Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:58:02 +0100 From: Marco Steinbach <coco@executive-computing.de> To: John Hixson <jhixson@gmail.com> Cc: Garrett Cooper <yanegomi@gmail.com>, Bruce Cran <brucec@freebsd.org>, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, matt@ixsystems.com, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSDInstall: I want the bikeshed painted plaid Message-ID: <4D22D30A.2050606@executive-computing.de> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinPyKgQsyH4GeTGCUhFwyrYgBxtc9w-gsd%2BZ-wv@mail.gmail.com> References: <4D20C8BF.701@freebsd.org> <A8ADEA5D-DE5D-43EE-A123-364EB6593FEF@gmail.com> <29AA82C4-6301-4DCD-BC9D-423AD162998E@gmail.com> <4D20DDE4.8080306@freebsd.org> <AANLkTinPyKgQsyH4GeTGCUhFwyrYgBxtc9w-gsd%2BZ-wv@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
John Hixson wrote on 02.01.2011 22:51: > On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>wrote: > >> I spent a bunch of time looking at pc-sysinstall before starting to work on >> this. The major problem for non-x86 systems is that it heavily assumes that >> your disks are either MBR+bsdlabel or GPT. If you have anything different >> (APM, VTOC8, or even a raw bsdlabel or MBR installation on x86), it breaks >> in strange and fascinating ways due to a random mixture of if (scheme == >> MBR) else and if (scheme == GPT) else in the backend. Some of these are >> easily fixed, but it looked quite difficult to root out all of the places >> this assumption is made, not to mention teaching it about various styles of >> boot code, that the same partitioning scheme may need to be set up different >> ways on different architectures, etc. txt-sysinstall also segfaults when you >> try to run it on powerpc at the moment, though that is likely a simple bug >> and I didn't look into it in detail. >> >> What I intended with bsdinstall is to have something simple, flexible, and >> easily maintained that works immediately on all platforms and will be ready >> for 9.0 for sure. If pc-sysinstall materializes before then, or after then, >> and people like it better, I'm more than happy to get out of the way; this >> is the reason the wiki page is titled "Stopgap Installer". In the interim, I >> hoped to at least start laying out the hammer and nails next to sysinstall's >> coffin. >> -Nathan >> >> > I would be more than happy to help out with making pc-sysinstall work on > non-x86 systems, however I don't have access to any. Do any of you have > hardware that could possibly be used by interested parties? I'm sure all the > work that's gone into bsdinstall could be used in pc-sysinstall or vice > versa. I have PowerMacs (G3/G4) and Netras/Ultras (T1 105, U10, U5) at my discretion. I've never installed FreeBSD on any of them, but would be willing to give it a shot. I can provide serial console access to the Sparcs, but the PowerMacs supposedly need "hands on", which I can also provide. If there's interest, I humbly suggest discussing further details on the course of action at sysinstall@, to which I just subscribed. MfG CoCo
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4D22D30A.2050606>