From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Feb 20 03:24:20 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30BE11065674; Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:24:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) Received: from cain.gsoft.com.au (cain.gsoft.com.au [203.31.81.10]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CCEA8FC1D; Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:24:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ur.dons.net.au (ppp203-122-198-244.lns6.adl6.internode.on.net [203.122.198.244]) (authenticated bits=0) by cain.gsoft.com.au (8.14.4/8.14.3) with ESMTP id p1K2ivsW091043 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO); Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:14:58 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1082) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: "Daniel O'Connor" In-Reply-To: Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:14:57 +1030 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <1F3921E9-5314-43CA-9515-EDAADFCD47B1@gsoft.com.au> References: To: grarpamp X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1082) X-Spam-Score: 0.163 () BAYES_00,RDNS_DYNAMIC X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.67 on 203.31.81.10 Cc: freebsd-current Current , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:24:20 -0000 On 19/02/2011, at 20:04, grarpamp wrote: > 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands > on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, > so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often > resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all > else was cloned, it needed a separate .cfg for each box due > to: >=20 > fqdn, gateway, ip/mask > interface - sometimes changed > root disk - sometimes changed >=20 > Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those > questions of the operator, per machine. Not to get into the whole "wishlist for sysinstall Mk II" (aka second = system syndrome in full effect).. You can do this with sysinstall already (although it isn't very clean). Also, you don't need floppies, you can do the whole install off a FAT32 = USB stick with the aforementioned install.cfg file and a script run from = that. I do this at work to do a partition & minimal install, then untar a = pre-populated FS generated from a chroot. It also asks various questions = afterward for final tuning. -- Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum GPG Fingerprint - 5596 B766 97C0 0E94 4347 295E E593 DC20 7B3F CE8C From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 21 11:07:09 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0973106564A for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD6FF8FC16 for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p1LB79wD075845 for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 GMT (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@FreeBSD.org) Received: (from gnats@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id p1LB79FH075843 for freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.org; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 GMT (envelope-from owner-bugmaster@FreeBSD.org) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 GMT Message-Id: <201102211107.p1LB79FH075843@freefall.freebsd.org> X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: gnats set sender to owner-bugmaster@FreeBSD.org using -f From: FreeBSD bugmaster To: freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.org Cc: Subject: Current problem reports assigned to freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:07:09 -0000 Note: to view an individual PR, use: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=(number). The following is a listing of current problems submitted by FreeBSD users. These represent problem reports covering all versions including experimental development code and obsolete releases. S Tracker Resp. Description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o bin/154788 sysinstall sysinstall(8) crashes if no network interface found o bin/154613 sysinstall sysinstall(8) does not rescan USB automatically o bin/151229 sysinstall sysinstall(8) - shift-tab doesn't work as expected o bin/150995 sysinstall sysinstall(8): corruption of partition table s bin/150237 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Suggestion: installer should suggest th o bin/148805 sysinstall [hang] FreeBSD 7.2, 8.0, and 9.0 hang during install a f bin/148220 sysinstall sysinstall(8): 9.0-current gets "Cannot resolv hostnam o bin/148201 sysinstall sysinstall(8): core dump (Error 10) while trying to in o bin/148053 sysinstall sysinstall(8) labeling o bin/146299 sysinstall sysinstall(8): cannot create slice o bin/145735 sysinstall sysinstall(8) trashes Vista-created partition tables o bin/145027 sysinstall Remove all sysinstall(8) references to floppy and slip o bin/144278 sysinstall [install] Fixit from USB dont work o bin/142867 sysinstall sysinstall(8): in a custom installation re-entering th o misc/142335 sysinstall Download of Release 8.0 LIVE is NOT a "live" from CD p o bin/140843 sysinstall sysinstall(8): cannot software install from usb o bin/140842 sysinstall sysinstall(8): destroyed ncurses interface with FBSD8. o bin/140595 sysinstall [request] sysinstall(8): Replace "Country Selection" w o bin/138423 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Installer (and sade) get wrong number o o bin/138025 sysinstall sysinstall(8) fails to create big partition o bin/137864 sysinstall [patch] sysinstall(8): add possibility to shutdown/pow o bin/137713 sysinstall sysinstall(8): installer partition editor generates in f bin/136161 sysinstall sysinstall(8) installs wrong architecture on amd64 o bin/134425 sysinstall sysinstall(8) custom distributions select all and dese o bin/129762 sysinstall sysinstall(8) doesn't seem to support GPT for EFI boar s bin/123304 sysinstall sysinstall(8): missing sensible and user friendly prog o bin/121503 sysinstall sysinstall(8): 7.0 upgrade doesn't let me mount all of a bin/121124 sysinstall sysinstall(8): FreeBSD 6.3 installation deletes MBR pa o bin/119077 sysinstall [patch] sysinstall(8) - reading packages from index is o bin/113682 sysinstall [patch] sysinstall(8) warns for invalid geometry which o bin/112757 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall(8): in the FDISK tool we can o bin/110151 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall(8) don't respects install ro o bin/108191 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Disklabel editor help text (by F1 key) o bin/107830 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Change Units (Z) in fdisk doesn't work p bin/102638 sysinstall [patch] sysinstall(8): custom dist set always install o bin/102498 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Cursor doesn't track sysinstall hilight a bin/101762 sysinstall sysinstall(8) does not obey /usr/ports symlink while i o bin/97108 sysinstall sysinstall(8): write failure on transfer (wrote -1 byt o bin/93275 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Failure to install after restarting ins o bin/90656 sysinstall sysinstall(8): 6.0-RELEASE (i386) cannot be installed s bin/86859 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Installer should ask about Linux earlie o bin/86454 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall terminates with signal 10 if o bin/80371 sysinstall cannot install 5.4-RC3 from DOS partition o bin/79910 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Cannot escape from failed port/package o bin/79840 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Partitioning and formating a new disk f o bin/79621 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall(8) does not create a device o bin/78964 sysinstall sysinstall(8): can not write labels to hdd on installa s bin/73617 sysinstall sysinstall(8): fdisk editor unmarks active partition f bin/73511 sysinstall sysinstall(8): SCSI drive install failure - RC2 o bin/73410 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Sysinstall could not allocate disklabel o bin/72895 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Sysinstall generates invalid partition o bin/70002 sysinstall sysinstall(8): fails to locate FTP dirs if the OS has o bin/69986 sysinstall sysinstall(8): [patch] no job control in fixit shell o o bin/69942 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall changes /etc/rc.conf after i o bin/69723 sysinstall sysinstall(8): [request] allow to continue from packag o bin/62702 sysinstall sysinstall(8): backup of /etc and /root during sysinst o bin/62367 sysinstall sysinstall(8): 5.2.1-RC installation problems o alpha/61940 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Can't disklabel new disk from FreeBSD/a o bin/61890 sysinstall sysinstall(8): fdisk(8) uses incorrect calculations fo o bin/61603 sysinstall sysinstall(8): wrong geometry guessed o bin/60632 sysinstall sysinstall(8): UI bug in partition label screen in sys o bin/53341 sysinstall sysinstall(8): [patch] dump frequency in sysinstall is o bin/48989 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Sysinstall's partition editor gets con s bin/48341 sysinstall sysinstall(8): changes the active slice flag when it p o bin/46905 sysinstall sysinstall(8): FreeBSD 5.x cannot be installed from mu f bin/46235 sysinstall sysinstall(8): NTP servers for Finland require updatin o bin/42162 sysinstall sysinstall(8): after restart, installation crashes, md o bin/41949 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall sorts /etc/rc.conf during ne o bin/41850 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall fails to create root filesys f bin/40260 sysinstall sysinstall(8): hang when detecting devices (No CD/DVD s conf/39580 sysinstall sysinstall(8): [request] more