From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 20 23:54:20 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4362B106566B; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:54:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nwhitehorn@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [128.104.255.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 065CB8FC18; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:54:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 608555811E; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:54:19 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at icecube.wisc.edu Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10030) with ESMTP id wi6Ly7mJ9TgO; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:54:19 -0600 (CST) Received: from comporellon.tachypleus.net (adsl-76-208-68-88.dsl.mdsnwi.sbcglobal.net [76.208.68.88]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4CDC58133; Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:54:18 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4D38CB29.2030601@freebsd.org> Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:54:17 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101214 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Garrett Cooper References: <4D309563.1000404@freebsd.org> <4D38AB1F.8090308@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: David Demelier , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSDInstall: merging to HEAD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:54:20 -0000 On 01/20/11 17:44, Garrett Cooper wrote: > On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 1:37 PM, David Demelier > wrote: >> On 14/01/2011 19:26, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: >>> As those of you who have been reading freebsd-sysinstall and >>> freebsd-arch know, I have been working for a few weeks on a lightweight >>> new installer named 'bsdinstall'. This is designed to replace sysinstall >>> for the 9.0 release. >>> >>> After two weeks of testing and bug fixes on the sysinstall list, I >>> believe this now has all required functionality and is ready to be >>> merged into the main source tree. I would like to do this on Tuesday, 18 >>> January. Switching this to be the default installer would happen a few >>> weeks after that, pending discussion on release formats with the release >>> engineering team. This should provide a sufficient testing period before >>> 9.0 and allow a maximal number of bugs to be discovered and solved >>> before the release is shipped. >>> >>> Demo ISO for i386: >>> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-i386-20110114.iso.bz2 >>> SVN repository: svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/user/nwhitehorn/bsdinstall >>> Wiki page: http://wiki.freebsd.org/BSDInstall >>> >>> Goals >>> ----- >>> The primary goal of BSDInstall is to provide an easily extensible >>> installer without the limitations of sysinstall, in order to allow more >>> modern installations of FreeBSD. This means that it should have >>> additional features to support modern setups, but simultaneously frees >>> us to remove complicating features of sysinstall like making sure >>> everything fits in floppy disk-sized chunks. >>> >>> New Features: >>> - Allows installation onto GPT disks on x86 systems >>> - Can do installations spanning multiple disks >>> - Allows installation into jails >>> - Eases PXE installation >>> - Virtualization friendly: can install from a live system onto disk >>> images >>> - Works on PowerPC >>> - Streamlined system installation >>> - More flexible scripting >>> - Easily tweakable >>> - All install CDs are live CDs >>> >>> Architecture >>> ------------ >>> BSDInstall is a set of tools that are called in sequence by a master >>> script. These tools are, for example, the partition editor, the thing >>> that fetches the distributions from the network, the thing that untars >>> them, etc. Since these are just called in sequence from a shell script, >>> a scripted installation can easily replace them with other things, (e.g. >>> hard-coded gpart commands), leave steps out, add new ones, or interleave >>> additional system modifications. >>> >>> Status >>> ------ >>> This provides functionality most similar to the existing sysinstall >>> 'Express' track. It installs working, bootable systems you can ssh into >>> immediately after reboot on i386, amd64, sparc64, powerpc, and >>> powerpc64. There is untested support for pc98. The final architecture on >>> which we use sysinstall, ia64, is currently unsupported, because I don't >>> know how to set up booting on those systems -- patches to solve this are >>> very much welcome. >>> >>> There are still some missing features that I would like to see in the >>> release, but these do not significantly impact the functionality of the >>> installer. Some will be addressed before merging to HEAD, in particular >>> the lack of a man page for bsdinstall. Others, like configuration of >>> wireless networking and ZFS installation, can happen between merge and >>> release. The test ISOs are also lacking a ports tree at the moment, >>> which is a statement about the slow upload speed of my DSL line and not >>> about the final layout of releases. >>> >>> Please send any questions, comments, or patches you may have, and please >>> be aware when replying that this email has been cross-posted to three >>> lists. Technical discussion (bug reports, for instance) should be >>> directed to the freebsd-sysinstall list only. Most other discussion >>> belongs on -sysinstall and -current. > GPT makes more sense on modern machines given the limitation of > disk sizes and the MBR partition schemes (and FWIW MBR is less > portable outside of the PC world anyhow), but it would be nice if it > was a knob that defaulted to appropriate values for certain > architectures as well, like PC98 -> MBR? Such a knob exists, and is used. On PC98, the default partition scheme is the PC98 one, on sparc64 VTOC8, etc. On x86, it is GPT. If you try to put / on a partition scheme that is known not to be bootable on your platform, you will get a warning. The bootable schemes on i386/amd64 are GPT, MBR, and bsdlabel. -Nathan