From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Apr 26 06:54:02 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3E441065674 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:54:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47A298FC08 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:54:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-196-27-202.dynamic.qsc.de [92.196.27.202]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 978CE16C0142; Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:54:00 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n3Q6rsL3001507; Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:53:55 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:53:54 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Tim Judd Message-Id: <20090426085354.c7de58d4.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions Mailing List Subject: Re: Modern FreeBSD Installer? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:54:03 -0000 On Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:45:49 -0600, Tim Judd wrote: > If it's > a fast 686, default to a X environment. I would always encourage using a text mode dialog FIRST. Such as Your system is able to run the graphical installer. Do you want to launch it, or do you want to work with the text mode installer indead? [ text mode ] [ graphical mode ] Note that not everybody with sufficient hardware would also want to use the GUI installer. Well... I won't... :-) CPU power is not the only criteria for running a GUI installer. But you already got into detail and took this into mind. > Second (which ties into the first) is the hardware that was probed during > boot-time. If a /dev entry (or even some sysctl) exists for a pci/agp/pci-e > device, it can run a graphical installer. If it finds none of the graphical > adapters, and sees serial ports, enable the dialog(3) as well. Then the problem of how to support these graphical adapters could arise. You know that X has often problems autodetecting stuff correct, even stuff that worked fine with XFree86 doesn't always work with X.org. So problems are not only "too new" things, but "too old" things, too. > I seem to find this very logical and can't (yet) see any flaws with doing > this. sysinstall is built, we'd just need to maintain it and create the > x-based installer. Run it with a minimalist (twm?) startup so we don't > waste time booting. A window manager? Why use a window manager? It's possible to run X without any window manager, and in this case, it makes sense, because there are no windows to be managed. It's only one program running - the installer. Of course, we're just talking about an installer, aren't we? It's not about a full-featured live system where you can use Firefox while doing the install. :-) > I've also thought about the concept of a web-ui installer, even if it's run > from the local machine. The benefit of a webui installer is that you can > give the disk to someone, tell them to put it up on a publically available > IP address and just sit back and let it run. but I ramble on.... I'm not sure I understood this correctly... Do you suggest something like running a (minimalistic) web server from the machine where FreeBSD is about to be installed, and then have either a HTTP connection from localhost or from a distant machine (where someone else can do the install)? > Again based on the hardware probed (this one being the amount of RAM in the > box, in contrast to the amount of disk space needed to install on disk), > create a in-ram disk as the staging area when you write to disk. The other > idea is to use dump/restore instead of tar files. Well, dump & restore is my preferred method of "cloning" from a "master workstation". But I'm not sure it can be used for custom installation where the amount of what to install may vary, and it is determined by the person who installs... > Last idea is to do similar to what Ubuntu (used to) do. Provide a X-based > installer CD and a console-based installer CD. I'd think that is too much. You'll always want the CD you haven't got at hand at the moment. :-) > I'd be happy to provide feedback; these were brainstorming ideas and would > really like to see progress move toward a more eye-candy installer. Well, then I'd suggest you prove why eye-candy is needed at all in the first place. :-) As Wojciech mentioned in one of his replies, I'd welcome new functionalities - instead of the same functionalities in an "X enclosure" that makes everything slower. :-) For example, if you get the sources from the install disc, sysinstall could provide a step to update them right away, letting you select the update server and then run csup to bring them up to date. Just an idea. One of many possible ideas. :-) -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...