Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 16:47:38 -0700 From: Kevin Oberman <kob6558@gmail.com> To: Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: New installation script Message-ID: <CAN6yY1ugCCNO%2BRpdPy6nS280UgyP4d%2BQrk3fx4%2BqmWxTsd8iOw@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4E3DB3B0.2050208@FreeBSD.org> References: <CAN6yY1td=69XHSir1kr62yhhzXKk3YrRcVQrZgqnF48uVnCvVw@mail.gmail.com> <4E3D552B.3000604@freebsd.org> <4E3DB3B0.2050208@FreeBSD.org>
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On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org> wrote: > On 08/06/2011 07:52, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: >> This is, to some extent, a deliberate design decision. The idea is that >> if you are installing onto an existing partition with the right type, >> then you really do just want to use it without newfs. > > Actually, if I am reinstalling I really do want to newfs the system > partitions because that's how I can guarantee that no old cruft is left > over. I generally do not want to newfs things like /home. I think my use > case here is fairly typical. > > There should at minimum be an option to newfs the partitions one is > installing the OS to. Ideally that option should default to whatever > sysinstall does now (which IIRC is 'on'). I strongly agree. I find it hard to come up with a scenario where installing onto an existing, populated FS would even work unless there was simply installed OS already there, in which case 'newfs'ing would only waste a small amount of time. If an installed system already exists, bsdinstall will fail rather soon when it tries to create a file that already exists, as it did in my case. You may have a /home partition or some other data partition you don't want lose, but, in that case you would not "Modify" it by adding a mount point. That is exactly what I did for all partitions I wanted left alone. If it is /tmp, it is probably irrelevant. If root or /usr, leaving old stuff around is a very bad idea. Even if bsdinstall does not fail, I would not bet on the correctness of the system installed. What I WOULD like to see is a screen that lists the partitions that will be created and 'newfs'ed. Sort of a confirmation screen that ask "Is this what you REALLY want to do. I know that when I hit the point where part of an existing disk that has, for example, a Windows system on it that I do not want to lose, I get very uncomfortable and look very closely at what I've done to confirm that it is what I want to do. I'd love to see something that makes this easier and a bit less nerve wracking. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer - Retired E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com
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