From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 26 02:58:54 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2129F486 for ; Sun, 26 May 2013 02:58:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Devin.Teske@fisglobal.com) Received: from mx1.fisglobal.com (mx1.fisglobal.com [199.200.24.190]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E4731401 for ; Sun, 26 May 2013 02:58:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.fisglobal.com ([10.132.206.17]) by ltcfislmsgpa02.fnfis.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id r4Q2weot018082 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT); Sat, 25 May 2013 21:58:40 -0500 Received: from LTCFISWMSGMB26.FNFIS.com ([10.132.99.18]) by LTCFISWMSGHT06.FNFIS.com ([10.132.206.17]) with mapi id 14.02.0309.002; Sat, 25 May 2013 21:58:40 -0500 From: "Teske, Devin" To: "" Subject: Re: FreeBSD installers and future direction Thread-Topic: FreeBSD installers and future direction Thread-Index: AQHOWV60z6k72swSkkmGANUzy/EMLJkWZ1wAgACzkIA= Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 02:58:40 +0000 Message-ID: <13CA24D6AB415D428143D44749F57D7201F5B088@ltcfiswmsgmb26> References: <51A0DC3F.9030301@cran.org.uk> In-Reply-To: Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-originating-ip: [10.132.253.126] Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-ID: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.10.8626, 1.0.431, 0.0.0000 definitions=2013-05-25_07:2013-05-24,2013-05-25,1970-01-01 signatures=0 Cc: Bruce Cran , "" , "Teske, Devin" , Kris Moore X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: Devin Teske List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 02:58:54 -0000 On May 25, 2013, at 9:15 AM, Matt Olander wrote: > On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Bruce Cran 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.