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Date:      Wed, 9 Jul 2008 15:06:33 -0700
From:      "Freddie Cash" <fjwcash@gmail.com>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years
Message-ID:  <b269bc570807091506s4176e0f7mfcedeecaaa81e841@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <487380FA.6080004@wubethiopia.com>
References:  <784966050807021123l267aa20en39eb513c12c90ad2@mail.gmail.com> <20080702235800.H47773@fledge.watson.org> <486C8700.5020100@lobraun.de> <20080703092511.T69986@fledge.watson.org> <486F8C57.9050908@wubethiopia.com> <b269bc570807071155u364225dfi298be797b728dca4@mail.gmail.com> <20080707213625.69bb0bf4@soralx> <487380FA.6080004@wubethiopia.com>

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On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:00 AM, Mike Makonnen <mtm@wubethiopia.com> wrote:
> soralx@cydem.org wrote:
>>> Hear, hear!  To be honest, this is the only bit about the current
>>> sysinstall that I really dislike:  the fact that it can be used for
>>> post-installation configuration and package installation.  This causes
>>> no end of trouble for newbies, who seem to view sysinstall as "The One
>>> True System Admin Tool" and try to use it for configuring/installing
>>> everything.  Too many times, on various BSD forums, I've had to walk
>>> people through cleaning up /etc/rc.conf and showing them how to
>>> correctly install/configure things (using standard FreeBSD tools),
>>> since they used sysinstall for everything.
>>
>> That may be true, but sysinstall did help me do basic, essentical
>> configuration of my very first installed system, and a few installs after
>> that (until I learned about /etc/rc.conf et al). And I never regarded it
>> as The One True Sysadmin Tool, because I did not use Linux distros, thus
>> never got used to their ways. It's just that the simple configuration menu
>> really helped me to get a useful system running in a few minutes (though menu
>> items certainly could make use of more verbose descriptions). And then I could
>> play with the working system and learn ways to configure it.
>>
>> So, IMHO, a basic curses system configuration utility is still needed, and
>> should be run after sysinstall or it should tell the user how to run it
>> (maybe in motd, or sysinstall itself?).
>
> Yes, I agree that such a tool is useful, but it does not belong in the
> installer. In fact, the BSD Installer framework can be used here also to
> separate the implementation details from the user interface.

Exactly.

There's nothing wrong with having an TUI/GUI for configuring
/etc/rc.conf, or ports, or whatever.  And there are pointers to the
handbook and man pages in the default motd, so one can learn to do it
manually via a text editor.

All I'm saying is that a generic system configuration tool should not
be an integral part of the installer (and all mentions of sysinstall,
IMO, should be removed from the default motd).  They are separate
tasks.
-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash@gmail.com



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