From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 11 12:36:24 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC66916A407 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:36:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from niek@bigfoot.com) Received: from smtp-2.orange.nl (smtp-2.orange.nl [193.252.22.242]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 673F613C44C for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:36:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from niek@bigfoot.com) Received: from smtp-2.orange.nl (mwinf6103 [172.22.153.25]) by mwinf6105.orange.nl (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id ADFFD2000592 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:08:50 +0100 (CET) Received: from me-wanadoo.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mwinf6103.orange.nl (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id 332AA1C00088 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:08:49 +0100 (CET) Received: from [192.168.250.2] (s5591888a.adsl.wanadoo.nl [85.145.136.138]) by mwinf6103.orange.nl (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id DA2861C00084 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:08:48 +0100 (CET) X-ME-UUID: 20070111120848893.DA2861C00084@mwinf6103.orange.nl Message-ID: <45A628CF.5020504@bigfoot.com> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:08:47 +0100 From: Niek User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061211 SeaMonkey/1.0.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Re: Why is sysinstall considered end-of-life? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:36:25 -0000 On Tuesday 09 January 2007 08:21, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > > > 3) The largest complaint about sysinstall is that it's not graphical. The > > problem is that a graphical installation program has some -severe- > > constraints on it. First, it has to work in ALL instances. That means, > > 640x480x16 colors VGA screen. You have a lot of people out there > > installing on systems that have, for example, monitors with inadequate > > horizontal/vertical frequency ranges and very capabable video cards, > > unless you force the X-server to use the original VGA resolution, it's > > going to overdrive those monitors and the user is going to see a black > > screen when the installation program comes up. And the only way FreeBSD > > is going to get a graphical anything is by using Xorg, and FreeBSD does > > not maintain that distribution - so we are now dependent on the Xorg > > group writing their code with no bugs for our installation program to work. > > While I admit that sysinstall could be polished at the rough edges, I vote for a non-graphical installer for server aimed installations. I see no practical reason to have an X based installer for a server installation at all, with all the heavy stuff that's necessary for it. Please leave that to the desktop oriented BSD distributions. I wonder how many server admins would like to see an X based installer. I rather would propose a clear distinction (communicated to new users) between desktop aimed distributions and server based ones, where the first category would be the current distribution of FreeBSD, with a nice graphical installer, a window manager, drivers for most sound, usb, wireless and video devices, and desktop applications added to it. I am not familiar with desktopBSD and Freesbie, but I can imagine that these are already working in that direction. (I am using FreeBSD-current as a desktop OS on a laptop, but it required some days of tweaking to get sound, touchpad & usb mouse, 1280x800 resolution and wireless networking running.) Niek