which I don't care to fight at this time at all. :-) > I started working on translating LINT config file to SGML file and > implementing the translator (using sgmls with DTD file) of this > meta-config file to ordinary config files. > > I think this enables us to make automated config file generator tools > like Linux's menuconfig and xconfig smartly. Hmmm. I'd be interested in hearing more about this, as would I'm sure others here. > I think that the same approach can be used for automatic and > semi-automatic system configuration tool for network and storage > management. > > What do you think about it? I think we need to hear more about the details of this approach! :-) > (I'm planning to port sysinstall to X11 :-). I think it's not > difficult to install FreeBSD from X interface like RedHat Linux) Yikes! Sysinstall is a very poor target and has gone strictly into maintainance mode (I think we still have your japanese patches to integrate, but those are still missing from the last freefall cleanup of incoming). If you want to do a CUI/GUI sysinstall, you should join us in developing the new system rather that prolonging the life of the old. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 10:31:34 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id KAA04117 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 10:31:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.126]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id KAA04095; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 10:31:14 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.8.4/8.8.2) id DAA22042; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 03:02:57 +0900 (JST) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 03:02:57 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <199701211802.DAA22042@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com Cc: keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:13:24 -0800. <14442.853848804@time.cdrom.com> From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.19PL2] 1996-01/26(Fri) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article <14442.853848804@time.cdrom.com> jkh@time.cdrom.com writes: >> > I started working on translating LINT config file to SGML file and >> > implementing the translator (using sgmls with DTD file) of this >> > meta-config file to ordinary config files. >> > >> > I think this enables us to make automated config file generator tools >> > like Linux's menuconfig and xconfig smartly. >> >> Hmmm. I'd be interested in hearing more about this, as would I'm sure >> others here. I think FreeBSD's kernel config system is far better than irritating :-) "make config" of Slackware Linux, but I think it has following problems, and introducing the formal "metaconfig" file can solve these problems. 1. Users have to learn some rules of config files. Yes, the syntax of config file is fairly simple, but the semantics is too difficult. I think if there's an interactive menu system of kernel configuration utility more smart than Linux's menuconfig and xconfig, it helps novices much. 2. Dependency and exclusiveness between options, devices, etc. are only decribed in natural language. Kernel configuration utility can't use these information. Formal description is needed. (note that following samplese are pseudo-code, I've not implemented the translater yet.) Example 1: dependency DDB Enable the kernel debugger. DDB_UNATTENDED DDB Don't drop into DDB for a panic. Intended for unattended operation wwhere you may want to drop to DDB from the console, but still want the machine to recover from a panic Example 2: exclusiveness MATH_EMULATE Support for x87 emulation GPL_MATH_EMULATE MATH_EMULATE GPL_MATH_EMULATE: Support for x87 emulation via new math emulator 3. I want to support I18N for kernel config utility, but current config system can't support these feature. For example, some hackers in Japan translated comments of 2.2-BETA and 3.0-CURRENT LINT file into Japanese, but I think such approach is not so smart. For example: # configgen LINT.metaconfig .... generates English LINT file # configgen -lang ja_JP.EUC LINT.metaconfig .... generates Japanese LINT file # configgen -lang zh_TW.big5 LINT.metaconfig .... generates Chinese LINT file 4. There's no descriptions of "flags" of each device. People have to look into the dungeon of kernel sources to find the optional flags which solves his/her problems, but sometimes (or frequently) s/he can't find anything because of s/he is unaware of the structure of kernel souces. I frequently receive personal e-mails about problems that can be solved by adding "flags" to appropreate device. I think kernel configuration utility have to support such demands. The definitions of "flags" and "options" of devices should be described in formal way. >> > (I'm planning to port sysinstall to X11 :-). I think it's not >> > difficult to install FreeBSD from X interface like RedHat Linux) >> >> Yikes! Sysinstall is a very poor target and has gone strictly into >> maintainance mode (I think we still have your japanese patches to >> integrate, but those are still missing from the last freefall cleanup >> of incoming). If you want to do a CUI/GUI sysinstall, you should join >> us in developing the new system rather that prolonging the life of >> the old. :-) Okay, I'll mail majordomo soon. P.S.: For 2.2-BETA, I totally rewrote the experimental PC-card support for sysinstall. It comes more smart compared to it of 2.1.5. New features of this boot.flp: 1. You can select scratch memroy of PC-card controller from the menu of sysinstall. 2. You can select free IRQ pool for PC-card from the menu of sysinstall. 3. You can apply PC-card patches, recompile and install the new kernel from the menu of sysinstall. 4. pccardc and pccardd are incorporated into crunched binary, and all /etc stuffs, documents about PC-card drivers, and kernel patches are stored in /stand, so you can make PC-card operational without importing any other patches and files from network or CD-ROM. (it's sometimes difficult to import these patches without making PC-card operational :-), on some laptops with fewer builtin I/O devices) The URL is "ftp://jaz.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD-jp/PAO/flp/boot.flp". -- HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 17:54:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id RAA02211 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 17:54:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id RAA02205; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 17:54:39 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id MAA11082; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:21:37 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199701220151.MAA11082@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: <199701211802.DAA22042@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> from HOSOKAWA Tatsumi at "Jan 22, 97 03:02:57 am" To: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:21:34 +1030 (CST) Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk HOSOKAWA Tatsumi stands accused of saying: > > I think FreeBSD's kernel config system is far better than irritating :-) > "make config" of Slackware Linux, but I think it has following > problems, and introducing the formal "metaconfig" file can solve these > problems. I agree entirely with this sentiment; a formal description of the kernel configuration (preferably split across multiple files) is highly desirable. > 1. Users have to learn some rules of config files. Yes, the syntax of > config