Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 13:25:43 -0800 From: John Hixson <jhixson@gmail.com> To: Marco Steinbach <coco@executive-computing.de> Cc: Garrett Cooper <yanegomi@gmail.com>, Bruce Cran <brucec@freebsd.org>, john@ixsystems.com, 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: <AANLkTikT891Z-kY33iU08zo%2BFOpH4B=cFtER%2Bx_jVFyZ@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4D22D30A.2050606@executive-computing.de> 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> <4D22D30A.2050606@executive-computing.de>
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On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Marco Steinbach < coco@executive-computing.de> wrote: > 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. > > I just subscribed to sysinstall@. I'd be happy to help starting out on the sparcs. I have no experience whatsoever on powermac, but it sounds fun ;-). - John
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