Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:33:39 -0500 From: R.Lockhart <gnoman@pangea.ca> To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: Installation Review Message-ID: <01041511383300.12108@>
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Installation of FreeBSD 4.1 2001/04/15 Richard Lockhart Winnipeg, MB gnoman@pangea.ca This is my experience/review of the installation. I hope it is useful. system: i586, 133Mh, 64MB system memory, mouse connected to serial port, CDROM drive, two IDE hard drives, the first 1.2 GB (master) devoted to OS/2 v.4, the second 6 GB (slave) intended for FreeBSD exclusively. Purpose: general - single user, wordprocessing, internet access, email Experience: sucessful installs of MSDOS (3.2, 6.1), Windows (3.1, 95), OS/2 (2.1, 4), Slackware 3.2, Redhat 5.1, SuSE 6.1, Caldera 2.4. Why I am converting to FreeBSD: Sick of installation problems (library conflicts/missing dependencies) under Linux. Principal suggestion: Simplify the Kernel Configuration and Partion Editor/Disklabel Editor screens. Other suggestions: 1. Make the manual included with the distribution a loose-leaf package with a suitably-sized and decorated three-ring binder. The "book" would be a set of three-holed pages in shrink-wrap. The user could put the pages in the binder himself. Updates and errata corrections become much easier and simpler. The package need not be opened, just ship a seperate envelope containing the changes/corrections with the package. 2. For new users, the strategy of doing a express-minimal practice installation while taking detailed side notes might help. It did for me. After all, you only have to get it right the last time. 3. Put more information on the screen with the selection screens. Put a helpful (short but not terse) explanation on the screen and an expanded version in the Help. 4. Let the user know when he's finished. Circling back to the first screen is not obvious. Giving the option of restarting is good, but that could be an option on a "You're almost finished" screen. 5. Include an installation stream optimized for installation on two hard drives. Or, more generally, have a prequalify section where the installer states the general condition of the machine into which he is installing. The installation could then be optimized for some common sets. Generally, this was the most confusing install I have encountered yet. (Slackware 3.2 I got on the second try.) My first attempt was a complete blowout, I quit partway through the fdisk program, completely baffled. Two days later I tried again. Although seemingly successful, I was unable to boot the system. I found little information in The Complete FreeBSD for installing on two hard drives. Information listed on p. 101 of The Complete FreeBSD for correcting boot failure proved incomplete. I was unable to correctly decipher the usage chart that results from entering "disklabel -B". To this date, I cannot seem to get disklabel to read the first disk (formatted HPFS on drives C: and D:, FAT on drive E:). disklabel ad1 returns a truckload of information about my second drive but disklabel ad0 (or ad0s1 or ad0s0, etc) returns disklabel: ioctl DIOCGDINFO: Invalid arguement. disklabel -B ad0 should have fixed it in the first place but I got tangled up with the option switches. IMHO the installation is easy but only after the first two portions have been finished. Dumping a new user into kernel configuration and a detailed fdisk (in two parts, and one that refers to partitions as "slices" and "partitions" and "disklabels") is going to lose a lot of new users. I restarted the next day with the strategy of doing only a minimal installation while writing detailed side notes of every step. An express install with minimal installation is sufficiently light on time to repeat. After the second minimum install I felt I had it down and went through it with a standard install and extensive package selection. It is currently what I am using while writing this. I am convinced that detailed step-by-step explanations are required, far from what is in the Handbook. My principal complaint about the online installation help (as well as in The Complete FreeBSD) is the tendency to skip between subjects. This makes the explanation complete but both much longer and much more difficult to comprehend than a shorter version. I do not wish to be too critical, writing only what is required, but not less, is a fine art. The Kernel Configuration Menu (KCM) contains a lot of fields, how many of them are really necessary? Simplify this screen at lot. The notion of "conflicts" that are actually only potential "conflicts" is confusing. The idea of moving the unneeded devices to an "inactive" list is still not clear to me. Why did I see lists of devices that are not on my machine? The only "conflicts" listed were 8 varieties of lan boards. Since I have no lan connection, I deleted them all. I noticed just before I "inactivated" the final lan board, a "conflict" flag still showed. If it was the only one left, what was it conflicting with? (Minor