file is fairly simple, but the semantics is too difficult. > I think if there's an interactive menu system of kernel > configuration utility more smart than Linux's menuconfig and > xconfig, it helps novices much. Agreed. > 2. Dependency and exclusiveness between options, devices, etc. are > only decribed in natural language. Kernel configuration utility > can't use these information. Formal description is needed. Goes without saying really 8) > (note that following samplese are pseudo-code, I've not implemented > the translater yet.) > > Example 1: dependency > > DDB > > Enable the kernel debugger. > > I really don't like that much. How about : # file : kern_options.kci option "DDB" { description "Enables the kernel debugger" manref "ddb(4)" } option "DDB_UNATTENDED" { description "Don't drop into DDB for a panic. Intended for" description "unattended operation where you may want to" description "invoke DDB from the console, but still want" description "the machine to recover from a panic" requires {option DDB} } option "MATH_EMULATE" { description "Support for systems with no math coprocessor" description "(standard version)" excludes {option GPL_MATH_EMULATE} header opt_math_emulate.h } option "GPL_MATH_EMULATE" { description "Support for systems with no math coprocessor" description "(Improved but GPL-licensed version)" excludes {option MATH_EMULATE} header opt_math_emulate.h } I realise that we're arguing for syntaxes friendly to our chosen implementation languages here; I just feel that the SGML-like syntax is a lot harder to work with. > 3. I want to support I18N for kernel config utility, but current > config system can't support these feature. For example, some > hackers in Japan translated comments of 2.2-BETA and 3.0-CURRENT > LINT file into Japanese, but I think such approach is not so smart. That's a real challenge. Short of a message catalog for every option file, I can't see how you could do that. > demands. The definitions of "flags" and "options" of devices > should be described in formal way. Definitely : # file sio_driver.kci driver "sio" { description "Serial driver for 8250/16x50 UARTs" file i386/isa/sio.c file i386/isa/sioreg.h file i386/isa/ic/ns16550.h file i386/isa/ic/esp.h manref "sio(4)" flag { mask 0x001 value 1 description "enable shared IRQ" } flag { mask 0x0002 value 1 description "disable FIFO" } flag { mask 0x0004 value 0 description "has AST/4 compatible IRQ control register" } flag { mask 0x0008 value 1 description "fast recovery from lost output interrupts" } flag { mask 0x0080 value 1 description "enable probe diagnostics" } flag { mask 0xff00 range {0 0xff} description "device number of master port" } vector siointr irq all port *8 iosize 8 } option "COM_ESP" { description "Enable support for Hayes ESP cards" requires {driver sio} associate {driver sio} } (the *8 value for 'port' would mean "multiple of 8") By using multiple files, adding/removing drivers becomes easier. Parsing this sort of configuration file is trivial with Tcl or in C, and I expect that Perl would make quick work of it as well. > HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi Note that this is all pandering to making the status-quo easier, rather than chasing some blue-sky future. Is it the right thing to do? -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 20:01:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA10246 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 20:01:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from labs.usn.blaze.net.au (labs.usn.blaze.net.au [203.17.53.30]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA10217; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 20:01:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (from davidn@localhost) by labs.usn.blaze.net.au (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA03317; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 15:01:22 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 15:01:22 +1100 From: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Cc: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi), jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Kernel configuration References: <199701211802.DAA22042@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> <199701220151.MAA11082@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56 Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <199701220151.MAA11082@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>; from Michael Smith on Jan 22, 1997 12:21:34 +1030 Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Michael Smith writes: > option "GPL_MATH_EMULATE" { > description "Support for systems with no math coprocessor" > description "(Improved but GPL-licensed version)" > excludes {option MATH_EMULATE} > header opt_math_emulate.h > } > > I realise that we're arguing for syntaxes friendly to our chosen > implementation languages here; I just feel that the SGML-like syntax > is a lot harder to work with. Agreed. The above is pretty clear, less verbose and much easier on the eyes. I quite like it. :) One other thing I would add is some form of option "grouping", though, and perhaps even a way of nesting options (which might even include support for device-specific flags). That way, a metaconfig util could use this structure as the basis of creating configuration sections, rather than presenting it all on the one giant dialog or a long and arduous set of questions (like the standard Linux 'make config', which is really *awful* and vastly improved by menuconfig/xconfig which do have some structure). > > 3. I want to support I18N for kernel config utility, but current > > config system can't support these feature. For example, some > > hackers in Japan translated comments of 2.2-BETA and 3.0-CURRENT > > LINT file into Japanese, but I think such approach is not so smart. > > That's a real challenge. Short of a message catalog for every option > file, I can't see how you could do that. Perhaps the standard metaconfig file could be in English, and supplimental description files supplied for other languages. Or, following the Linux example, most if not all of the "description" text could be external, although there's always the danger that this becomes outdated because two files need to be maintained rather than just one. I guess the metaconfig tool could check that itself and issue warnings. > Note that this is all pandering to making the status-quo easier, > rather than chasing some blue-sky future. Is it the right thing > to do? The metaconfig part could remain independant of what really runs "under the bonnet". If the actual (now generated) config file format changes, then only that side of the metaconfig utility changes (ie. reading and writing it). Regardless of what happens there, I think supporting a front-end configuration system is the right way, and adding logic smarts to it, with help and adding some sort of coherent structure can only make things easier. BTW, how successful was your hunt a couple of months ago for a good text UI builder? tcl/tk is the obvious choice for an X-based metaconfig tool, but for textmode? Regards, David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/ From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 22:08:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA16197 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:08:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA16192; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:08:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA20542; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:06:15 -0800 (PST) To: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith), hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi), keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 15:01:22 +1100." Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:06:15 -0800 Message-ID: <20538.853913175@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > BTW, how successful was your hunt a couple of months ago for a > good text UI builder? tcl/tk is the obvious choice for an X-based > metaconfig tool, but for textmode? It wasn't. :-( Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 22:21:59 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA17079 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:21:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA17071; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:21:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id QAA13680; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:50:19 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199701220620.QAA13680@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-Reply-To: <20538.853913175@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Jan 21, 97 10:06:15 pm" To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:50:18 +1030 (CST) Cc: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying: > > BTW, how successful was your hunt a couple of months ago for a > > good text UI builder? tcl/tk is the obvious choice for an X-based > > metaconfig tool, but for textmode? > > It wasn't. :-( That's not entirely fair to Jan, but in reality, there appears to be absolutely zip available. > Jordan -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 22:54:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA18915 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:54:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA18910; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:54:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id RAA14007; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:23:25 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199701220653.RAA14007@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-Reply-To: from David Nugent at "Jan 22, 97 03:01:22 pm" To: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:23:24 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk David Nugent stands accused of saying: > Michael Smith writes: > > option "GPL_MATH_EMULATE" { > > description "Support for systems with no math coprocessor" > > description "(Improved but GPL-licensed version)" > > excludes {option MATH_EMULATE} > > header opt_math_emulate.h > > } > > > > I realise that we're arguing for syntaxes friendly to our chosen > > implementation languages here; I just feel that the SGML-like syntax > > is a lot harder to work with. > > Agreed. The above is pretty clear, less verbose and much easier on > the eyes. I quite like it. :) Thankyou 8) I've been using that style of syntax in our current software for about 18 months now (in case you were wondering whether I'm just making this up as I go along 8), and it's proven to be very useful. Just digressing on the Tcl side for a moment, you define : proc option {name attr} { global Options; lappend Options(list) $name; while {$attr != ""} { set token [lvarpop attr]; switch -- $token { description { lappend Options($name:description) [lvarpop attr]; } ... and then you can test for a description somewhere else : if {[info exists Options($name:description)]} { ... } > One other thing I would add is some form of option "grouping", though, You could group based on the file the options are defined in, or you could add a 'group' attribute, perhaps even with a heirachial syntax if you thought it was worth it. > and perhaps even a way of nesting options (which might even include > support for device-specific flags). Note the 'sio' example, which specifically implies (sic) this; the 'requires {device sio}' means that the option makes no sense without the 'sio' device configured (and thus would ideally not be visible at all). Likewise you could nest options using the 'requires' attribute. > Perhaps the standard metaconfig file could be in English, and > supplimental description files supplied for other languages. That actually sounds fairly reasonable. In situations where only english text was available, the tool could fall back on that as a default. (eg. I distribute a new driver with a .ki file but not a .kim (message translation) file) > David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 23:02:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA19387 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 23:02:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA19378; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 23:02:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA10636; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:58:10 -0800 (PST) To: Michael Smith cc: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:50:18 +1030." <199701220620.QAA13680@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 22:58:10 -0800 Message-ID: <10627.853916290@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > It wasn't. :-( > > That's not entirely fair to Jan, but in reality, there appears to be > absolutely zip available. I can only measure our success at finding something by the presence or absence of that something, sorry. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Tue Jan 21 23:32:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA20659 for config-outgoing; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 23:32:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA20654; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 23:32:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id SAA14304; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 18:02:03 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199701220732.SAA14304@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-Reply-To: <199701220653.RAA14007@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from Michael Smith at "Jan 22, 97 05:23:24 pm" To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 18:02:02 +1030 (CST) Cc: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Michael Smith stands accused of saying: > > > > Agreed. The above is pretty clear, less verbose and much easier on > > the eyes. I quite like it. :) > > Thankyou 8) I've been using that style of syntax in our current software > for about 18 months now (in case you were wondering whether I'm just > making this up as I go along 8), and it's proven to be very useful. I should also perhaps have observed that the software I'm talking about here is a client-server configuration utility, with the client deriving all of the metaconfiguration data from the server at session startup, and generating the UI on the fly based on this data. So I guess you could say I've been down this road before, but at the same time to date I've been walking it alone, and new perspectives are proving very enlightening. 8) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[ From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 04:58:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA03228 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 04:58:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA03219; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 04:58:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id EAA22825; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 04:57:34 -0800 (PST) To: Michael Smith cc: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 18:02:02 +1030." <199701220732.SAA14304@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 04:57:34 -0800 Message-ID: <22821.853937854@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I should also perhaps have observed that the software I'm talking > about here is a client-server configuration utility, with the client > deriving all of the metaconfiguration data from the server at session > startup, and generating the UI on the fly based on this data. > > So I guess you could say I've been down this road before, but at the > same time to date I've been walking it alone, and new perspectives > are proving very enlightening. 8) Actually, where's your code for this lately? I was just thinking about this the other day and wanted to play with the concept a little. :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 05:37:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA04908 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:37:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.126]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA04903 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:37:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.8.4/8.8.2) id WAA24186; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 22:33:00 +0900 (JST) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 22:33:00 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <199701221333.WAA24186@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au Cc: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:23:24 +1030 (CST). <199701220653.RAA14007@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.19PL2] 1996-01/26(Fri) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Removed -chat.... In article <199701220653.RAA14007@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au writes: >> Thankyou 8) I've been using that style of syntax in our current software >> for about 18 months now (in case you were wondering whether I'm just >> making this up as I go along 8), and it's proven to be very useful. At first, I thought that using SGML is better for maintaining this system's extensibility because we can easily and intuitively extend the syntax by modifying DTD, but now I think there're no apparent difference in maintainance cost between SGML, Lex/YACC, Tcl, Perl, etc. because we also have to extend the system not only in syntax level but also in semantic level. >> You could group based on the file the options are defined in, or you >> could add a 'group' attribute, perhaps even with a heirachial syntax >> if you thought it was worth it. I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding your statement, but I think that heirachical syntax introduces the same problem we have experienced in Pascal :-). For example, If A relys upon B: B { A { } } .... it seems to have no problem, but if A relys upon B and C, and the relationship between B and C is peer, it's impossible to be expressed in this syntax. I think that the relationship between options and devices should be acyclic graph, not tree. >> That actually sounds fairly reasonable. In situations where >> only english text was available, the tool could fall back >> on that as a default. (eg. I distribute a new driver with a .ki >> file but not a .kim (message translation) file) I implemented I18N extention to sysinstall (currently supports Japanese and Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong and Taiwan)). This system uses English message if there are no corresponding I18N messages. If somebody wants to extned the sysinstall, s/he don't have to worry about I18N support. There's another problem to support I18N in such file is editors' capability to mix many encoding system in single file. For example most editor that can edit ISO-8859-1, can't edit ja_JP.EUC or zh_TW.big5 text in the same file. I think this problem can be avoided in the following ways: 1. Separate DESC files for each languages It's easy (and I used this way for I18N sysinstall), but readablity of files is poor, and it's hard to maintainance the consistency between languages. If we take this way, we must introduce the semiautomatic version management system that can evaluate the version of each message (by using MD5 or something) and mark "dirty bit" on unmodified I18N messages whose original English message has been updated. 2. Use Unicode Aside from the evaluation of Unicode system (this system is not loved, or even hated by many Asian people), there're no good editor that can edit Unicode documents. 3. Use MIME (or other encoding system that can map any charsets into 7-bit ascii code) This also requires supporting system to encode/decode messages in single file. Sorry I'll think about requirement and formal definition of this metacofig system this weekend because this week I'm too busy until weekend :-). If you have any good idea, please tell me. -- HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 05:53:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA05397 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:53:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA05392 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:53:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id FAA23138; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:52:09 -0800 (PST) To: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, keithl@wakko.gil.net, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 22:33:00 +0900." <199701221333.WAA24186@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:52:09 -0800 Message-ID: <23135.853941129@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I implemented I18N extention to sysinstall (currently supports > Japanese and Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong and Taiwan)). This system > uses English message if there are no corresponding I18N messages. If > somebody wants to extned the sysinstall, s/he don't have to worry > about I18N support. Is this something we can fold into -current by the way? I'm still feeling guilty that the merge hasn't taken place. :-) Of course, if the changes are so extensive that they're not appropriate for the english version then that's another thing, but I just thought I'd extend the offer to finally do the merge I promised. Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 06:17:45 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA06056 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 06:17:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.126]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA06051 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 06:17:40 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.8.4/8.8.2) id XAA24449; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 23:15:48 +0900 (JST) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 23:15:48 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <199701221415.XAA24449@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, keithl@wakko.gil.net, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Jan 1997 05:52:09 -0800. <23135.853941129@time.cdrom.com> From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.19PL2] 1996-01/26(Fri) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> Is this something we can fold into -current by the way? I'm still >> feeling guilty that the merge hasn't taken place. :-) Still based on 2.2-BETA. The latest version is released on January 12. I put the sources and binary images of this floppy at ftp://jaz.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD-jp/I18N-flp/release.I18N.tar.gz ftp://jaz.