Date: Fri, 30 Jan 98 15:19:00 PST From: Adam Turoff <AdamT@smginc.com> To: "'mike@smith.net.au'" <mike@smith.net.au>, Karl Pielorz <kpielorz@tdx.co.uk> Cc: hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, config <config@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD updated Installation / Adminsitration Kit Message-ID: <34D25FB6@smginc.com>
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Mike writes: > > 1. We write something that will 'install' FreeBSD with emphasis on ease of > > use, size, and the fact it will run very nicely on FreeBSD and let people > > install it (I hate to use the words 'Like windows 95'). > > Get over it. Microsoft spent gobs of money coming up with a set of > rules that result in an interface that's easy to use. There's nothing > dishonourable in stealing their ideas. After all, they stole most of their ideas, anyway. :-) [bobbit] > > 3. We write something that tries to accomplish both the above, hopefully not > > causing too many compromises. > > This would be a major layering mistake. I don't know about that. There are two interrelated issues here, as you point out. First, we need a virgin installer to get FreeBSD on new hardware. That should leave a system that can be admined by something more friendly than cryptic UNIX commands documented over $100 worth of O'Reilly titles. THAT will help evangelize FreeBSD IMNSHO. Here's the way I see it, as concisely as possible: improve sysinstall, and leave that config available for later allow a system to be reconfiged later with good tools prevent tool-implementation lock in by allowing multiple tools to do the day-to-day admin, local or remote In short, sysinstall and/or it's successor should dovetail nicely with some new config framework, probably using LDAP. > You haven't played with juliet yet: > ftp://ftp.gsoft.com.au/misc/juliet.tar.gz I plead guilt to that charge as well. :-) > The name parsing will probably change in order to fit into the > Distinguished Name schema that LDAP uses, but the basically modular and > method-based design will remain. > > With a little tinkering this will let people write backend modules in > almost any language they like. I know it works with Tcl and C > (although I removed the shared library code for rework), Perl would be > a trivial addition, etc. This is along the lines of what I'm seeing as well. It's just that I tend not to put the letters L, D, A and P together in a sentence. > > SO - Yet again, I'm asking: > > > > a) Who's up for this? > > Yes. Ditto. > > b) How do we get organized? (Divide and conquer always seems to work for me > > <g>) > > If I may make a suggestion; given that I'm claiming the installer, I > would recommend that you look at the umich LDAP server > (/usr/ports/net/ldap) and juliet, and start making rude remarks about > the module interface for the backend. OK. > Read Netscape's LDAP developer pages, and work out how to talk to an > LDAP server from Netscape. Start thinking (and talking) about how to > tie all this together. OK. I did this in August, and barely made heads or tails out of it. What I got out of it was this: LDAP, like XML and SQL is an enabling standard that makes complex things simpler and more approachable. Is that a good soundbite definition? > And subscribe (and post) to config@freebsd.org. OK. I'll start here. :-) -- Adam.
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