secure mount options o bin/38854 sysinstall sysinstall(8): resetting during setup causes the targe s bin/38609 sysinstall sysinstall(8): [request] sysinstall should know the si o bin/38478 sysinstall sysinstall(8): In Choose Distributions screen, it's di o bin/38057 sysinstall sysinstall(8): "install" document doesn't display corr o bin/38056 sysinstall sysinstall(8): User (creation)'s "Member groups" item o bin/38055 sysinstall sysinstall(8): Groups (creation) item should be before o bin/37710 sysinstall sysinstall(8): LAN interface in wrong state after atte a bin/32375 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall doesn't respect User generat o bin/31363 sysinstall sysinstall(8): "partition editor" silently corrects pa a bin/30737 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall leaks file descriptors on re o bin/29375 sysinstall sysinstall(8): disk editor gets confused by slices tha a bin/23402 sysinstall sysinstall(8): upgrade ought to check partition sizes o bin/16948 sysinstall sysinstall(8): sysinstall/disklabel: bad partition tab o bin/15038 sysinstall sysinstall(8): easy to not notice that selection lists s bin/7232 sysinstall sysinstall(8): suggestion for FreeBSD installation dia 86 problems total. From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 21 22:31:25 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 087FD1065672; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:31:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA91D8FC19; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:31:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from compute2.internal (compute2.nyi.mail.srv.osa [10.202.2.42]) by gateway1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2292A20526; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:12:53 -0500 (EST) Received: from frontend1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute2.internal (MEProxy); Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:12:53 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=messagingengine.com; h=from:to:subject:date:cc:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; s=smtpout; bh=GAI2tCTUeQo7F+owe3BD8COWyN4=; b=GWc+AQm039RnN9neBTYr8eRsVXjPl+NcpLGaPCUVziCu0uL7lRS5D/4JODeKnp9E9WroWp2N6su4eFH4SNM+qjrnoexkcZhS4UZFayzmhQLbQj6HlHGbVau4nelOm8REYE2qTNvVrEkaf+UmnIB/xZ/PkPFFijUtmu7dBrQOILc= X-Sasl-enc: 9cPRiNuzrEYKMYCpYghgIOiSBCn4md3A1aw54i0Svzh4 1298326372 Received: from tcbug.ixsystems.com (74-34-19-98.dr01.rsmt.mn.frontiernet.net [74.34.19.98]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B2B094094EA; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:12:52 -0500 (EST) From: Josh Paetzel To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:12:41 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/8.1-RELEASE; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <61079648-D76C-4699-AC4D-F6EBE64ABFFC@vicor.com> <201102190844.43267.bruce@cran.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <201102190844.43267.bruce@cran.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart3047959.TjBYZPoihf"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:31:25 -0000 --nextPart3047959.TjBYZPoihf Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Saturday, February 19, 2011 02:44:42 am Bruce Cran wrote: > On Saturday 19 February 2011 03:04:39 Devin Teske wrote: > > There are many reasons for this, and none of them are selfish (although > > it remains possible to drum-up some selfish reason, all of the reasons > > behind our motivation are in-fact unselfish). Truth-be-told, I welcome > > the replacement of sysinstall but am very wary that ANY replacement will > > be able to exactly replicate the hardware compatibility that sysinstall > > currently enjoys. I do indeed envision a great celebration as FreeBSD-9 > > bucks sysinstall but also at the same time have nightmares of receiving > > waves of calls from people having trouble (for example) "installing > > FreeBSD-9 on their AMD K6 based system, circa long-long-ago in a > > universe far-far-away." (yes, we do have data centers running that very > > equipment with uptime in the 1,000's of days). >=20 > I think bsdinstall as it currently is is simple enough that there shouldn= 't > be any compatibility issues: it uses gpart for partitioning, runs tools > like tzsetup to configure settings etc. so there's far less to go wrong > than sysinstall's custom code which for example could crash on the > "probing devices" screen. pc-sysinstall has been used as the PC-BSD installer for quite a while now, = and=20 has done a lot of installs on a lot of different hardware platforms. I'll= =20 wager that the compatibility of the shell command gpart is a better bet tha= n=20 the "stick your thumbs in you ears and yell nananana while you scribble 1's= =20 and 0's to a disk and voila, there's a disklabel" approach that sysinstall= =20 uses. That being said, sysinstall holds FreeBSD back in a lot of ways, using GPT= =20 labeling, installing to ZFS, or gmirror, using geli, all require you to boo= t=20 to a shell and do an install by hand. I'm sure more people can chime in to= =20 limitations in sysinstall than I can think of off the top of my head. So my question is: Given that everyone involved is very conscious of lockin= g=20 out FreeBSD from hardware platforms due to installer compatibility, wouldn'= t a=20 better use of your time be investing in the future and ensuring that it wor= ks=20 on legacy platforms as opposed to putting sysinstall on life support when i= t=20 already has some fairly serious missing functionality, that is only likely = to=20 become more of an issue in the future? =2D-=20 Thanks, Josh Paetzel --nextPart3047959.TjBYZPoihf Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (FreeBSD) iQEcBAABAgAGBQJNYuNhAAoJEKFq1/n1feG2ys8H/2ftBaqnaq9mZcXsY0iWQ8J9 tz35avx7w4633MOdWCdjMUIFfQXStRCR1L18fBSXPfhzhd6hgzkUDRHZmpk/OZfo 6PBzHU/bGBb2qSYpPblUiCLeh+y8rNVSezSKazay5B8Cr2teb5sVFBm1n45H4sx1 ZO6q+7zBhFSfmGxF62H9zktk0m81lmI0DU5Uu9WYUdZlUO9FUOD2cWAFYwIux1OG tMzZTfqEmPllgzb3nneWtxZt9l8ZEki7RryHtE0JyhwPk3w0U0ytameZ5dReK+S4 A1Nua+1Y5HEzpfWFCxYDiT8cxwru67g2bq03iBZrgAfVnobffS04XB2HuTfjbzA= =3JpJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart3047959.TjBYZPoihf-- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 21 23:24:53 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4094F106566B; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (unknown [IPv6:2a01:348:0:15:5d59:5c40:0:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1A448FC13; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18214E61BB; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:49 +0000 (GMT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject :from:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=mail; bh=xC6B+zWdVyXf +pmAt7mpxOCReM0=; b=fWLHhR1s8lsyiEzSmK3y9sF71JKWIqZtsz//ImJBim1/ YHGq5WbrcwlQrPDei/AtMSvnFB7hin2FZgTKO+EMIXqRygowC2fdeKSyLkspjzjD zFdZesI8FCoXCGPymWz02SD98wIHL9HnQwRIXQfiXmUtp5VYRwh7tZFQH4P/j9Q= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject:from :to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=mail; b=OOgFP1 WjbDHEVhD7uVhwt4kuQP5IMZ3fp0UQNKv2chNbVD5Jqzw8cERdwBuTf4/st4S2If 7Lgu37t/ZNKEbeccjKQNm6pZ/8TmQLdBXuaGUYth3keXW3G0FShtG/FLiT11sUcQ HJsB10ZuUOBfb31oDir1oCtDMKzA/NFUZU3Ao= Received: from [192.168.0.11] (client-86-31-177-138.oxfd.adsl.virginmedia.com [86.31.177.138]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9D18BE61BA; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:48 +0000 (GMT) From: Bruce Cran To: Josh Paetzel In-Reply-To: <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <61079648-D76C-4699-AC4D-F6EBE64ABFFC@vicor.com> <201102190844.43267.bruce@cran.org.uk> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:23:05 +0000 Message-ID: <1298330585.4940.56.camel@debian.nessbank> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.30.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Nathan, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:53 -0000 On Mon, 2011-02-21 at 16:12 -0600, Josh Paetzel wrote: > pc-sysinstall has been used as the PC-BSD installer for quite a while now, and > has done a lot of installs on a lot of different hardware platforms. I'll > wager that the compatibility of the shell command gpart is a better bet than > the "stick your thumbs in you ears and yell nananana while you scribble 1's > and 0's to a disk and voila, there's a disklabel" approach that sysinstall > uses. I wish that was true: unfortunately I tried and failed to create a ZFS installation with pc-sysinstall, and I get a few worrying error messages even with UFS while it repartitions the disk - people have been reporting it creating unbootable systems. gpart might be more compatible, but I don't think parsing the output of tools like as fdisk, diskinfo and dmesg is. The concerns about GPT, ZFS, gmirror etc. in sysinstall could all be resolved in a couple of days by ripping out the existing partitioning code and replacing it with ae@'s new version of sade from /user/ae/usr.sbin/sade . However since the future is pc-sysinstall I've now shifted my work to improving the Qt front-end. -- Bruce Cran From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 21 23:24:53 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 429831065675; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (unknown [IPv6:2a01:348:0:15:5d59:5c40:0:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1AFF8FC14; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA40AE61BC; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:50 +0000 (GMT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject :from:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=mail; bh=xC6B+zWdVyXf +pmAt7mpxOCReM0=; b=I1jv6HKCAp8g6XunlErsjJy5qQfe5DdXYg5HdypDkukm 8mojj9HZOscu3HpxeJYY7AvXQwUehN+cB0LHkxQRwamX8xco8KLesxOQnAn2B5RA 93uZUaMmoNILdW4SJInsRi1SlbAL6TWvDHf5oOe1hENZ9IlXv+M6QdZiEfF4Db0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject:from :to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=mail; b=LBp56o V9oFgVRvZGBj3unl79FQ7hww56SNzwNcS/ix3Ff1MNo88Bw8hJ7zLn63ObKPuSDY iYq6dih3nO+h7384gUWTg/4906WnAlCJDe92q0qeUb3JlFJjBbPw55qufvEJZn54 RGGKtPsY+sPWQdZXd/CXtOHDDwP3ZrH5CuUsE= Received: from [192.168.0.11] (client-86-31-177-138.oxfd.adsl.virginmedia.com [86.31.177.138]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 3995DE61BA; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:50 +0000 (GMT) From: Bruce Cran To: Josh Paetzel In-Reply-To: <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <61079648-D76C-4699-AC4D-F6EBE64ABFFC@vicor.com> <201102190844.43267.bruce@cran.org.uk> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:47 +0000 Message-ID: <1298330687.4940.57.camel@debian.nessbank> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.30.