Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 20:29:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@ref.tfs.com> To: jkh@freefall.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [On the new Install] Message-ID: <199505310329.UAA21742@ref.tfs.com> In-Reply-To: <20621.801887481@freefall.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at May 30, 95 07:31:21 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> > > > I'm still not totally sure when the new disklabel and mbr are written > > to disk, but assume it's later... if so it should be written > > somewhere that this is the case.. yes but you don't know that until you GET there.. meanwhile, two screens before, you're worrying if what you are doing is writing or not.. I'd more want a message saying "This is not being written yet.. it's safe to play with this screen" or something.. see, YOU know that it's not written later, but the first time user is sitting there sweating blood for no reason..... > > > it would be nice if the 3 fields were individually enterable, > > in such a way that total records was a multple of the 3, > > Hmm.. This assumes that I have the correct total size.. :-) > > Not to be uncooperative, but I think I'm going to leave this one the > way it is. It's not THAT hard to use, and anything else would be > a lot more arcane for me to write. I think you are wrong.. it assumes you have EITHER the correct size or correct number of cylinders.. for IDE and SCSI, you DO have the correcdt size anyhow.. > > > Many screens (e.g. setting up netowrk stuff and intallation type) > > have simply EXIT and QUIT as their two bottom > > entries, yet you can't get to > > Huh?? You mean OK and Cancel, right? (whatever.. the point is you can't GET to OK on some of them) > > > This leaves the user in some doubt as to whether his selection has > > been accepted, as the only way to get out of the screen is through QUIT > > which intuitively suggests (to me at least) abandonning any changed > > Uhh.. On every menu where "looping" like this occurs (generally for > good reason) it does say "select Cancel" when done. I don't really see > how I can make it mny plainer than that! :-) CANCEL IN EVERY OTHER APPLICATION ON EARTH means 'leave it untouched!' > > Are we talking about the same installation here? :-) no, you are seeing it as a person who knows what it's doing, and I'm seeing it as a new user.. > > > There is no way to get those last N blocks (not a whole 'cylinder') > > into a slice (particularly the BSD slice, at least not without > > doing mental arithmetic.. (once again prone to pilot error)). > > The cylinder rounding is done in libdisk and was generally felt to be a > good thing. Perhaps we can make it optional, with a knob someplace. I've argued this one with poul > > > there is no comment that the VT4 shell is CHROOT'ed to the hd.. > > this should be made plain... it toke me about 5 minutes > > to figure out why I couldn't get to /mnt when I could see it in 'mount' > > Heck, the VT4 isn't even _documented_.. :-) It's really meant to be > a special "wizard" feature only. (well it DOES put up a message about starting it, (good idea)) > > > We know all the names for various SLICE types so why not print them... > > Excuse me? All the ones we know, we print. no, 99 for example is MACH.. you don't print that, even though old fdisk knows about it (came from MACH after-all) I know I just watched it again.. > > > if I'd wanted to do something a little less normal. > > I still couldn't directly edit fdisk of disklabel entries which > > is something I think is important for non-standard > > installs.. I also didn't > > How do you suggest that work? It's difficult for me to react to this > when I'm not esactly sure what you have in mind.. :) let me edit a table you can slurp back in... > > > see how one could do a 'partial re-install' > > if one had a partly corrupted FS, and wanted to just download again, > > without newfsing everything... > > > > No problem. Just (M)ount the entries rather than creating them. oh that's so obvious!, surely you can make it more inscrutible? > When the partition and label editors are doc'd, this will be explained > in more detail. oh.. > > Thanks for the feedback! You're the first who's really said anything, aside > from Poul who doesn't count since he helped me write all of this! :-) > > Jordan > Over-all good marks.. I just need tp try it a few more times to see what annoys me.. :)
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199505310329.UAA21742>