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD-jp/I18N-flp/boot.flp jaz is the new machine of jp.FreeBSD.org. It's "Japanese freefall" :-). -- HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 07:30:14 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA09094 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 07:30:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from tyger.inna.net (root@tyger.inna.net [206.151.66.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA09088; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 07:30:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from dolphin.inna.net (jamie@dolphin.inna.net [206.151.66.2]) by tyger.inna.net (8.8.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA10225; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 10:42:17 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 10:30:07 -0500 (EST) From: Jamie Bowden To: HOSOKAWA Tatsumi cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: <199701210603.PAA20592@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Please don't remove the ability to edit the config file by hand. I personally hate linux's kernel config tool. I don't know how many would second that, but I am sure there are quite a few. On Tue, 21 Jan 1997, HOSOKAWA Tatsumi wrote: > In article <17176.853741813@time.cdrom.com> > jkh@time.cdrom.com writes: > > >> Maybe I'll get my act together soon and get things moving on that > >> front again, but I'll say here and now that if someone ELSE has a > >> brilliant shining picture in their head and the will to execute it in > >> C, C++ and/or TCL (no PERL please - we haven't room on the boot floppy > >> for that approach!), I'd love to talk to them. A fresh set of eyes on > >> FreeBSD's installation and configuration framework would be > >> interesting too. > > No perl? I like it but I admit it's too fat :-) (my second favourite > is C/Tk). > > I started working on translating LINT config file to SGML file and > implementing the translator (using sgmls with DTD file) of this > meta-config file to ordinary config files. > > I think this enables us to make automated config file generator tools > like Linux's menuconfig and xconfig smartly. > > I think that the same approach can be used for automatic and > semi-automatic system configuration tool for network and storage > management. > > What do you think about it? > > (I'm planning to port sysinstall to X11 :-). I think it's not > difficult to install FreeBSD from X interface like RedHat Linux) > > -- > HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi > hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp > hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org > Jamie Bowden Network Administrator, TBI Ltd. From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 07:35:20 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA09369 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 07:35:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.7]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA09349; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 07:35:15 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.6.12+2.4W/3.4Wbeta3) id AAA06428; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 00:32:04 +0900 Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 00:32:04 +0900 Message-Id: <199701221532.AAA06428@frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: jamie@inna.net Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org, hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Jan 1997 10:30:07 -0500 (EST). From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.18PL3] 1994-08/01(Mon) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article jamie@inna.net writes: >> Please don't remove the ability to edit the config file by hand. Of course. >> I >> personally hate linux's kernel config tool. Me too :-). hosokawa From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 08:49:08 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA12408 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 08:49:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from toth.ferginc.com (toth.ferginc.com [205.139.23.69]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA12403; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 08:49:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from toth.hq.ferg.com by toth.ferginc.com (You/Wish) with SMTP id LAA07909; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:48:02 -0500 (EST) Posted-Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:48:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:48:02 -0500 (EST) From: Branson Matheson X-Sender: branson@toth.hq.ferg.com Reply-To: branson.matheson@ferginc.com To: Jamie Bowden cc: HOSOKAWA Tatsumi , jkh@time.cdrom.com, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Jamie Bowden wrote: > Please don't remove the ability to edit the config file by hand. I > personally hate linux's kernel config tool. I don't know how many would > second that, but I am sure there are quite a few. You can add a Hearty Second from this person too! -branson ============================================================================= Branson Matheson | Ferguson Enterprises | If you're falling off a System Administrator | W: (804) 874-7795 | mountian, you might as well Unix, Perl, WWW | branson@ferginc.com | attempt to fly. -Delenn From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 11:55:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA23184 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:55:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA23169 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:55:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id LAA25090; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:53:55 -0800 (PST) To: John Fieber cc: Larry Lee , chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commerical applications In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 14:16:41 EST." Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:53:55 -0800 Message-ID: <25086.853962835@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The best interface designers are often lousy programmers, if > programmers at all, thus a designer/programmer team is required. > The FreeBSD development model does not *appear* to support such > teams very well; everybody wants to "own" their project and the > designer/programmer arrangement can so easily turn into a > master/slave arrangement.... Well, I like to think of myself as a fairly good interface designer (and please don't take sysinstall as an indication of said skills since that was a quick hack using UI tools equivalent to stone knives and bearskins :-) and a reasonable programmer, but I don't mind being involved in either role. I simply gravitate towards design because I've seen and done more than my share of both good and bad interfaces, and I think I have a reasonable idea of how to do it right now. However, we still suffer from a bad case of "tools gap", where there is really no reasonable framework for allowing the UI people to easily practice their craft. Since we can't count on an X server being present (either due to configuration hassles, non-support for a given card or other hardware issues), we need to have support for some kind of CUI paradigm which also doesn't lock us into CUI forever and make us look crude to those people who do have access to X displays and tools. We've talked plenty about various sorts of universal