From owner-freebsd-install Fri Feb 13 09:30:27 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA23247 for freebsd-install-outgoing; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:30:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-install@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA23242 for ; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:30:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@time.cdrom.com) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.6.9) with ESMTP id JAA07784; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:30:20 -0800 (PST) To: dag-erli@ifi.uio.no (Dag-Erling Coidan Sm rgrav) cc: freebsd-install@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Questions to the gurus :) In-reply-to: Your message of "13 Feb 1998 17:18:29 +0100." Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:30:20 -0800 Message-ID: <7780.887391020@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-install@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > On the functional side, I'm thinking about a system of .inf files > which specify the name, location and size of each distribution, as > well as the long description, dependencies etc. (hmmm... perhaps we > could even use the pkg format for the distributions...) With some Sort of - you can't afford the temp space to make them *actual* packages or I'd have done this already. :-) Also, you'd be amazed at how much info is in the already-existing foo.mtree files that accompany every distribution. I've always thought that I should write a function which groked mtree files so that sysinstall could just slurp them in along with the .inf files and derive a complex "packing list" from the info therein. Things like long and short descriptions could go in the existing .inf files = you can have attributes with newlines easily just by saying: long_descr={ this is a long description which will be folded into a single string with newlines by release/sysinstall/attrs.c :) } > I'm also thinking about moving more of the dirty work out of the > installer and into backends. I haven't RTFS very closely, but I did > notice that ftp is implemented directly into sysinstall. How much It used to be, but not anymore. It's actually just calling libftpio for all its services - you'd be reinventing the wheel. That's also the same library fetch() calls, though it implements http xfers internally. Not *too* much call for those in sysinstall (yet), fortunately. > I also have some concerns about the interface. Previous versions of > sysinstall are rumoured to work well with screen readers, and that's a > feature I feel I should keep, but I have no idea of how these > thingumabobs work. I think as long as you move the cursor sanely, you're OK. Max could tell you more, obviously. > Same goes for support for serial consoles of varying arcanity > (arcaneness? sp?) - I think sysinstall should support as many > terminals as possible (headless Just don't break vt100 support or add any evil assumptions about running on a VTY and you should be OK. :) > How concerned should I be about screen size? Can I safely assume no > resizing will take place? Can I safely assume that the screen will be > at least 60 columns wide, and at least 15 or 20 lines tall? Both safe assumptions. > Is libdialog a big win, or is it OK to code directly against > libncurses? Whichever makes you happier - both approaches can be said to suck, just in different ways. :-) Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-install" in the body of the message