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Nathan, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:24:53 -0000 On Mon, 2011-02-21 at 16:12 -0600, Josh Paetzel wrote: > pc-sysinstall has been used as the PC-BSD installer for quite a while now, and > has done a lot of installs on a lot of different hardware platforms. I'll > wager that the compatibility of the shell command gpart is a better bet than > the "stick your thumbs in you ears and yell nananana while you scribble 1's > and 0's to a disk and voila, there's a disklabel" approach that sysinstall > uses. I wish that was true: unfortunately I tried and failed to create a ZFS installation with pc-sysinstall, and I get a few worrying error messages even with UFS while it repartitions the disk - people have been reporting it creating unbootable systems. gpart might be more compatible, but I don't think parsing the output of tools like as fdisk, diskinfo and dmesg is. The concerns about GPT, ZFS, gmirror etc. in sysinstall could all be resolved in a couple of days by ripping out the existing partitioning code and replacing it with ae@'s new version of sade from /user/ae/usr.sbin/sade . However since the future is pc-sysinstall I've now shifted my work to improving the Qt front-end. -- Bruce Cran From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 02:38:12 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1AF42106566B; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:38:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dteske@vicor.com) Received: from postoffice.vicor.com (postoffice.vicor.com [69.26.56.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECE2A8FC12; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:38:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [210.177.209.182] (port=13437 helo=[192.168.1.151]) by postoffice.vicor.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Pri8c-0002wb-AH; Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:38:10 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) From: Devin Teske In-Reply-To: <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:38:03 -0800 Message-Id: References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <61079648-D76C-4699-AC4D-F6EBE64ABFFC@vicor.com> <201102190844.43267.bruce@cran.org.uk> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> To: Josh Paetzel X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) X-Scan-Signature: 50a71de0cae8f0fceb03b5a800567216 X-Scan-Host: postoffice.vicor.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:38:12 -0000 On Feb 21, 2011, at 2:12 PM, Josh Paetzel wrote: > On Saturday, February 19, 2011 02:44:42 am Bruce Cran wrote: >> On Saturday 19 February 2011 03:04:39 Devin Teske wrote: >>> There are many reasons for this, and none of them are selfish = (although >>> it remains possible to drum-up some selfish reason, all of the = reasons >>> behind our motivation are in-fact unselfish). Truth-be-told, I = welcome >>> the replacement of sysinstall but am very wary that ANY replacement = will >>> be able to exactly replicate the hardware compatibility that = sysinstall >>> currently enjoys. I do indeed envision a great celebration as = FreeBSD-9 >>> bucks sysinstall but also at the same time have nightmares of = receiving >>> waves of calls from people having trouble (for example) "installing >>> FreeBSD-9 on their AMD K6 based system, circa long-long-ago in a >>> universe far-far-away." (yes, we do have data centers running that = very >>> equipment with uptime in the 1,000's of days). >>=20 >> I think bsdinstall as it currently is is simple enough that there = shouldn't >> be any compatibility issues: it uses gpart for partitioning, runs = tools >> like tzsetup to configure settings etc. so there's far less to go = wrong >> than sysinstall's custom code which for example could crash on the >> "probing devices" screen. >=20 > pc-sysinstall has been used as the PC-BSD installer for quite a while = now, and=20 > has done a lot of installs on a lot of different hardware platforms. = I'll=20 > wager that the compatibility of the shell command gpart is a better = bet than=20 > the "stick your thumbs in you ears and yell nananana while you = scribble 1's=20 > and 0's to a disk and voila, there's a disklabel" approach that = sysinstall=20 > uses. This is a common affront that can be assuaged simply by perusing = sysinstall's code. Unfortunately, I may be truly-alone in my opinion = that sysinstall is elegantly simple (but then again, I also have an = innate understanding of why each/every line of code exists; bourne = in-truth from a decadal melange of knowledge when it comes to ancient = architectures -- that and I routinely read the 15+ years of commit logs = "for fun"). In reality, the _only_ thing, in my honest opinion, that sysinstall = fails-at is its embracement of new technologies such as GPT, ZFS, and = geli (just to name a few; all of which you mention below). However, this = is not the position that I am (or we are, as a business collective) = coming from. =46rom the position at which we stand, sysinstall is not = [yet] deficient and despite your claims, neither does it resort to = black-magic "scribbl[ing] 1's and 0's to a disk and voila, there's a = disklabel" (by comparison standards, might one be able to say -- if = taking the same naive tone -- that gpart "scribble[s] 1's and 0's and = voila, there's a [partition table]"; the only distinction being perhaps = your own bias of MBR versus GPT which if you conversely understood the = limitations of MBR then you might not have such qualms against = disklabels). Just as it was stated by another in this thread that a system with = 1,000+ days uptime may not be a good candidate for upgrade (entirely on = the basis that such a system in its current state has proved its = meddle), we make an argument along the same lines for the install = process -- because sysinstall has served us *so exquisitely well* over = the years (its meddle being proven) we are reluctant to blindly accept = the "new kid on the block" without rigorous recension (note: in = comparison by age, any technology is young when compared to sysinstall). >=20 > That being said, sysinstall holds FreeBSD back in a lot of ways, using = GPT=20 > labeling, installing to ZFS, or gmirror, using geli, all require you = to boot=20 > to a shell and do an install by hand. I'm sure more people can chime = in to=20 > limitations in sysinstall than I can think of off the top of my head. You are absolutely correct in highlighting the most prominent = short-comings of sysinstall, but alas if you don't need those features = then completely swapping out your installer for a new one begins to make = less sense than sticking with what has served (and will continue to = serve) you well. The long and the short of this is, we don't use GPT, we don't (and = wouldn't) use ZFS as a root partition scheme, and have no use for geli = on the root disk (though may venture into using geli as a PCI solution = -- pcisecuritystandards.org -- on secondary media mounted at boot-time). Philosophically, innovation is bourne of necessity -- and we don't need = any of the things that bsdinstall brings us ... so the only thing that = bsdinstall represents is more work for me in migrating thousands upon = thousands of lines of code to the new installer, vetting every aspect of = the new installer in the process (note that we utilize sysinstall in = ways that others could only dream of -- something you'll be able to see = for yourself when I get back from Hong Kong to The States and start = publishing our/my work). That being said, if we _did_ need the features that are provided by = bsdinstall versus what is available today with sysinstall, I assure you = that there would be a concerted effort to start using bsdinstall ... our = hand would simply be forced. However, since we don't need those features = it seems silly to waste any man-hours on migration (by comparison, I can = put sysinstall on life-support with no trouble at all because I = envisaged this day coming and made preparations in the final ahn many = years ago). >=20 > So my question is: Given that everyone involved is very conscious of = locking=20 > out FreeBSD from hardware platforms due to installer compatibility, = wouldn't a=20 > better use of your time be investing in the future and ensuring that = it works=20 > on legacy platforms as opposed to putting sysinstall on life support = when it=20 > already has some fairly serious missing functionality, that is only = likely to=20 > become more of an issue in the future? On the contrary, it takes no effort whatsoever to put sysinstall on = life-support. Rather, it's going to take a very long time to prove that = bsdinstall can do what sysinstall can do. If asked to quantize what = percentage of features we use in sysinstall, I'd have to say 30%, = however the 30% that we do utilize is the underrepresented portion (the = portions