From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 8 05:37:26 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF27D106567E; Tue, 8 Jul 2008 05:37:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from pd4mo3so.prod.shaw.ca (idcmail-mo1so.shaw.ca [24.71.223.10]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA33B8FC1D; Tue, 8 Jul 2008 05:37:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from pd4mr2so.prod.shaw.ca (pd4mr2so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.213]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0K3O007A67GQQ7C0@l-daemon>; Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:36:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pn2ml10so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.80]) by pd4mr2so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-7.05 (built Sep 5 2006)) with ESMTP id <0K3O00FH37GQZD70@pd4mr2so.prod.shaw.ca>; Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:36:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: from soralx ([24.87.3.133]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0K3O003IO7GP2G70@l-daemon>; Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:36:25 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:36:25 -0700 From: soralx@cydem.org In-reply-to: To: fjwcash@gmail.com Message-id: <20080707213625.69bb0bf4@soralx> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.3.1 (GTK+ 2.12.9; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit References: <784966050807021123l267aa20en39eb513c12c90ad2@mail.gmail.com> <20080702235800.H47773@fledge.watson.org> <486C8700.5020100@lobraun.de> <20080703092511.T69986@fledge.watson.org> <486F8C57.9050908@wubethiopia.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:37:26 -0000 > Hear, hear! To be honest, this is the only bit about the current > sysinstall that I really dislike: the fact that it can be used for > post-installation configuration and package installation. This causes > no end of trouble for newbies, who seem to view sysinstall as "The One > True System Admin Tool" and try to use it for configuring/installing > everything. Too many times, on various BSD forums, I've had to walk > people through cleaning up /etc/rc.conf and showing them how to > correctly install/configure things (using standard FreeBSD tools), > since they used sysinstall for everything. That may be true, but sysinstall did help me do basic, essentical configuration of my very first installed system, and a few installs after that (until I learned about /etc/rc.conf et al). And I never regarded it as The One True Sysadmin Tool, because I did not use Linux distros, thus never got used to their ways. It's just that the simple configuration menu really helped me to get a useful system running in a few minutes (though menu items certainly could make use of more verbose descriptions). And then I could play with the working system and learn ways to configure it. So, IMHO, a basic curses system configuration utility is still needed, and should be run after sysinstall or it should tell the user how to run it (maybe in motd, or sysinstall itself?). > IMO, the installer should allow you to partition the disk(s), format > the partition(s), install the OS, configure a user, and reboot the > system. Anything beyond that should be handled by the OS tools, from > within the installed and running OS. > > The tricky part will be getting the disk slicing, slice partitioning, > and filesystem formatting to work reliably, with all the power of > FreeBSD's GEOM modules, and ZFS. [SorAlx] ridin' VS1400