From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jul 10 9:56:48 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mail.the-i-pa.com (mail.the-i-pa.com [151.201.71.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9791337B403 for ; Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:56:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@iowna.com) Received: (qmail 20080 invoked from network); 10 Jul 2001 17:06:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO iowna.com) (151.201.71.193) by mail.the-i-pa.com with SMTP; 10 Jul 2001 17:06:00 -0000 Message-ID: <3B4B32F3.7AC70D66@iowna.com> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 12:53:07 -0400 From: Bill Moran X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Wes Peters Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Mall now BSDCentral References: <20010706144935.A61843@xor.obsecurity.org> <3B4650D0.97F10B83@bellatlantic.net> <20010707002340.B16071@widomaker.com> <20010707004731V.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <3B49F8D5.2C9BFA73@mindspring.com> <3B4A0124.26025FB5@iowna.com> <3B4A1423.E8E365E@mindspring.com> <86ofqth6p3.fsf@hades.hell.gr> <3B4A7D9C.A64230D9@softweyr.com> <3B4B07DE.4801D208@iowna.com> <3B4B1B66.C011BF2B@softweyr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Wes Peters wrote: > > Bill Moran wrote: > > > > Wes Peters wrote: > > > > > Oh, come now. FreeBSD's disk partitioning has always sucked. It does suck > > > somewhat less than many Linux linstallers, and a lot less than the OpenBSD > > > installer, but it still shoves way too many details and options at the > > > average user. Something akin to PartitionMagic would be an ideal way to go, > > > given unlimited resources to throw against this particular problem. > > > > Now, I've never used partition magic, but I (personally) find the > > FreeBSD > > partition program in sysinstall to be the easiest one I've ever used. > > What should be changed to make it easier? > > "How much of this disk do you want FreeBSD to use? ___%" This would be a nice little addition (and probably easy to add) but I don't see a tremendious gain from this. > Better yet, a nice graphical > view of the disk and the 4 possible entries in the partition table. I would classify this as "fluff and glitz", but that may just be me. > Allow > the user to grab the ends of partitions we can manipulate and move them > around, either through keyboard navigation or with a mouse. Hmmm ... we're really aiming at novice users here now, aren't we? I suppose that's not a bad thing, but I just never thought of going so far with it. > Focus on the > task we're attempting to accomplish: slicing the disk into 1 to 4 differnt > logical parts, rather than on the crufty underlying details. Hmmm ... well, I was never upset with the "crufty details" ... I rather like to know what's going on under the hood all the time. Then again, that's me. If you're targeting newbies and other less-educated (or less "I sure would like to figure this out" inclined) people, then what you're suggesting would probably be a good idea. OTOH: if you made it so the "crufty details" were no longer visible at all, I would be upset to NOT be able to see what was going on. > "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" You're on Earth. No further explanation needed. -Bill To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message