Date: Mon, 27 May 2013 21:36:15 -0700 From: Alfred Perlstein <bright@mu.org> To: Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> Cc: Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD installers and future direction Message-ID: <51A4343F.3070605@mu.org> In-Reply-To: <51A40E37.9060702@freebsd.org> References: <51A0DC3F.9030301@cran.org.uk> <CAK6u07WDZrWU4dnrBzQGYf%2BpbmibK7KxSUZyvie8jJQ1SMODuw@mail.gmail.com> <51A1025A.2020607@cran.org.uk> <51A14445.4060305@freebsd.org> <51A15EDF.6050600@erdgeist.org> <CA%2BWntOtrgkstTOamTZh9_FvATd8a55ca9hCUFF1sE=2zSd4EQA@mail.gmail.com> <13CA24D6AB415D428143D44749F57D7201F5B337@ltcfiswmsgmb26> <51A38051.8040909@mu.org> <51A39039.1070202@cran.org.uk> <51A39FEC.5070402@mu.org> <51A3A891.5060103@cran.org.uk> <51A3C202.9030802@mu.org> <51A3CEB6.3070200@cran.org.uk> <51A40AF2.2010108@mu.org> <51A40E37.9060702@freebsd.org>
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On 5/27/13 6:53 PM, Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > On 05/27/13 20:40, Alfred Perlstein wrote: >> On 5/27/13 2:23 PM, Bruce Cran wrote: >>> On 27/05/2013 21:28, Alfred Perlstein wrote: >>>> On 5/27/13 11:40 AM, Bruce Cran wrote: >>>>> Yes. >>>> Is this a joke? >>> >>> It probably /was/ too short a reply. Personally I think there should >>> be a single UI and scripting interface across all platforms. We >>> should try and get pc-sysinstall running on all of them first in >>> case there's some problem that means it can't be done, in which case >>> we'd need to use a different backend. >>> >> >> There are just going to be certain platforms that make it EASY to do >> cool things. We should embrace that! That's why there are different >> platforms! >> >> Some are great for low power, others are great for graphics, cpu >> power, gpu, networking etc. >> >> If we always go for the lowest common denominator then we are >> crippling all the platforms for no one's benefit. Even if something >> CAN be done, if it is very difficult, or just never happening, then >> we can't limit everyone's experience based on the more difficult >> and/or resource strapped platforms. >> >> It's just not good business. > > Yes, and all of this cuts both ways: pc-sysinstall has no wireless > setup support, for instance. Right now we support what we support > because it is the most feature-complete thing we have, not just on > tier-2 platforms but also on x86. > > To bring this discussion back to the ground, the fact is that we lack > an installer that has both internal support for ZFS and a UI. One of > the reasons for this is that making a good expressive UI for ZFS is a > non-trivial undertaking given its enormous flexibility. The bsdinstall > partition editor has been written to be extensible for this, and > several people have started writing code to do it, but no one ended up > having time to finish. Probably a reasonable thing to do is to start > with supporting only a minimal set of features. If anyone felt like > actually writing this code, I'm sure it would be appreciated by all > and be more productive than email exchanges. > -Nathan I'm sure if there was a list of reasonable things, such as wireless then pc-sysinstall could be augmented. This is the first I've heard of that. All the other complaints have been based on portability. Is that all that is required now, wireless? -Alfred -Alfred
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