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Date:      Tue, 2 Jan 1996 09:33:43 +0000
From:      rb@gid.co.uk (Bob Bishop)
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Cc:        "Amancio Hasty Jr." <hasty@rah.star-gate.com>
Subject:   Re: X for install
Message-ID:  <v01510100ad0e9f60a0d7@[194.32.164.2]>

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At 8:17 pm 1/1/96, Amancio Hasty Jr. wrote:
>[stuff deleted]
>In my case, I am willing to tolerate the system installation cause
>I don't do it that often.
>
>        Amancio

Look, you can please all the people some of the time, or...

Let's say there are two sorts of people in the world: A) need a real simple
installation route (or else they need too much support), B) will get by
just fine with a shell prompt and the odd script.

For either A or B, an X-based installation may be nice cosmetically but
functionally it'll be neutral at best. More likely it won't run on a wide
range of hardware and it'll be slow (am I the only person in the world who
gets pissed off with how long it takes to install Solaris 2?).

Reading back over this thread, I don't seem to be the only one who doesn't
like the way this discussion is headed. Most of my machines run headless
(yes they have VGAs and I'd prefer a serial console install). In a couple
of cases I have to interfere with the install because of whacky hardware
configuration. The very last thing I need is X-based installation.

For my 2 cents, the current installation mechanism is a pretty good
compromise. Group B's can live with it, and my limited experience suggests
that group A's find it pretty easy to use. As Amancio points out, most
people don't install that often anyway. It's simply not worth investing in
an X-based installation that could at best only deliver cosmetic
improvements; better use the effort to smooth the functional bumps in the
existing install over the widest possible range of hardware.


--
Bob Bishop              (01734) 774017  international code +44 1734
rb@gid.co.uk        fax (01734) 894254  between 0800 and 1800 UK





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