that nobody talks about). Also, worth mentioning is that we've = patched sysinstall by 811 lines (by last count) to add even more = features (features that likely won't exist in bsdinstall that will need = to be ported). To make things worse, we're going to also have to completely rewrite all = the programs that generate the scripts that are then fed into = sysinstall's scripting abilities. Those programs weigh in at 3089+ lines = of code (including a mixture of Asm, C, FICL, and sh). It may come to pass that bsdinstall is not up to the task at-hand and = will require patching (just as sysinstall was originally not up to the = task at hand, and so we patched it ... ... _heavily_. Really, the crux of the issue is that our organization is **just now** = migrating off of FreeBSD-4 (yes, it's true... there are over 1,000 = FreeBSD-4.11 machines running in production at this very moment spanning = the entire United States, parts of India, and parts of the Indo-pacific = rim). Worse? We just added yet-another 200+ to those ranks in the past 2 = months. My hat is off to you sir... as I envy your position that you can be so = free-moving. We are encumbered by entrenched methods and do not have the = luxury of trying new things for the sake of change (case in-point, since = bsdinstall brings nothing new to the table that we rely upon, it truly = would be change for the sake of change in our organization). Fin de dialectics. >=20 > --=20 > Thanks, >=20 > Josh Paetzel -- Cheers, Devin Teske -> CONTACT INFORMATION <- Business Solutions Consultant II FIS - fisglobal.com 510-735-5650 Mobile 510-621-2038 Office 510-621-2020 Office Fax 909-477-4578 Home/Fax devin.teske@fisglobal.com -> LEGAL DISCLAIMER <- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy. -> END TRANSMISSION <- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 07:03:23 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92EF4106564A; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:03:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5A5248FC15; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:03:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from compute1.internal (compute1.nyi.mail.srv.osa [10.202.2.41]) by gateway1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95EC920947; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:03:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from frontend1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute1.internal (MEProxy); Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:03:22 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=messagingengine.com; h=from:to:subject:date:cc:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; s=smtpout; bh=PZsflNLY9INovIWw/J0WNZQ1/z0=; b=RaVUg2UjFt1vaJ7CPIERGARpILYFHehpGcyhwipg11S1sJUVx7EMiTBaLKsQ9na9X1uE/VSpPSVfCIYiwLI14y/8PsxJva87myAAzsjcPe0uZ9PdVduOWFwU9BWhbx/kjE93vn45CebXRif3VaIcnOY6Rvm0F9GArNDFsX/+yko= X-Sasl-enc: zIzC3TaLCdg5WNm0wG01GDEVTPK0Gz1dRkCKWwacEUk6 1298358202 Received: from tcbug.ixsystems.com (74-34-19-98.dr01.rsmt.mn.frontiernet.net [74.34.19.98]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 2783C401AC0; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:03:22 -0500 (EST) From: Josh Paetzel To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:03:07 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/8.1-RELEASE; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart1403105.siBJnKaS6S"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:03:23 -0000 --nextPart1403105.siBJnKaS6S Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Monday, February 21, 2011 08:38:03 pm Devin Teske wrote: >=20 > Really, the crux of the issue is that our organization is **just now** > migrating off of FreeBSD-4 (yes, it's true... there are over 1,000 > FreeBSD-4.11 machines running in production at this very moment spanning > the entire United States, parts of India, and parts of the Indo-pacific > rim). Worse? We just added yet-another 200+ to those ranks in the past 2 > months. >=20 > My hat is off to you sir... as I envy your position that you can be so > free-moving. We are encumbered by entrenched methods and do not have the > luxury of trying new things for the sake of change (case in-point, since > bsdinstall brings nothing new to the table that we rely upon, it truly > would be change for the sake of change in our organization). >=20 > Fin de dialectics. >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > -- > Cheers, > Devin Teske Maintaining sysinstall for 4.x is indeed a NOOP, since features aren't bein= g=20 added to it, and the featureset that sysinstall supports is pretty much in= =20 line with the featureset in 4...no ZFS, no geom_*, etc etc etc. On the other hand, maintaining sysinstall for the next N years of new FreeB= SD=20 releases seems hard, when it's already missing features compared to what=20 =46reeBSD supports, and that's likely to continue to grow. I totally agree that for internal use, migrating thousands of lines of code= =20 makes no sense whatsoever, especially if sysinstall meets your needs and yo= u=20 don't care about the functionality it doesn't have. Exporting that to the= =20 community seems to be a questionable use of resources. I'm no stranger to large deployments. With my ${WORK} hat on we can instal= l a=20 thousand FreeBSD systems in a week. In my 16+ years of involvement with=20 =46reeBSD I've written three automated installers...quite frankly, ditching= =20 sysinstall for that happened really fast. I do admit to being a tad curious where you find systems that can run FreeB= SD=20 4 at this point. A single socket intel shows up as 8 or 12 CPUs these days= ,=20 more than enough to tie 4.x into knots. Add in disk controllers, NICs, ACP= I=20 (modern systems use that for nearly everything it seems) and suddenly an=20 installer seems the least of the concerns. I suppose my last question is along the lines of, "If adding geom_mirror=20 support to sysinstall was easy, why has it been 6+ years since gmirror made= =20 it's appearance in FreeBSD and you still can't create or install to a gmirr= or=20 with sysinstall?" =20 =2D-=20 Thanks, Josh Paetzel --nextPart1403105.siBJnKaS6S Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (FreeBSD) iQEcBAABAgAGBQJNY1+3AAoJEKFq1/n1feG2WSYIAJ980gk0UpqyK+KcevHJQoxQ 1hxgj+UP4/cbpdyNn3tjOck9W3Hxtnz9zhdoZOEQOz/MtoCJzhE03n4ysnzC7lhs vwNduIyoV1hViFbsW681y56MmPn30LptTvyzhkYbMHuJQa5GuQr+ptXgQPHIBQC/ Cg9xcEDhUrWUhHqK1b2jZ3puWZNyeSOCI/ixWgdx4zCfRO4NiL2nNW5KAZaTf/rE I2R9+B2c6cU/ikMdcZaIo5hCmsNxKsBO3wgAel6EvX1RV4vCettHOTSaeC4fSoD6 fl3Vso/eR5aWe8PWgHBXBi5BtJRQ+ZYyiHNFJJYpLclL27Qp4uVJ7jFeljcKL7o= =Bzo2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart1403105.siBJnKaS6S-- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 09:20:53 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 714941065672; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (unknown [IPv6:2a01:348:0:15:5d59:5c40:0:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22C368FC0A; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4ED0FE61BF; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:52 +0000 (GMT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject :from:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=mail; bh=9yqtpASMzKVx MDF7eCjvuisjEiE=; b=YBbpRUky33c61IzCtrDvTor+VrB89H1Yyk2tT9VVSe5e jII3S7m8tVKUCgmVvGvv2emfvH7lMbFpLQAf/8HoSBprC4nWBE/S7mSIEGte5DBN by5UZrJ/Zzo71mQpSmMeA4uLY1OoKvGs+JncjBanuwEqCpYTRxQvGXDvsCbFX7c= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject:from :to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=mail; b=KdTLKw 8Tm3/UH/4Af3x7HMvYtUt5/qyJ9oge5WgCzpRNePpPEbhaI82yuvQw3NcAq9ODas QygbMPw1yiBGqAYEeo/qnCiTQdQ5OIbOJrDy9AF02nVlEhlIne2zXaEdJvhDdZ42 jIUmOV83B4NeSvS0ODn8PIl/Oj42J0XO2wZNM= Received: from [192.168.0.11] (client-86-31-177-138.oxfd.adsl.virginmedia.com [86.31.177.138]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id E1769E61BE; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:51 +0000 (GMT) From: Bruce Cran To: Josh Paetzel In-Reply-To: <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:50 +0000 Message-ID: <1298366450.4940.69.camel@debian.nessbank> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.30.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:20:53 -0000 On Tue, 2011-02-22 at 01:03 -0600, Josh Paetzel wrote: > I suppose my last question is along the lines of, "If adding geom_mirror > support to sysinstall was easy, why has it been 6+ years since gmirror made > it's appearance in FreeBSD and you still can't create or install to a gmirror > with sysinstall?" It's not been added because everyone thinks sysinstall code is horrible and won't touch it. -- Bruce Cran From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 10:51:09 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9FB08106566B; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:51:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dteske@vicor.com) Received: from postoffice.vicor.com (postoffice.vicor.com [69.26.56.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F1F48FC19; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:51:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [210.177.209.182] (port=13139 helo=[192.168.1.151]) by postoffice.vicor.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PrppZ-0004JS-V4; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:51:08 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) From: Devin Teske In-Reply-To: <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:50:54 -0800 Message-Id: References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> To: Josh Paetzel X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) X-Scan-Signature: 0d916604628b474728ef7f444882548c X-Scan-Host: postoffice.vicor.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:51:09 -0000 On Feb 21, 2011, at 11:03 PM, Josh Paetzel wrote: > On Monday, February 21, 2011 08:38:03 pm Devin Teske wrote: >=20 >>=20 >> Really, the crux of the issue is that our organization is **just = now** >> migrating off of FreeBSD-4 (yes, it's true... there are over 1,000 >> FreeBSD-4.11 machines running in production at this very moment = spanning >> the entire United States, parts of India, and parts of the = Indo-pacific >> rim). Worse? We just added yet-another 200+ to those ranks in the = past 2 >> months. >>=20 >> My hat is off to you sir... as I envy your position that you can be = so >> free-moving. We are encumbered by entrenched methods and do not have = the >> luxury of trying new things for the sake of change (case in-point, = since >> bsdinstall brings nothing new to the table that we rely upon, it = truly >> would be change for the sake of change in our organization). >>=20 >> Fin de dialectics. >>=20 >>=20 >>=20 >>=20 >> -- >> Cheers, >> Devin Teske >=20 > Maintaining sysinstall for 4.x is indeed a NOOP, since features aren't = being=20 > added to it, and the featureset that sysinstall supports is pretty = much in=20 > line with the featureset in 4...no ZFS, no geom_*, etc etc etc. >=20 > On the other hand, maintaining sysinstall for the next N years of new = FreeBSD=20 > releases seems hard Actually, it's trivial to anyone that has mastered release engineering = (see release(7) and the handbook). > , when it's already missing features compared to what=20 > FreeBSD supports, That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that = changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel = becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel = partitioned disks). > and that's likely to continue to grow. We've yet to see a "must have" technology that would require us to shun = sysinstall (as explained earlier, we have no desire whatsoever to boot = from ZFS, gmirror, geli, GPT, or anything else missing from sysinstall). One such possible motivation would be if we needed to create a boot = partition that exceeds 4TB (the limits of MBR partitioning versus GPT). = I just don't see that happening (workstations, servers, pedestals... why = would we ever need >8GB for the operating system? all production data is = being stored on enterprise class devices such as the NEC-D210, and being = backed up with tapes such as LTO; In our organization every machine is = expendable and we have disaster recovery procedures for any/all = failures). >=20 > I totally agree that for internal use, migrating thousands of lines of = code=20 > makes no sense whatsoever, especially if sysinstall meets your needs = and you=20 > don't care about the functionality it doesn't have. Exporting that to = the=20 > community seems to be a questionable use of resources. >=20 > I'm no stranger to large deployments. With my ${WORK} hat on we can = install a=20 > thousand FreeBSD systems in a week. In my 16+ years of involvement = with=20 > FreeBSD I've written three automated installers...quite frankly, = ditching=20 > sysinstall for that happened really fast. Good work. However, it's a shame that you found the need to ditch sysinstall. We = found no such need and have created an automated network installation = process literally on the assembly line in a factory the size of a = football stadium -- responsible for churning out thousands of machines = per year with FreeBSD-4.11 pre-installed before they arrive on-site (all = using sysinstall). The hardware gets assembled to-spec, slides down an = assembly-line, a technician jacks power, network, video and keyboard to = the box, netboots it by pressing F12, waits 5 minutes for the screen to = finish installation, powers it off, and slides it down the line. > I do admit to being a tad curious where you find systems that can run = FreeBSD=20 > 4 at this point. We're installing FreeBSD-4.11 onto modern systems, including: Intel Server Chassis SC5299 Intel Server Chassis SR2500 just to name a couple. Albeit, we've back-ported many drivers, such as mfi(3) from RELENG_6 to = support the LSI MegaSAS controller. We're no stranger to putting even the Operating System on Life Support = for as long as it takes for our customers to bolster their budgets for = an integrated upgrade strategy. We have a very small yet largely talented group of individuals = (including myself) within our organization that quickly and efficiently = remediate lost functionality required to maintain hardware compatibility = simply because our customers cannot stomach upgrading the OS every = 18-months (or whatever the life-cycle may be). We can't be forcing our = customers to upgrade their entire organization everytime the OS can't = boot from some new controller -- not when adding the lost functionality = into the OS is only a matter of a couple weeks work (at most). So in earnest, I should have clarified that despite running FreeBSD-4.11 = on thousands of machines... it's actually a highly customized kernel = _and_ install process that allows us to run on modern hardware. > A single socket intel shows up as 8 or 12 CPUs these days,=20 > more than enough to tie 4.x into knots. Add in disk controllers, = NICs, ACPI=20 > (modern systems use that for nearly everything it seems) and suddenly = an=20 > installer seems the least of the concerns. You are absolutely right. Everything about FreeBSD-4.11 is on = life-support in our enterprise. The kernel/installer has pieces from = RELENG_6, RELENG_7, and even RELENG_8. Life-support is our specialty as = our clients demand it. When suppliers decide to EOL certain hardware, we = simply back-port the necessary changes to support the new hardware. When = FreeBSD EOL'd 4.11, that by no means gave us a right to go mandate that = our customers immediately upgrade (which would cost potentially millions = of dollars). >=20 > I suppose my last question is along the lines of, "If adding = geom_mirror=20 > support to sysinstall was easy, why has it been 6+ years since gmirror = made=20 > it's appearance in FreeBSD and you still can't create or install to a = gmirror=20 > with sysinstall?" In enterprise business we rely on hardware RAID. If software RAID such as gmirror was an acceptable solution in our = Enterprise, I'd have personally added it to sysinstall years ago. >=20 >=20 > --=20 > Thanks, >=20 > Josh Paetzel -- Cheers, Devin Teske -> CONTACT INFORMATION <- Business Solutions Consultant II FIS - fisglobal.com 510-735-5650 Mobile 510-621-2038 Office 510-621-2020 Office Fax 909-477-4578 Home/Fax devin.teske@fisglobal.com -> LEGAL DISCLAIMER <- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy. -> FUN STUFF <- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version 3.12 GAT/CS/B/CC/E/IT/MC/M/MU/P/S/TW d+(++) s: a- C+++@$ UB++++$ P++++@$ = L++++$ E- W+++ N? o? K? w@ O M++$ V- PS+>++ PE@ Y+ PGP-> t(+) 5? X(+) R(-) tv+ = b+>++ DI+ D+(++) G++ e>++++ h r+++ z+++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ http://www.geekcode.com/ -> END TRANSMISSION <- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 16:19:56 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B935B106566C; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C1508FC12; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 279AA46B03; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:56 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 552718A009; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:55 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:45:45 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:19:55 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_PAST_03_06, MAY_BE_FORGED,RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, grarpamp , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:19:56 -0000 On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: > Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll > just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... > > 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands > on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, > so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often > resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all > else was cloned, it needed a separate .cfg for each box due > to: > > fqdn, gateway, ip/mask > interface - sometimes changed > root disk - sometimes changed > > Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those > questions of the operator, per machine. Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. -- John Baldwin From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 16:26:34 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D42DB1065672; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:26:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nwhitehorn@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [128.104.255.