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Message-ID: <4EFC1260.1060503@luddite.com.au>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:10:24 +1100
From: "Peter J. Cherny" <peterc@luddite.com.au>
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Subject: Apropos Removal of sysinstall
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Rather than hijack the previous thread,
it's probably time to make a few comments on the current and future 
installation and use of ZFS FreeBSD.

I've used both Solaris and FreeBSD since nearly day one for both OSs, so 
have a deal of familiarity in their use.

I believe removal of sysinstall exposes the community's blindness to a 
major parts of it's future, ZFS root.

Other than following arcane recipes,
the only way to create a system with ZFS root is by using Martin 
Matuška's excellent mfsboot images.

Where are the plans for making this functionality mainstream ?

I believe that unless FreeBSD gets it's act together,
Debian/dpkg/zfsonlinux is starting to look like a much more supportable 
environment (i.e. has a future)

Sadly the lack of xen already often forces me to run FreeBSD VMs under 
Debian.

Flames happily accepted if this helps codify FreeBSD's future, but I 
fear it will go the way of Solaris
and be irrelevant to those of us who for decades have used both in the 
server space.

pjc