From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 3 16:56:46 2008 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 CB598106567D; Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:56:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lothar@lobraun.de) Received: from smtp.cs.uni-tuebingen.de (u-173-c156.cs.uni-tuebingen.de [134.2.173.156]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60E788FC1C; Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:56:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lothar@lobraun.de) Received: from u-172-c158.cs.uni-tuebingen.de ([134.2.172.158]) by smtp.cs.uni-tuebingen.de with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KES6u-0000QQ-Lj; Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:56:44 +0200 Message-ID: <486D04CE.6080101@lobraun.de> Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:56:46 +0200 From: Lothar Braun User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Macintosh/20080421) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Watson References: <784966050807021123l267aa20en39eb513c12c90ad2@mail.gmail.com> <20080702235800.H47773@fledge.watson.org> <486C8700.5020100@lobraun.de> <20080703092511.T69986@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <20080703092511.T69986@fledge.watson.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years 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, 03 Jul 2008 16:56:46 -0000 Robert Watson wrote: > On Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Lothar Braun wrote: > >> Robert Watson wrote: >> >>> My primary concern about some of these replacement installer projects >>> is that they've placed a strong focus on making them graphical -- I >>> actually couldn't care less about GUIs (and I think they actually >>> hurt my configurations, since I use serial consoles a lot), but what >>> I do want is a very tight and efficient install process, which I feel >>> sysinstall does badly on (not just for the reasons you specify). >> >> Hmm, how should a tight and efficient installation process look like >> in your opinion? And what are the other points that are bad in >> systinstall? > > For me, it's really about minimizing the time to get to a generic > install from a CD or DVD. Most of the time, I don't do a lot of > customization during the install -- I configure machines using DHCP, I > add most packages later, and I tend to use default disk layouts since my > servers don't multi-boot and the defaults currently seem "reasonable". > > I don't like being asked many more questions than whether or not to > enable sshd, and what to set the root password to. This means that I > find our current distributions menu a bit inefficient (I don't want > sub-menus, I just want checkboxes), and that the inconsistency in the > handling of the space/enter/tab/cursor keys across different libdialog > interfaces in the install is awkward. The current generic and express > installs seem to capture a lot of my desire, in that I can get a box > installed in <5m including actual time to write out the file systems, > which is great. I really don't want to lose this with a new installer :-). What about having two utilities for the installation process? Something like a very small (non-gui/non-X) version of "sysinstall" that just installs a base system and only has the functionality to - partition/label a disk - configure the network (if needed for installation) - install the base system (or parts of it) - install a boot manager and a second utility "sysconf" that provides the other stuff like post installation system configuration (sshd, mouse), installing packages, etc. The second utility could have an X-based GUI without disturbing the installation process of serial console users or people that don't like X on their machines. Would that be a good idea? Best regards, Lothar