Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 02:58:40 +0000 From: "Teske, Devin" <Devin.Teske@fisglobal.com> To: "<matt@ixsystems.com>" <matt@ixsystems.com> Cc: Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>, "<freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>" <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>, "Teske, Devin" <Devin.Teske@fisglobal.com>, Kris Moore <kris@pcbsd.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD installers and future direction Message-ID: <13CA24D6AB415D428143D44749F57D7201F5B088@ltcfiswmsgmb26> In-Reply-To: <CAK6u07WDZrWU4dnrBzQGYf%2BpbmibK7KxSUZyvie8jJQ1SMODuw@mail.gmail.com> References: <51A0DC3F.9030301@cran.org.uk> <CAK6u07WDZrWU4dnrBzQGYf%2BpbmibK7KxSUZyvie8jJQ1SMODuw@mail.gmail.com>
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On May 25, 2013, at 9:15 AM, Matt Olander wrote: > On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> wrote: >>=20 >> I heard there was some discussion at BSDCan about the direction of a fut= ure FreeBSD installer. Considering we currently have bsdinstall, pc-sysins= tall, and an effort to revive sysinstall, I'd be interested to know what wa= s decided (if anything) and whether I could help make progress towards gett= ing a single really good installer/frontend - instead of the current situat= ion with several, none of which have a much-needed UI for setting up an ins= tallation on ZFS. >=20 > Hey Bruce, >=20 > From my vague recollection, we discussed improving bsdinstall by tying > it in with pc-sysinstall, which we've been threatening to do for at > least a year. Also, there was much discussion about Devin's bsdconfig > perhaps tying in with a Google SoC Project. >=20 There is indeed a GSoC project to address the situation w/regard to install= ers. The GSoC project is one submitted by Harsh Bhatt and I've submitted that I = wish to Mentor. The project is titled: "Making pc-sysinstall FreeBSD ready by porting it to multiple architectures" The project is designed as such to increase possibilities w/respect to inst= allers. To elaborate=85 Integrating bsdinstall with pc-sysinstall would introduce a regression beca= use bsdinstall currently supports all platforms, whereas pc-sysinstall has = hard-coded assumptions specific to the x86 platform (i386 and amd64 include= d). If bsdinstall was ever going to be programmed to use pc-sysinstall as a= back-end, pc-sysinstall would have to be cleaned up. I'm in no way pushing to integrate bsdinstall with pc-sysinstall=85 but I *= am* saying this is a GSoC project to look out for. The goal of the project = is to see if it is even possible to remedy any possibility that tying bsdin= stall to pc-sysinstall would introduce a regression in platform support. If= the project is successful, PC-BSD should be able to immediately benefit fr= om the fruits thereof (as -- correct me if I'm wrong -- the graphical PC-BS= D installer uses pc-sysinstall as a back-end). ASIDE: For what it's worth, it's somewhat convenient to think that in a sim= ple world -- because pc-sysinstall is already the backend of the PC-BSD GUI= installer -- FreeBSD would have bsdinstall as the TUI front-end to the sam= e back-end. But however, I'm not na=EFve and can't imagine that as being cl= ean or elegant unless we can clean up pc-sysinstall. Cleaning up the code i= s a another major focal-point of the aforementioned GSoC project. With respect to my bsdconfig=85 (how it relates to installers) Just as there were blockers preventing pc-sysinstall from being integrated = into bsdinstall. There are blockers that prevent bsdinstall from being integrated into the l= arger bsdconfig framework. In the case of pc-sysinstall integrating to bsdinstall, pc-sysinstall doesn= 't support all the target architectures that bsdinstall does. Meanwhile, in= the case of bsdinstall integrating into bsdconfig, bsdinstall doesn't supp= ort all the features of bsdconfig. Luckily, introduction of most features to bring bsdinstall on-par with bsdc= onfig will be easy as we can just make bsdinstall use the subroutine includ= es from bsdconfig. However, there are other things that just can't be done = without plain sweat and labor=85 For example, making bsdinstall i18n-ready (as bsdconfig is). I expect this = to take (with a medium effort) a week or two, aided by the fact that the di= alog(1) abstraction API offered by bsdconfig makes most of that transparent= (for example, you don't have to worry about whether the "Yes" button says = "Ja", "Oui", or "Yes" -- you just call f_dialog_yesno() and it worried abou= t how to call dialog(1) to form the proper i18n-compatible prompt). Another big change to bsdinstall would be to make it *more* modular and rew= rite the C components to be in sh. > I think Devin was nominated for most of the work, since he was unable > to defend himself :P >=20 I don't mind being volunteered. In earnest, I figure the code I'm working o= n is volunteering enough. --=20 Devin _____________ The information contained in this message is proprietary and/or confidentia= l. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (i) delete the message an= d all copies; (ii) do not disclose, distribute or use the message in any ma= nner; and (iii) notify the sender immediately. In addition, please be aware= that any message addressed to our domain is subject to archiving and revie= w by persons other than the intended recipient. Thank you.
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