Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 20:55:30 -0700 From: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com> To: pyriformus@hotmail.com Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Message-ID: <20010525205530N.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: <OE610Ux9J1a5yuESE4p00002b4b@hotmail.com> References: <OE610Ux9J1a5yuESE4p00002b4b@hotmail.com>
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> my name is william mccartin and i have at long last successfully installed
> free bsd onto my desktop computer
[Chorus of voices]: "Hi William!"
> i couldn't be that stupid
I think we can spare you the charge of stupidity and simply substitute
a charge of selective blindness. :)
> in your online documentation make mention of the fact that you have to
> select the items to be installed with the SPACE BAR and not the enter key
In the Distributions menu ifself, you'll see this notice:
"Choose an item by pressing [SPACE]. When you are finished, choose the
Exit item or press [ENTER]."
A point which is subsequently restated for emphasis in the source
distribution menu:
"Select the sub-components of src you wish to install.
Please check off those portions of the FreeBSD source tree
you wish to install (remember to use SPACE, not ENTER!)."
And in the configuration menu:
"This menu allows you to configure various aspects of your system's
startup configuration. Remember to use SPACE to select items! The
RETURN key will leave this menu (as with all checkbox menus)."
Finally, and most importantly, in the first default item one is
presented with on installation, namely the Usage instructions, one
sees:
"Selecting OK in a menu will confirm whatever action it's controlling.
Selecting Cancel will cancel the operation and generally return you to
the previous menu. Note also that "checkbox" menus use SPACE to select
their items, not ENTER! Pressing ENTER will leave the menu with either
an OK or Cancel status, depending on which button at the bottom is
selected, and is probably not what you wanted to do if still selecting
options. Remember the spacebar!"
So, as you can see, it is mentioned in a few places and those are just
the first few I turned up in a quick grep - I may have repeated the
instructions in a few more places.
One might also be forgiven at this point for asking why checkbox and
radio menus behave in so finicky a fashion as to require all those
prominent notices posted everywhere. Clearly if you were the first to
run across it, warning signs wouldn't be posted in quite so many
places.
The answer is that libdialog, the library on which sysinstall depends
for these menus, is genuinely evil. It is the unloved, satanic
bastard child of multiple parents and torturing users like yourself
constitutes the only joy in life it has left. Its source files are
all chmod'd 0666 and dire README files warn against trespass by
neophyte programmers. It is the 7th gate of Hell. It makes the baby
Jesus cry. Were libdialog given anthropomorphic representation, it
would be promptly burnt at the stake and its ashes scattered in the
desert, to be then doused with holy water from altitude by
fire-fighting aircraft.
I hope this answers any questions you might have had.
Regards,
- Jordan
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