From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 30 19:27:39 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 314F1106564A for ; Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:27:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dieterbsd@engineer.com) Received: from mailout-us.gmx.com (mailout-us.gmx.com [74.208.5.67]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id CAF058FC08 for ; Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:27:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 24881 invoked by uid 0); 30 Apr 2011 19:27:37 -0000 Received: from 67.206.161.16 by rms-us012.v300.gmx.net with HTTP Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:27:35 +0000 From: "Dieter BSD" Message-ID: <20110430192737.287270@gmx.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Authenticated: #74169980 X-Flags: 0001 X-Mailer: GMX.com Web Mailer x-registered: 0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-GMX-UID: zQvZDFkE23y0M0bkHGFoudhudmllcgUP Subject: Re: [RELEASE] New Boot-Loader Menu X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:27:39 -0000 [ attempt #2 - grumble - sorry about the blank message, hope it works this time - grumble- ] > I hope that works for serial console.  VT100 may be a reasonable > default in that case, but it would be good to make sure that menu > works even on a dumb terminal. Perhaps we should put 'key' letter > in brackets then? This needs to work, correctly, everywhere.  This needs to be easy to understand by a stressed out user whose machine is having problems. Therefore: Thou shalt not assume graphics. Thou shalt not assume color. Thou shalt not assume VT100 or any specific terminal. Thou shalt not assume ability to display bold. Thou shalt not assume ability to underline text. Thou shalt not assume availability of multiple fonts. Thou shalt not assume more than 24x80 chars. Thou shalt not assume scrollback. Thou shalt not assume fancy cursor movements. Thou shalt not assume presence of function keys. Thou shalt not assume presence of arrow keys. Thou shalt not assume a fast interface. Thou shalt not assume the three-finger-salute works. Putting brackets around letters (and numbers) sounds good. If there is room, perhaps add a message explaining that the user should enter one of the choices in brackets. A help option would be useful, giving a reminder of what things like ACPI and APIC stand for, what "safe" mode does, etc. Would be nice: "uname -v" of the kernel it will boot. Would be nice: a user friendly way to boot from a different disk/partition/kernel.  Without the user having to know the mapping between what the firmware calls disks and what FreeBSD calls disks.  And without writing anything to disk. Would be nice: a fix for having to lean on a key autorepeating for a couple seconds.