From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 2 21:20:48 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id VAA12191 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 21:20:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from dg-rtp.dg.com (dg-rtp.rtp.dg.com [128.222.1.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA12176 for ; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 21:20:43 -0800 (PST) Received: by dg-rtp.dg.com (5.4R3.10/dg-rtp-v02) id AA01375; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 00:20:09 -0500 Received: from ponds by dg-rtp.dg.com.rtp.dg.com; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 00:20 EST Received: from lakes (lakes [192.96.3.39]) by ponds.UUCP (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id OAA08150; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:19:36 -0500 Received: (from rivers@localhost) by lakes (8.6.12/8.6.9) id OAA13264; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:26:26 -0500 Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:26:26 -0500 From: Thomas David Rivers Message-Id: <199601021926.OAA13264@lakes> To: gid.co.uk!rb@dg-rtp.dg.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: X for install Cc: hasty@rah.star-gate.com Content-Type: text Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk I'm jumping in the middle of this discussion, but I thought it would be worthwhile to echo Bob Bishop's sentiments. I'm one of the people who would be happy with a shell script or two and leave it at that; but I can handle the current installation problems (as long as I get the opportunity to address the problems.) I install FreeBSD on several types of machines; some of which would not tolerate bringing up X just to get an install completed. I like the idea of abstracting the interface specification so that either an X install, or a scripty/menu install (as we now have) can be performed; and I point at DG/UX's system maintenance mechansisms as an example of how to do that. The task of producing an interpreted language that either draws boxs with X or curses, or direct PC writes isn't that difficult (particularly in the presence of libforms) - can we consider that approach? - Dave Rivers -