Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 22:22:08 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> To: Shawn Webb <lattera@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Devin Teske <dteske@vicor.com>, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap Message-ID: <4D5F4570.7090507@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTik3sRNhu9YM68d5z8GYsrzPn8VWC11QSHNmHDSi@mail.gmail.com> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <4D5E945F.60106@freebsd.org> <61079648-D76C-4699-AC4D-F6EBE64ABFFC@vicor.com> <AANLkTik3sRNhu9YM68d5z8GYsrzPn8VWC11QSHNmHDSi@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 02/18/11 22:11, Shawn Webb wrote: >> There are many reasons for this, and none of them are selfish (although it >> remains possible to drum-up some selfish reason, all of the reasons behind >> our motivation are in-fact unselfish). Truth-be-told, I welcome the >> replacement of sysinstall but am very wary that ANY replacement will be able >> to exactly replicate the hardware compatibility that sysinstall currently >> enjoys. I do indeed envision a great celebration as FreeBSD-9 bucks >> sysinstall but also at the same time have nightmares of receiving waves of >> calls from people having trouble (for example) "installing FreeBSD-9 on >> their AMD K6 based system, circa long-long-ago in a universe far-far-away." >> (yes, we do have data centers running that very equipment with uptime in the >> 1,000's of days). >> > I'm sure I'm not fully aware of the situation at your data center, but would > systems that have 1,000+ day uptimes be candidates for upgrade to FreeBSD 9? > It seems that if a system has that kind of uptime, it's a high priority > server and uptime needs to be maintained. > > Maybe it would be possible to have both sysinstall and bsdinstall on the > same install medium? It may. If it is possible without enormous difficulty, this is something that should certainly be in place for 9.0. If it isn't possible, it may be a good idea to provide a second set of media with sysinstall for those who want it. I think that in any case, it is extremely unlikely that sysinstall will be entirely disconnected from the build before the release. As regards the original posting, I totally share Devin's concern about wide hardware compatibility, including with very old hardware, and wish him the best of luck with sysinstall life support! As for bsdinstall, I have taken a substantial amount of effort to ensure that bsdinstall work on older hardware (I have tested it on a VT220 at 9600 baud connected to a 13-year-old Sun Ultra 5) and would regard it failing in any way on any hardware on which FreeBSD will boot as a serious bug. -Nathan
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4D5F4570.7090507>