Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:32:16 -0800 (PST) From: Simon Shapiro <shimon@simon-shapiro.org> To: (Dag-Erling Coidan=?us-ascii?Q?_Sm=F8rgrav?=) <dag-erli@ifi.uio.no> Cc: freebsd-install@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: Questions to the gurus :) Message-ID: <XFMail.980213113216.shimon@simon-shapiro.org> In-Reply-To: <xzplnvf7a22.fsf@hrotti.ifi.uio.no>
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On 13-Feb-98 Dag-Erling Coidan Smørgrav wrote: > OK, as some of you may have noticed, I've more or less volunteered to > work on a new installation tool. I thought I might benefit from some > advice from my elders, so here goes: What is so wrong with the existing tool, that we have to re-write the whole thing? I must have missed something. > 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 > minor work, this could mean that a single boot floppy could be used to > install any version of FreeBSD. If the floppy is older than the > version you want to install, you can just download the .inf file... Last I checked one boot floppy does it all alreeady. No? > 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 > space is there available on the boot floppy? Is it enough for fetch? > Of course these things are difficult to compute because of crunch... > > 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. > > Same goes for support for serial consoles of varying arcanity > (arcaneness? sp?) - I think sysinstall should support as many > terminals as possible (headless > > 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? > > Is libdialog a big win, or is it OK to code directly against > libncurses? Since virtually all dialogues are of a given style and format, one would think that having a library will help. Personally, I do not mind the existing look and feel at all. I just finished installing Win95 and Caldera Linux, plus being very familiar with Debian Linux, I find sysinstall to be superior to all these in structure and flow and totally acceptable in look and feel. > > More questions will come when I think of them... > > -- > DES (dag-erli@ifi.uio.no) (btw, how d'ya like my new minimalistic sig?) > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-install" in the body of the message ---------- Sincerely Yours, Simon Shapiro Shimon@Simon-Shapiro.ORG Voice: 503.708.7858 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-install" in the body of the message
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