From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jul 5 15:22:10 2008 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 150671065676; Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:22:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [209.31.154.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E09FD8FC20; Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:22:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [209.31.154.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3587746C50; Sat, 5 Jul 2008 11:22:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 16:22:09 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Mike Makonnen In-Reply-To: <486F8C57.9050908@wubethiopia.com> Message-ID: <20080705161614.O19209@fledge.watson.org> References: <784966050807021123l267aa20en39eb513c12c90ad2@mail.gmail.com> <20080702235800.H47773@fledge.watson.org> <486C8700.5020100@lobraun.de> <20080703092511.T69986@fledge.watson.org> <486F8C57.9050908@wubethiopia.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Lothar Braun , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years 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, 05 Jul 2008 15:22:10 -0000 On Sat, 5 Jul 2008, Mike Makonnen wrote: > The installer can already install a basic FreeBSD system (including the > ports collection) from CD, UFS, or DOS partition. I'm currently working on > getting FTP/HTTP/NFS installation to work. Next on my list after that is > setting Date and Time Zone. At that stage the installer will be more or less > feature-complete, and I can start code cleanup, getting it to work on > additional architectures, etc. I had initially intended to include package > installation as one of the criteria for feature-completeness, but after > reading through this thread I've decided not to use sysinstall's package > installation code and instead write one from scratch once I'm happy with the > rest of the installer. Sounds pretty much in line with what I was looking for. However, I think I would like to see it be a bit more complete than sysinstall in the area of geom partition labeling (concat/strip/raid/encryption), and perhaps also ZFS support. I realize that adds complexity a fair amount, but one of the biggest areas of feature lack in sysinstall today is that you are basically stuck with the original BSD partition structure and UFS, whereas we expect increasing numbers of users to deploy ZFS. We don't have boot support currently, but being able to set up /data as a ZFS file system would be great. Today, people have to do an initial install on, say, a small boot partition and then relabel/deal with the rest of the disk, boot a live CD, or worse, discover they have to repartition, which really fails to expose some of the excellent ease-of-use, auto-configuration, etc, features that we otherwise have in this area. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge