Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 09:21:58 -0700 (MST) From: John Reynolds~ <jreynold@sedona.ch.intel.com> To: freebsd-qa@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: feedback on CD install of 4.0-RC2 Message-ID: <14508.8230.213769.821490@hip186.ch.intel.com>
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OK folks, here's some feedback on 4.0-RC2 from somebody who hasn't done a CD install in a while ... I got my new HDD in last night, put her in the machine and let it rip. Here's the things I found that either puzzled me or might stand a bit of enhancement before RC2->RELEASE. o As I've seen other people mention, there was a considerable delay while waiting for the kernel to get done probing IDE disks. This new disk I got was a Quantum Fireball and the ATA code detected it and used UDMA33 without a hitch. However after the probe message: ata0 at 0x01f0 irq 14 on ata-pci0 the kernel "sat there" for 30-50 seconds. I know I've read this is "needed per the spec" but it would be much less mysterious if a message could be printed before that wait had to happen (much like the scsi subsystem when the bus is reset). I didn't see anything in the FAQ about this, but I'm sure it will become one soon ... o label, partition, and dist. extraction went without a hitch! o I then chose the option of doing "final configuration" (or whatever sysinstall says) where it allows you to pick packages, set root's password, etc. After I picked the packages I wanted to be installed, I hit the "Install" button and things proceeded to install with no hitches--however, it seemed that randomly (because I couldn't pick out any pattern to it) the screen would flash back to the "FreeBSD Configuration Menu" as it cycled through new packages to install. The gray dialog that shows which package is being installed would show this info, then disappear, the "FreeBSD Configuration Menu" would reappear for about 1/5 of a second, then the gray box would show up again with a new package name as it was installed. Now, I haven't done a raw CD install for about a year, but I can't say that I remember that behavior. What I remember is the gray box staying up continuously while all the packages were installed. The constant "flashing" between "gray box on blue" to "FreeBSD Configuration Menu" and back was a little wierd. Everything was physically installed correctly, but it's one of those "polishing" things that would make the install look "better" (IMHO of course ...). o I then tried to configure X. I think sysinstall needs to present a dialog before running the GUI X configure program saying that there is a good chance that the mouse won't work in the GUI program. It should then explain that if you did choose to configure moused (and moused was started by sysinstall at that point--I assume) that you should choose /dev/sysmouse and hit "a" to "apply" the changes so the mouse is found. Equivalently, if you have a ps/2 mouse and are not running moused, choose /dev/psm0 and then hit "a" to apply the changes. I'll be the first to admit that in all the previous times I've configured X on a new machine, I didn't RTFM the on-screen text from the X GUI and didn't hit the 'apply' button (until the run last night). My mistake, but I think it might be a common enough one for sysinstall to specifically say something about it. If you disagree with that point, at least consider having sysinstall direct the user to which device file to point to if his/her mouse isn't recognized. If you were a brand new user to FreeBSD, would you know that /dev/psm0 is to be used for ps/2 mice when not running moused? If you were a brand new user to FreeBSD, would you know that if you did configure and run moused that /dev/sysmouse is the device you should point to? I think not. o The configuration of GNOME+E. worked. However, I had to manually put "gnome-session" in my .xinitrc file. It seems to me that a more "friendly" install would be one where if you chose KDE or GNOME+<whatever> that it asks you which accounts you want to setup and does the appropriate things. That way, the first time the new user reboots, logs in, and types "startx" he/she goes into the windowing environment that he/she chose in sysinstall. If I were a completely new user to FreeBSD, I wouldn't have known to put gnome-session in my .xinitrc in order to get it to work. I would have fired up X and saw the ugly-as-sin twm setup that comes with X and thought to myself "boy, GNOME sure is ugly and worthless...". It's a small thing, sure, but a gigantic thing to new-comers. o Finally, again, it seems to me that the skeleton .cshrc, .profile, etc. files that are used for accounts creating during install should have the following variables set: setenv LC_ALL en_US.ISO_8859-1 setenv LC_CTYPE en_US.ISO_8859-1 setenv LANG en_US.ISO_8859-1 (to whatever values are appropriate--this could even be asked if not guessed correctly from the time zone info). Lots of the GNOME/GTK stuff that I installed and ran complained that "LOCALE could not be set" (or whatever--I'm not at the machine and am paraphrasing--those who know what the above variables are for know the error I'm talking about when you don't have them set). When I went to compile a custom kernel, some perl scripts used at the beginning of "make depend" complained about the same lack of these variables. Everything else seemed ok and very speedy. I tweaked rc.conf values to add my default route, NFS, blah blah blah and it all worked A-OK like my 3.4 machine (connecting and routine through my 3.4-S gateway). No problems there! All in all, I think most of the things I experienced last night were "cosmetic" in nature--however, if they could be polished away, it would make for a *completely* bullet-proof and awesome install experience--especially for a new user coming to FreeBSD for the first time. "I'm John, and this has been my Report." -Jr -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | John Reynolds WCCG, CCE, Higher Levels of Abstraction | | Intel Corporation MS: CH6-210 Phone: 480-554-9092 pgr: 602-868-6512 | | jreynold@sedona.ch.intel.com http://www-aec.ch.intel.com/~jreynold/ | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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