From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jul 10 6:52:58 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mail.the-i-pa.com (mail.the-i-pa.com [151.201.71.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 166F937B405 for ; Tue, 10 Jul 2001 06:52:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@iowna.com) Received: (qmail 18768 invoked from network); 10 Jul 2001 14:02:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO iowna.com) (151.201.71.193) by mail.the-i-pa.com with SMTP; 10 Jul 2001 14:02:10 -0000 Message-ID: <3B4B07DE.4801D208@iowna.com> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:49:18 -0400 From: Bill Moran X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Wes Peters Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Mall now BSDCentral References: <20010706144935.A61843@xor.obsecurity.org> <3B4650D0.97F10B83@bellatlantic.net> <20010707002340.B16071@widomaker.com> <20010707004731V.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <3B49F8D5.2C9BFA73@mindspring.com> <3B4A0124.26025FB5@iowna.com> <3B4A1423.E8E365E@mindspring.com> <86ofqth6p3.fsf@hades.hell.gr> <3B4A7D9C.A64230D9@softweyr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Wes Peters wrote: > Oh, come now. FreeBSD's disk partitioning has always sucked. It does suck > somewhat less than many Linux linstallers, and a lot less than the OpenBSD > installer, but it still shoves way too many details and options at the > average user. Something akin to PartitionMagic would be an ideal way to go, > given unlimited resources to throw against this particular problem. Now, I've never used partition magic, but I (personally) find the FreeBSD partition program in sysinstall to be the easiest one I've ever used. What should be changed to make it easier? > The main problem with sysinstall all along has been that it is a one-off > program. There is no glitz in writing installers, and they're only used > once, then rarely if ever again. I disagree. I use sysinstall constantly. There's no easier way to install packages. I also direct newbies to use sysinstall to tweak parameters and install software. Especially on my home desktop system where I'm constantly installing/uninstalling software. As previously stated, I find the partitioning a perfect combination of easy to use/easy to control that I almost always use it when adding disks. While I won't disagree that there are things in sysinstall that can be improved (for example, you seem to get lost in menus at times) I don't think it should ever be pawned off as something that a user only sees once. Lurk -questions for a while and see how often a newbie is directed back to sysinstall to correct something or install a package. > OTOH, if you really want to take a stab at a FreeBSD problem that will > make you famous should you succeed, we'd all like to see a lovely, simple > installer that will run on both direct attached VGA and a serial console, > is lovely and well thought out, and intuitive to use. Extra points if you > can run it over X across the network. Obviously, these improvements would be good. -Bill To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message