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DFE08FC0A; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:26:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0AFB582CD; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:26:33 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at icecube.wisc.edu Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10030) with ESMTP id NyKcAvK-9aEW; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:26:33 -0600 (CST) Received: from wanderer.tachypleus.net (i3-dhcp-172-16-223-170.icecube.wisc.edu [172.16.223.170]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 89C57582C3; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:26:33 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:26:33 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20110103 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Baldwin References: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, grarpamp , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:26:34 -0000 On 02/22/11 06:45, John Baldwin wrote: > On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: >> Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll >> just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... >> >> 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands >> on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, >> so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often >> resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all >> else was cloned, it needed a separate.cfg for each box due >> to: >> >> fqdn, gateway, ip/mask >> interface - sometimes changed >> root disk - sometimes changed >> >> Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those >> questions of the operator, per machine. > > Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to > the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell > script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but > I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful > that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while > letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to > create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. This is something that I very explicitly built in to the design of bsdinstall. When the installer starts (as well as at several other points), you are offered an option to bring up a shell specifically to do things like this. Scripted installs are just shell scripts instead of a configuration file, so it is trivial to interleave complicated things like this. -Nathan From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 17:15:04 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5806E106566B; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 232638FC16; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id D315246B0C; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 45E0E8A009; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: Nathan Whitehorn Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:14:57 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:15:03 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.5 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,MAY_BE_FORGED, RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, grarpamp , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:15:04 -0000 On Tuesday, February 22, 2011 11:26:33 am Nathan Whitehorn wrote: > On 02/22/11 06:45, John Baldwin wrote: > > On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: > >> Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll > >> just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... > >> > >> 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands > >> on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, > >> so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often > >> resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all > >> else was cloned, it needed a separate.cfg for each box due > >> to: > >> > >> fqdn, gateway, ip/mask > >> interface - sometimes changed > >> root disk - sometimes changed > >> > >> Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those > >> questions of the operator, per machine. > > > > Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to > > the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell > > script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but > > I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful > > that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while > > letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to > > create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. > > This is something that I very explicitly built in to the design of > bsdinstall. When the installer starts (as well as at several other > points), you are offered an option to bring up a shell specifically to > do things like this. Scripted installs are just shell scripts instead of > a configuration file, so it is trivial to interleave complicated things > like this. Yes, I should have worded it a bit differently in that I do actually think that is true from what little I have seen and the "hopeful" bit more refers to my being able to adopt it locally. -- John Baldwin From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 21:13:46 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B1E071065693; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nwhitehorn@freebsd.org) Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [128.104.255.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 720BD8FC15; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE684582D8; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at icecube.wisc.edu Received: from mail.icecube.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (trout.icecube.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10030) with ESMTP id ddZm2ZCMKBJ9; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) Received: from wanderer.tachypleus.net (i3-dhcp-172-16-223-197.icecube.wisc.edu [172.16.223.197]) by mail.icecube.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87D85582D7; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4D642709.6080604@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:13:45 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20110103 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Baldwin References: <201102220745.45695.jhb@freebsd.org> <4D63E3B9.8030308@freebsd.org> <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <201102221214.58073.jhb@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, grarpamp Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13:46 -0000 On 02/22/11 11:14, John Baldwin wrote: > On Tuesday, February 22, 2011 11:26:33 am Nathan Whitehorn wrote: >> On 02/22/11 06:45, John Baldwin wrote: >>> On Saturday, February 19, 2011 4:34:11 am grarpamp wrote: >>>> Sysinstall is fine, as I'm sure any replacement will be. So I'll >>>> just note a few things I'd like to see in any such replacement... >>>> >>>> 1 - I used install.cfg's on floppies to clone systems, a lot. Hands >>>> on the box were needed with that. Operators skills were in question, >>>> so having them use the dialog menus properly was a pain and often >>>> resulted in non-zeroed disk or half built systems. And though all >>>> else was cloned, it needed a separate.cfg for each box due >>>> to: >>>> >>>> fqdn, gateway, ip/mask >>>> interface - sometimes changed >>>> root disk - sometimes changed >>>> >>>> Would have killed for a simple console shell script to ask those >>>> questions of the operator, per machine. >>> >>> Actually, you can do that if you are a bit creative (add a few more tools to >>> the mfsroot, and use the 'system' command in install.cfg to invoke a shell >>> script that then generates a foo.cfg you later include via loadConfig, but >>> I've covered that at multiple conferences by now). That said, I'm hopeful >>> that the new installer will be more flexible in less hackish ways while >>> letting you do things like PXE boot to a shell where you can use mfiutil to >>> create a RAID-5 volume and then invoke the installer on that, etc. >> >> This is something that I very explicitly built in to the design of >> bsdinstall. When the installer starts (as well as at several other >> points), you are offered an option to bring up a shell specifically to >> do things like this. Scripted installs are just shell scripts instead of >> a configuration file, so it is trivial to interleave complicated things >> like this. > > Yes, I should have worded it a bit differently in that I do actually think > that is true from what little I have seen and the "hopeful" bit more refers > to my being able to adopt it locally. > Ah, understood. Speaking of which, there is a new amd64 snapshot ISO with bsdinstall on it (an i386 ISO should follow in the next day or so): http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-amd64-20110222.iso.bz2 This is more or less the planned final form of the installer and layout of the install media, so I would very much appreciate testing at this point. Pending a small patch to the distributeworld target currently under review, this will be followed by patches to the release Makefile to change the default installer to bsdinstall in -CURRENT. Barring any objections, I hope to have that second patch in the tree by mid-March. -Nathan From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 22 22:18:34 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 621E4106564A; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:18:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from peterjeremy@acm.org) Received: from fallbackmx06.syd.optusnet.com.au (fallbackmx06.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.8]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4F81D8FC0C; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:18:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail36.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail36.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.133.76]) by fallbackmx06.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p1MKvt6Z014932; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:55 +1100 Received: from server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (c220-239-116-103.belrs4.nsw.optusnet.com.au [220.239.116.103]) by mail36.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p1MKvoTf025265 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:52 +1100 X-Bogosity: Ham, spamicity=0.000000 Received: from server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (localhost.vk2pj.dyndns.org [127.0.0.1]) by server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p1MKvgeY034606; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:42 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org) Received: (from peter@localhost) by server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id p1MKvfPe034605; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:41 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter) Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:41 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: Devin Teske Message-ID: <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://members.optusnet.com.au/peterjeremy/pubkey.