Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 07:47:00 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au> To: Donn Miller <dmmiller@cvzoom.net> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle? Message-ID: <99Dec15.073843est.40325@border.alcanet.com.au> In-Reply-To: <3855F364.E66EC87B@cvzoom.net>; from dmmiller@cvzoom.net on Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 06:36:04PM %2B1100 References: <2177.945155945@zippy.cdrom.com> <3855F364.E66EC87B@cvzoom.net>
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On 1999-Dec-14 18:36:04 +1100, Donn Miller <dmmiller@cvzoom.net> wrote: >As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be >nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X >tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. I know Jordan mentioned Qt before his over-enthusiastic hand-waving made him over-balance, but Lesstif and Qt (or anything else related to X11) have a number of serious problems. Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. The second problem is that X11 needs a fair amount of configuration before it will work. Whilst the VGA16 server forms a convenient lowest-common-denominator position, it offers no real advantages over a character-mode installation (same screen resolution and number of colours) and significantly poorer performance. Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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