Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:48:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Tim Clewlow <tim1timau@yahoo.com> To: David Naylor <blackdragon@highveldmail.co.za>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Project Ideas and a question Message-ID: <241790.26593.qm@web50301.mail.re2.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <200710130959.45183.blackdragon@highveldmail.co.za>
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--- David Naylor <blackdragon@highveldmail.co.za> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The question first: init does allow a chroot before booting the system
> however
> does it allow the first device to be unmounted and use the new chroot as the
> root device. If it does how can that be achieved.
>
> My motivation for this: Allow a USB device or CDROM to boot the system, then
> init running of the removable device to execute a script that will allow the
> system to be setup (such as configure devices, setup gdbe and geli, etc) then
>
> when init chroot's it unmounts the removable device and allows that device to
>
> be physically removed.
>
> I have some project ideas (due to lack of technical skills I can not pursue
> them at this time but that is no reason not to share :-). If someone thinks
> an idea is a good one could you please add it to the appropriate location
> (the volunteer projects page???). My ideas:
>
> 1) Automatic module loading. Create a discovery system that upon identifying
>
> hardware that a module supports, loads the module. This would probably be a
> user-land implementation?
> Motivation: Additional ease of use (especially with sound)
>
> 2) Automatic kernel customisation. A tool that builds a custom kernel with
> all the devices for the current system builtin and with everything not needed
>
> removed.
> Motivation: Take the hard work out of building a custom kernel]
>
> 3) If question above is not implemented than add to idea list...
>
> Feedback is welcome. Thank you for listening to me.
>
> David
Hello David,
These all sound like great ideas, however they may have a better chance of
being implemented on one of the sibling versions of FreeBSD, ie "Desktop BSD"
or "PC BSD". These offerings have already made quite large steps in regard to
automating the installation of a BSD system. The general aim is to make it as
easy as possible for someone unfamiliar with BSD to install a desktop, ie so it
can compete with other desktop operating systems that are already very easy to
install.
By contrast, the native version of FreeBSD is put to many uses, often not
involving a desktop, eg servers, routers, embedded systems. The ability to
customize/tune pretty much all of the kernel/world is what makes this possible.
And so having an automated installation would have to be unbelievably
intelligent, and complicated, in order to cater for all these possibilities.
Lastly, keep going with the new ideas, they are always welcome. Perhaps you may
want to send them to questions@freebsd.org as this would seem to be more
appropriate for initial ideas postings - and more people will see them as well
:-)
Kind Regards, Tim.
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