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:18:34 -0000 --vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: >That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that >changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel >becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel >partitioned disks). When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware vendors dropping support for MBR. Current disks are at the upper limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of MBR). Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR's limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. And when it does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope with non-MBR disks. >We've yet to see a "must have" technology that would require us to >shun sysinstall (as explained earlier, we have no desire whatsoever >to boot from ZFS, gmirror, geli, GPT, or anything else missing from >sysinstall). Whilst _you_ might not be interested, lots of other people _are_ interested in using these features - I personally use a mixture of gmirror, GPT and ZFS root on different systems. Why should other people be forced to avoid these features just because you don't use them? FreeBSD's installer should support the same features as FreeBSD itself for consistency. >pedestals... why would we ever need >8GB for the operating system? >all production data is being stored on enterprise class devices such >as the NEC-D210, and being backed up with tapes such as LTO; Not everyone uses FreeBSD in the same environment as you. >We're no stranger to putting even the Operating System on Life >Support for as long as it takes for our customers to bolster their >budgets for an integrated upgrade strategy. Given that you've already said you are staying with FreeBSD 4.11, why are you at all worried about FreeBSD using a new installed in FreeBSD 9 to support features that don't exist in FreeBSD 4? FreeBSD is primarily a volunteer project. Whilst you may be an expert on the innards of sysinstall, this seems to be a rare skill and no-one (including yourself) has stepped up and offered to add the missing functionality to sysinstall. It's worth noting that the original author of sysinstall considered it to be a temporary stop-gap until something better was developed. The increasing disparity between FreeBSD's features, together with the opaqueness of sysinstall have led to a replacement being developed. No-one is forcing you to replace sysinstall on your legacy systems but if you want sysinstall to remain the default installer, you are going to need to add the missing functionality to it. --=20 Peter Jeremy --vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAk1kI0UACgkQ/opHv/APuIcwwQCgwLVkfv7xsgCYQMsSfiaco7uY 0PwAn1umUCZhxR6ah5Os+zL7HuBpFCik =5low -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL-- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 00:31:14 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@hub.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5CB4E1065672; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:31:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from eadler@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3102C8FC0A; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:31:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p1N0VEJf015975; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:31:14 GMT (envelope-from eadler@freefall.freebsd.org) Received: (from eadler@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id p1N0VCWb015889; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:31:12 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from eadler) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:31:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <201102230031.p1N0VCWb015889@freefall.freebsd.org> To: xenophon+freebsd@irtnog.org, eadler@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.org From: eadler@FreeBSD.org Cc: Subject: Re: alpha/61940: sysinstall(8): Can't disklabel new disk from FreeBSD/alpha 5.2-RELEASE sysinstall X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:31:14 -0000 Synopsis: sysinstall(8): Can't disklabel new disk from FreeBSD/alpha 5.2-RELEASE sysinstall State-Changed-From-To: open->closed State-Changed-By: eadler State-Changed-When: Tue Feb 22 19:30:52 EST 2011 State-Changed-Why: Alpha is no longer supported http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=61940 From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 03:23:52 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AFDD1065673; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:23:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dteske@vicor.com) Received: from postoffice.vicor.com (postoffice.vicor.com [69.26.56.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BF138FC0A; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:23:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [210.177.209.182] (port=12866 helo=[192.168.1.151]) by postoffice.vicor.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ps5KL-0000Az-Ir; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:23:51 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) From: Devin Teske In-Reply-To: <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:23:43 -0800 Message-Id: <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> To: Peter Jeremy X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) X-Scan-Signature: 2deb3881d101993f5b9fe028e1f948e6 X-Scan-Host: postoffice.vicor.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:23:52 -0000 On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: >> That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that >> changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel >> becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel >> partitioned disks). >=20 > When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware > vendors dropping support for MBR. Current disks are at the upper > limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of > MBR). Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR's > limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. And when it > does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope > with non-MBR disks. All very true. Though admittedly we're [as a technological society] still a long long = ways off from dropping support for MBR in even the most modern BIOS'. >=20 >> We've yet to see a "must have" technology that would require us to >> shun sysinstall (as explained earlier, we have no desire whatsoever >> to boot from ZFS, gmirror, geli, GPT, or anything else missing from >> sysinstall). >=20 > Whilst _you_ might not be interested, lots of other people _are_ > interested in using these features - I personally use a mixture of > gmirror, GPT and ZFS root on different systems. Excellent. And the likes of us (enterprise) will be watching the likes = of you (non-enterprise) for many years to come to see how you fare in = your travels. =46rom time to time we'll be checking in on the list and = perusing list archives to see how well you fare. I don't know if you remember, but I can remember 10+ years ago when = ReiserFS (the *killer* filesystem -- sorry, I couldn't resist) hit the = Linux scene. There were wild reports of comprehensive data loss even in = the 3rd year of its production cycle. It was stories like that which = kept down the rate of adoption because many enterprises adopt the same = "wait and see" attitude. We call it the "great shake out" and all new = technologies must have one before being adopted by the largest = enterprises. > Why should other > people be forced to avoid these features just because you don't use > them? They shouldn't. We encourage others to dive head-long into the soupy mix = and be our guinea pigs for us. Innovation is no place for the enterprises that run the market place (or = even the World). (in a very serious tone) Would you rather your bank call you up and = explain that because they tried some new technology that caused a crash = in the data center, you won't have access to your bank account for the = next few hours whilst they reboot the master server? Just as I suspect your answer would be no, it should be self-evident = that when a critical system goes down, there is not always the luxury of = being able to drop to gdb/kdb and diagnose the root-cause (rather, = disaster recovery procedures often demand focusing your efforts on = getting said service -- if not the original machine, a replacement = machine -- back online as fast as humanly possible). Whereas others may = have the luxury of providing backtraces, core dumps, and swapfiles to = the authors of some new kernel device driver to eventually have some = critical bug fixed, the downtime required to cull those resources would = decimate any profit-driven business model which relies on service = uptime. It's very easy to forget that -- while playing with new technologies is = both fun _and_ exciting -- businesses that make the world go-'round = demand more than just the promise of stability, they demand the numbers = to prove it (and even then, may still require their own engineers to = perform an "in-house bake-out" of their own which involves the added = complexity of working with their own code). Rolling in any replacement = anytime anywhere requires "burn-in" metrics to show that the technology = can reproduce an acceptable fault-to-performance ratio. Of course, it = goes without saying that said stringent testing requires both