forms translators or HTML based approaches, but the fact remains that there are simply too few bodies willing or able to provide these tools. I also don't think that design is really the issue here since I'm pretty sure that we all basically know what we need and Windows, for better or for worse, has already shown us much of the way. We need a hardware configuration tool for configuring, creating and installing kernels. We need a user configuration tool for adding, deleting and otherwise managing user accounts and groups. We need a login configuration tool for setting desktop preferences, login defaults, quotas, etc. We need a network configuration tool for managing interfaces, DNS, routing, IP aliases, etc. We need a network services tool for turning services like telnet, rlogin, ssh, etc on and off and configuring their individual settings. We need a printer setup and queue management tool. I could go on, and these are just the work of about 2 minutes thought - if I really put my mind to it, I could probably list another 3 or 4 major categories in which we have no configuration coverage at all. :-) And tying all of this together, we need a hypertext help system (Hi John! :) which enables the user to actually find out how to drive all this crap. That's kind of why I like the idea of an HTML based tools, even with all the limitations of HTML - it lets you integrate the whole concept together at a level previously unheard of, basically. Also, every time this subject comes up, about 2 or 3 people pipe up unnecessarily saying "Argh!! Please don't remove the ascii configuration files, please please!" Relax, folks. Never in my wildest dreams have I ever conceived of adding such ease-of-use services on top at the expense of the mechanisms below, and I don't think that anyone else here has either. One of the big strengths of UNIX is that you can really get down into its guts and tweak it when you have to, rather than simply being left high and dry as you are with Windows ("No button for that, sorry!"). Nobody's talking about giving that up, simply automating the configuration process for those who wish it and putting a pretty face on the whole thing. However, there's just a lot of work there, plain and simple. We don't even have the tools for writing all those nice looking configuration screens yet, and we need to get that situation taken care of before any progress will ever be made in this area. Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 12:01:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA23510 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:01:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA23505 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:01:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id MAA25150; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:00:34 -0800 (PST) To: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au, keithl@wakko.gil.net, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel configuration In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 23:15:48 +0900." <199701221415.XAA24449@lenlen.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:00:33 -0800 Message-ID: <25146.853963233@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Still based on 2.2-BETA. The latest version is released on January > 12. I put the sources and binary images of this floppy at > > ftp://jaz.jp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD-jp/I18N-flp/release.I18N.tar.gz OK, I'm grabbing this to see how much divergence there's been in -current (a fair bit, unfortunately :-( ). > jaz is the new machine of jp.FreeBSD.org. It's "Japanese freefall" :-). Cool! Do the core team members also get accounts on it, just in case we're ever in Japan and need a place to read our email? :-) :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 12:30:05 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA25456 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:30:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA25410 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:29:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 0.56 #1) id E0vn9HM-00027s-00; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:28:16 -0700 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Subject: Re: Commerical applications Cc: John Fieber , Larry Lee , chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 11:53:55 PST." <25086.853962835@time.cdrom.com> References: <25086.853962835@time.cdrom.com> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:28:16 -0700 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <25086.853962835@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: : However, we still suffer from a bad case of "tools gap", where there : is really no reasonable framework for allowing the UI people to easily : practice their craft. Since we can't count on an X server being : present (either due to configuration hassles, non-support for a given : card or other hardware issues), The SVGA or VGA drivers will run on almost all hardware. Maybe not optimally, or at 1600x1200, but the X server can be made to run in that small a footprint. : I also don't think that design is really the issue here since I'm : pretty sure that we all basically know what we need and Windows, for : better or for worse, has already shown us much of the way. We need a : hardware configuration tool for configuring, creating and installing : kernels. We need a user configuration tool for adding, deleting and : otherwise managing user accounts and groups. We need a login : configuration tool for setting desktop preferences, login defaults, : quotas, etc. We need a network configuration tool for managing : interfaces, DNS, routing, IP aliases, etc. We need a network services : tool for turning services like telnet, rlogin, ssh, etc on and off and : configuring their individual settings. We need a printer setup and : queue management tool. I could go on, and these are just the work of : about 2 minutes thought - if I really put my mind to it, I could : probably list another 3 or 4 major categories in which we have no : configuration coverage at all. :-) All you need is a framework for describing what needs to be changed. The actual GUI from that point is fairly easy to do... : However, there's just a lot of work there, plain and simple. We don't : even have the tools for writing all those nice looking configuration : screens yet, and we need to get that situation taken care of before : any progress will ever be made in this area. That's true. Having done this stuff before, you really want to have a good set of meta data so that you can drive EVERYTHING in your build/configuration/etc world by that meta data. How you drive it isn't too interesting, since you can easily write something that groks X and another something that groks curses. Generally it is hard to write something that gorks both. Hacking out custom interfaces for each screen you want will likely doom this project to failure, or at least taking a really really long time. I just wish I had more time to devote to all of this. Sounds like a lot of fun. Warner From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 12:46:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA26353 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:46:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA26338 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:46:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id MAA25365; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:42:32 -0800 (PST) To: Warner Losh cc: John Fieber , Larry Lee , chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Commerical applications In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:28:16 MST." Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:42:31 -0800 Message-ID: <25361.853965751@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > : practice their craft. Since we can't count on an X server being > : present (either due to configuration hassles, non-support for a given > : card or other hardware issues), > > The SVGA or VGA drivers will run on almost all hardware. Maybe not > optimally, or at 1600x1200, but the X server can be made to run in > that small a footprint. You're forgetting serial consoles and machines with monochrome adaptors so funky that I doubt any reasonable X would run on them (don't laugh, I think freefall has one of these cards in it - it's a server machine with no need of a good gfx card). This is not to say that you have to bend over backwards to support such machines, simply that some alternative needs to be supplied if we're talking about something as critical as installation and basic configuration being drawn under the umbrella of this new system. > Having done this stuff before, you really want to have a good set of > meta data so that you can drive EVERYTHING in your > build/configuration/etc world by that meta data. How you drive it > isn't too interesting, since you can easily write something that groks > X and another something that groks curses. Generally it is hard to > write something that gorks both. Oh, I agree. That's made almost mandatory by the widely divergent nature of the underlying configuration files anyway. If I make a DNS auto-configurator, for example, you can bet that I don't want to put the code for groking named's configuration files into the configuration tool itself - that would be nightmarish. Rather, I write a single CLI based tool which implements an argument set from hell for frobbing DNS. Then everything else fronts for that tool and insulates the users from its devilish argument syntax. Even there, there's a fair bit of work just to be done in defining a CLI tool for every type of service you want an abstract interface for, but now that I think of it, perhaps that's not a bad place to start at all. We could put aside our GUI selection problems for the time being and just pile in on writing little `pw'-like tools for all the stuff we want to bring into the first version of the system. Once critical mass has been achieved there, I suspect that the front-end folks would start coming out of the woodwork and, in the short term, I could write some libdialog based stuff to handle our immediate proof-of-concept needs. What do people think? If this idea sounds promising, we could move on to the next step by making a list of all the configurators (I like that name :) we need to write and try to come up with some consistent standards for argument naming (e.g. all configurators accept ``--help'' for describing themselves, ``--fake'' to only pretend to do whatever it is they do, etc.). I'd be happy to help here. Jordan P.S. Is it time for us to move this over solely to config? I'm not sure if this is -chat material anymore. From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 13:29:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA28620 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:29:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA28614 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:29:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 0.56 #1) id E0vnAEX-0002Fm-00; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 14:29:25 -0700 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Subject: Re: Commerical applications Cc: config@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:42:31 PST." <25361.853965751@time.cdrom.com> References: <25361.853965751@time.cdrom.com> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 14:29:24 -0700 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <25361.853965751@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: : You're forgetting serial consoles and machines with monochrome : adaptors so funky that I doubt any reasonable X would run on them : (don't laugh, I think freefall has one of these cards in it - it's a : server machine with no need of a good gfx card). Those machines are very low in numbers, could be managed remotely, and should not set the direction for the nice looking project. While it would be nice to support them, I've seen enough cool MS installations to think that they should be second class citizens. I guess my comment was more by way of pointing out most systems can run X, so we should put the bulk of the efforts into that. This will likely be how people judge the product, so it should look the best it can. However, that said, there will be a need for something smaller. X is too big for floppies, and many small memory machines. There needs to be an alternative for these machines. That's why I was pushing the meta-data idea... : write a single CLI based tool which implements an argument set from : hell for frobbing DNS. Then everything else fronts for that tool and : insulates the users from its devilish argument syntax. Yes. Or have it just read from stdin rather than take args from the command line. : We could put aside our GUI selection problems for the time being : and just pile in on writing little `pw'-like tools for all the stuff : we want to bring into the first version of the system. Once critical : mass has been achieved there, I suspect that the front-end folks would : start coming out of the woodwork and, in the short term, I could write : some libdialog based stuff to handle our immediate proof-of-concept : needs. I like this idea. You'll likely want to have as much parsing done as possible in a common routine as well. 99% of system admin is database frobbing, abstracted out. You are adding something, or changing something or deleting something. A regular base to build from should recognize this and build from there.... : P.S. Is it time for us to move this over solely to config? : I'm not sure if this is -chat material anymore. Yes. Warner From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 13:59:53 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA00364 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:59:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from dns.pinpt.com (dns.pinpt.com [205.179.195.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA00343 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:59:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from journeyman (gatemaster.pinpt.com [205.179.195.65]) by dns.pinpt.