point, but anything that contributes to confusion also contributes to the Anxiety Level.) I also removed the active listing for SCSI drivers and the PS/2 mouse port, since these are not present on my antique. Even if I had needed to modify some settings, I wouldn't have known what to put in. Addresses, interupts, DMA's and whatever else are for hackers, not the likes of me. Main Install Menu (MIM) - I picked Express here for my trial installs, Standard for the "real" one. Select Drives Menu (SDM) - shows: [ ] ad0 ad0 [ ] ad1 ad1 why the repetition? spacebar selects ad0: Fdisk Partition Editor (FPE) (shouldn't it be Fdisk Slice Editor?). This is part one of a two part fdisk program. I have flailed my way through DOS, OS/2 and Linux variations of fdisk and they were all confusing. This one added a new twist with the two part strategy. Although I finally understood it, it had me stumped at first. Entries shown here were ad0s1 and ad0s2, the primary and logical partitions of the master drive. At first I thought it was showing both drives. And what are the two extras, unassigned at top and bottom? More confusion. What's an offset? Do I really need to be concerned with it? And if I were what could I do about it here? Again, it would be much better to simplify this screen to only what is absolutely necessary. The psychology of trying to take in information that I cannot understand put me into Anxiety Level Overpeak (ALO) here during the first (aborted) installation attempt. Correct is simply q to quit without changes (this is my OS/2 installation not a partition, no touch!). The Help screen says I am expected to leave this screen with at least one slice marked "FreeBSD", which is wrong. I am installing on two hard drives, the first of which will never show FreeBSD. Help screen, p. 2 - "i.e. the information in the FDISK table should be kept valid." What on earth does that mean? Install Boot Manager for drive ad0? Yes. [*] Back to SDM, arrow down to ad1, spacebar. FPE again. Correct is A, use entire disk, delete and change entries until I have what I think will work, though for the dry runs auto-partition would be good enough. Is this not a dedicated disk? Should it be marked bootable? Reserving a portion for a MBR is irrelevant, here. User Confirmation Requested "(See also the section about "dangerously dedicated" disks in the FreeBSD FAQ.)" Now you tell me! (This would be a good place to include more onscreen information.) Select No. Yes will also work but I'll get an extra request to install the boot manager on the slave drive, which would be confusing (until I figure out that it's idiotic). q to finish. Back to SDM, now both drives show selected [*]. Is this right? In the end I understood that it was. Select Drives - "Please select the drive, or drives, on which you wish to perform this operation." And the exact operation that I am agreeing to perform would be...? I experienced an Anxiety Level Repeak here. (ALR) What exactly am I signing up for here? I sure didn't want to step on my OS/2 installation. The F1 key here is inoperative. I said a little prayer and picked OK. FreeBSD Disklabel Editor (FDE) (Partition Editor, shouldn't it be? I didn't see any label editing happening here.) At first I was confused because I did not understand that "initialized" was the same as "formated". Newfs? The Help here was rather long and did not seem (IMHO) as well organized as could be. Having been through several versions of fdisk in the past, I found this screen almost comfortable. But I am certain that users who lack experience would have no clue what they were doing and would likely experience ALO. During my second dry run install, I choose User Confirmation = Yes (retain compatability). I then was unable to set the final partition to the full value remaining, it showed 2002MB free but would only allow me to set it to 1980MB as the largest value. This was confusing but did not happen when I choose User Confirmation = No (dedicated use). I presume this has something to do with preserving space for other systems. final install sizes: / 70MB /swap 160MB /var 200MB /usr 3760MB /home 1997MB q to finish. Choose Distributions, Install from CDROM. Make file systems, extract into /bin. A different User Confirmation Requested - "Visit the general configuration menu for a chance to set any last options." Good idea, set the printer, whatever else was not set correctly yet. X Exit returns one to the MIM. Huh? Seems like I'm not making any progress here. Am I supposed to start all over again? Dumb question maybe, but it was not obvious at first that I was supposed to exit the Install program. One last User Confirmaton Request, pull the floppy and reboot! Boot prompt now shows: F2 = Windows NT (not, but it does boot to OS/2) F5 = drive 1 (boots to FreeBSD) default F1 (I don't think so, pressing F1 does nothing at all.) I am now in possession of a spanking new FreeBSD system and still have my fallback OS/2 in a healthy state. <o> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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