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA26151; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:58:42 -0800 Date: Wed, 22 Jan 97 13:57:17 Pacific Standard Time From: "Sean J. Schluntz" Subject: Re: Commerical applications To: Warner Losh Cc: chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org X-Mailer: Chameleon ATX 6.0, Standards Based IntraNet Solutions, NetManage Inc. X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > In message <25086.853962835@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: > : However, we still suffer from a bad case of "tools gap", where there > : is really no reasonable framework for allowing the UI people to easily > : practice their craft. Since we can't count on an X server being > : present (either due to configuration hassles, non-support for a given > : card or other hardware issues), > > The SVGA or VGA drivers will run on almost all hardware. Maybe not > optimally, or at 1600x1200, but the X server can be made to run in > that small a footprint. "on almost all hardware". It won't work on my Firewall or on my mailserver. Neither have a monitor that can handle anything but text or CGA (Maybe). -Sean ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean J. Schluntz Manager, Support Services ph. 408.997.6900 x222 PinPoint Software Corporation fx. 408.323.2300 6155 Almaden Expressway, Suite 100 San Jose, CA. 95120 http://www.pinpt.com/ Local Time Sent: 01/22/97 13:57:17 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 14:17:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA01236 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 14:17:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA01224 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 14:16:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 0.56 #1) id E0vnAxf-0002LV-00; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 15:16:03 -0700 To: "Sean J. Schluntz" Subject: Re: Commerical applications Cc: chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 13:57:17 EST." References: Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 15:16:02 -0700 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message "Sean J. Schluntz" writes: : "on almost all hardware". It won't work on my Firewall or on my mailserver. : Neither have a monitor that can handle anything but text or CGA (Maybe). X will run in client mode on those. :-) However, they are good candiates for the curses version that would be needed as well. Like I said, I just wanted to point out that X isn't that hard to run on most hardware... While your hardware doesn't work, it isn't anywhere near the most common config. Warner From owner-freebsd-config Wed Jan 22 16:10:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA09534 for config-outgoing; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:10:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.31]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA09511; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 16:10:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id TAA16147; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 19:11:25 -0500 Received: by kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/4.0) id ; Wed, 22 Jan 1997 19:09:33 -0500 Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 19:09:33 -0500 Message-Id: <199701230009.TAA18836@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com CC: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp, keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <14442.853848804@time.cdrom.com> (jkh@time.cdrom.com) Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> No perl? I like it but I admit it's too fat :-) (my second favourite >> is C/Tk). > Well, I hate to admit that BSDI went the perl route and so far they > seem to really like it. They did, somehow, manage to get a kernel and > a single perl interpreter onto an installation floppy but damned if I > know how they did it. Perhaps they're using a specially hacked and > trimmed down version of perl, something which would be pretty evil > for us but is a *possibility* I suppose. :-) Although this is an HP9000 running an unknown version of perl: kropotkin$ ls -al perl -rwxrwxr-x 1 joelh staff 630784 Jan 22 19:04 perl kropotkin$ gzexe perl perl: 64.5% kropotkin$ ls -al perl -rwxrwxr-x 1 joelh staff 223980 Jan 22 19:05 perl > version which supports dynamic loading of modules is already in our > tree. To get that with PERL we'd have to import perl5 instead of > perl4, and that's a political battle which I don't care to fight at > this time at all. :-) Sorry, not with you. What are the issues? -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the FSF's, my employer's, or my dog's. Fourth law of computing: Anything that can go wro .signature: segmentation violation -- core dumped From owner-freebsd-config Thu Jan 23 17:12:00 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA27085 for config-outgoing; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:12:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA27078 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:11:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp [131.113.32.7]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with SMTP id RAA17120 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:11:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from hosokawa@localhost) by frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (8.6.12+2.4W/3.4Wbeta3) id KAA23012; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:09:30 +0900 Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:09:30 +0900 Message-Id: <199701240109.KAA23012@frig.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp> To: config@freebsd.org Cc: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp Subject: I'll release new I18N sysinstall today From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi) X-Mailer: mnews [version 1.18PL3] 1994-08/01(Mon) Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk This morning I find some minor problems in I18N sysinstall. I fix these bugs and release the new version today (or tomorrow). Sorry. From owner-freebsd-config Fri Jan 24 02:26:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA19917 for config-outgoing; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 02:26:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA19903; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 02:26:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id CAA18315; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 02:25:30 -0800 (PST) To: Michael Smith cc: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi), keithl@wakko.gil.net, chat@freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Jan 1997 12:21:34 +1030." <199701220151.MAA11082@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 02:25:30 -0800 Message-ID: <18310.854101530@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I really don't like that much. How about : > > # file : kern_options.kci > > option "DDB" { > description "Enables the kernel debugger" > manref "ddb(4)" > } > [ Other examples elided ] I like it! Who's gonna write the yacc specification! :-) Jordan From owner-freebsd-config Fri Jan 24 18:06:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA10435 for config-outgoing; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 18:06:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA10418 for ; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 18:06:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id VAA01179; Fri, 24 Jan 1997 21:05:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 21:05:31 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: Warner Losh cc: "Sean J. Schluntz" , chat@freefall.freebsd.org, config@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commerical applications In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-config@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Warner Losh wrote: > Like I said, I just wanted to point out that X isn't that hard to run > on most hardware... While your hardware doesn't work, it isn't > anywhere near the most common config. For new tools, it strikes me that the only one that *really* needs a decent text mode interface is the installation because everybody has to use it. For anything else, those who prefer vi are most certainly welcome to continue using it as they have since the beginning of time. -john