resources = and man-hours. > FreeBSD's installer should support the same features as FreeBSD > itself for consistency. I don't disagree. That's a laudable goal for all Operating Systems. = Though with due respect, I don't think any one installer for any = operating system allows you to achieve all permutations of which the OS = itself supports. >=20 >> pedestals... why would we ever need >8GB for the operating system? >> all production data is being stored on enterprise class devices such >> as the NEC-D210, and being backed up with tapes such as LTO; >=20 > Not everyone uses FreeBSD in the same environment as you. Oh how society would stagnate if we _did_. Thank goodness we _don't_ = operate in the same environments (for your sake and mine). >=20 >> We're no stranger to putting even the Operating System on Life >> Support for as long as it takes for our customers to bolster their >> budgets for an integrated upgrade strategy. >=20 > Given that you've already said you are staying with FreeBSD 4.11, We are migrating to FreeBSD-8.1 this year and plan to do so with = sysinstall. The whole point about this thread is, that we plan to use sysinstall for = FreeBSD-9 and later too. I simply can't be bothered to migrate thousands = of lines of code (which are the culmination of multiple man-years) to a = new installer that is not vetted in-house yet -- and because at least 3 = other people on this list have expressed interest in our life-support = for their own enterprise organizations, I am pressing forward with the = minor effort that-it-is to make our work public. You question the expenditure of resources whilst we question the = decision to completely dump such a tried-and-true technology. A better = decision would have been to offer both sysinstall _and_ bsdinstall in = FreeBSD-9 and then offer only bsdinstall in FreeBSD-10 (it even has a = nice mental picture to it ... FreeBSD-10 being the legacy-free = installation method). Personally, I find the immediate jump to be rather = maligned from the spirit of enterprise development. > why are you at all worried about FreeBSD using a new installed in > FreeBSD 9 to support features that don't exist in FreeBSD 4? You misunderstood the entire thread. We are migrating from FreeBSD-4 to = FreeBSD-8 this year and have already migrated thousands of lines of code = from RELENG_4 to RELENG_8 last year for the big-jump. This thread was = created because it was announced that RELENG_9 will surreptitiously drop = sysinstall completely in favor of bsdinstall without so much as a = "honeymoon period." > FreeBSD is primarily a volunteer project. Whilst you may be an expert > on the innards of sysinstall, this seems to be a rare skill and no-one > (including yourself) has stepped up and offered to add the missing > functionality to sysinstall. Innovation is bourne-of necessity -- and we don't need said "missing" = functionality. sysinstall is fully-featured for us. Though, the answer you're looking for is likely one of the following: (a) We are the only people in the World skilled enough make these = additions to sysinstall (and we've made our stance very clear... that it = would be a waste of our time to make such additions because we don't use = these technologies). (b) There are other people in the World capable of making these = additions, but they hold the same views. (c) There are other people in the World capable of making these = additions, but they would rather funnel all changes into a new product, = avoiding destabilization of sysinstall. All other people (those that are not well-versed enough to add these = features to sysinstall) fall clearly into two camps: (1) They'd like to see the additions made to sysinstall, but simply = don't know how to go about doing so. (2) They simply want to see sysinstall die for its iniquities. The latter group perhaps representing the majority of opinions that I've = observed in the past few months on this (and other) lists. But, I assure you that the reason that sysinstall has not had these = additions is more likely due to the fact that anybody/everybody that = _is_ comfortable with adding to the current state of sysinstall is = simply too busy to donate their hours. As you said... FreeBSD is = primarily a volunteer project. > It's worth noting that the original > author of sysinstall considered it to be a temporary stop-gap until > something better was developed. Yes, this has been noted a thousand times over, it's in the man-page, = it's been said on the lists, and does not need repeating. Yet, obviously time speaks for itself ... 15+ years of production use = and still going ("temporary" or not, something must have been done right = to win the respect of hardened C experts -- of which are directly = responsible for extending its life for those 15+ years). Just look at = the commit logs ... do you see the same disparaging overtones in the = commit messages? no. Do you see the developers that are actively working = on sysinstall bashing it like you do? no. On the contrary, the = developers that _do_ maintain sysinstall are all constructive and = productive members of the community. As an external observer's point of view... it's very easy to quote a = one-liner that serves ones own desires ("but the author said..."). Lord = help us if we were all held accountable to what we said 15+ years ago = about our own products. The fact remains that even if the author said = "this is a heaping pile of spraint", it doesn't change the fact that he = developed something that was in-fact elegant regardless of whether the = original author thought-so or not. By this same sentiment Einstein himself called the general theory of = relativity a minor stepping stone and an incomplete view of the = universal laws of physics (he died before he could marry the = fundamentals of quantum mechanics with the same laws that govern large = bodies in astrophysics -- dubbed in his time the [elusive] unified field = theorem). Does that mean that the initial work was any less magnanimous? = Pay homage to your roots and don't trash the people that maintain the = products that got you where you are today. > The increasing disparity between > FreeBSD's features, together with the opaqueness of sysinstall have > led to a replacement being developed. Excellent. As I said before, I welcome our new bsdinstall overlords. I'm = still undecided as to whether bsdinstall implements enough sysinstall = features to be useful for us, and with that sentiment it is that we = decide to put sysinstall on life-support until that can be answered = (which could take months to answer, and if the answer is _no_, then = we'll extend sysinstall's life-support even further until bsdinstall can = be made to support the same featureset that sysinstall provides -- = mostly speaking about scripting abilities here ... which includes much = more than just simply pre-configuring the disk allocation metrics as you = will see upon full-release of our automated install platform in coming = weeks/months). So, I don't see why you must balk at this. We're going to spend a _LOT_ = of voluntary time over the next coming years to enhance bsdinstall so = that it is as feature-rich as sysinstall is when it comes to = scriptability. > No-one is forcing you to > replace sysinstall on your legacy systems It's true that I brought FreeBSD-4.11 into the discussion, but = everything discussed is in relation to RELENG_9. > but if you want sysinstall > to remain the default installer, you are going to need to add the > missing functionality to it. *sigh* I don't _need_ to do anything. The people in the enterprise = circuit agree with our stance (you are thus far alone in thinking that = sysinstall is utterly worthless unless it supports GPT, ZFS, geli, = gmirror, and a host of other things). >=20 > --=20 > Peter Jeremy -- Cheers, Devin Teske -> CONTACT INFORMATION <- Business Solutions Consultant II FIS - fisglobal.com 510-735-5650 Mobile 510-621-2038 Office 510-621-2020 Office Fax 909-477-4578 Home/Fax devin.teske@fisglobal.com -> LEGAL DISCLAIMER <- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy. -> FUN STUFF <- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version 3.12 GAT/CS/B/CC/E/IT/MC/M/MU/P/S/TW d+(++) s: a- C+++@$ UB++++$ P++++@$ = L++++$ E- W+++ N? o? K? w@ O M++$ V- PS+>++ PE@ Y+ PGP-> t(+) 5? X(+) R(-) tv+ = b+>++ DI+ D+(++) G++ e>++++ h r+++ z+++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ http://www.geekcode.com/ -> END TRANSMISSION <- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 03:41:07 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ACA511065702; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:41:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanegomi@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ww0-f50.google.com (mail-ww0-f50.google.com [74.125.82.50]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E15C58FC0C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:41:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwf26 with SMTP id 26so7856394wwf.31 for ; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:41:05 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=eop9jk/KnHlMvlr35MojGUWg0ejyUcaEUWEHUyfSASU=; b=BfsgF2YS63a79u5pNKqwbwIp01+YjM3YhoUFL9nTnfxeBu4tAiO49YbXf/CzsD5B8e 8QmPWR7wXxCoGcrFFTsK7sct8cZ+bwjIE3UmVQjKOnUkSYrFo8ftH5yhN5Etd6G+VzDV 3+1G7ci8wjDydmttKslP7YAH4Jyi6zHExWB8Y= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=rYYFiLtrcwAG47N/4s1t1itN+jkK3lSrZZRNVIMC7KJ6UbjjqwQfTalsGhHUaZBCQs kQROo/ElVNENrrdjDrNSMat1Ha07ZyntH3htF/zKZC0JwhC5aKH8AdwpNgeQB+L2wf2m Rm9EkNYwDP57rkaivoLiNsCSV+RE3lZycC1Ds= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.216.46.193 with SMTP id r43mr4032089web.20.1298432465780; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:41:05 -0800 (PST) Sender: yanegomi@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.15.74 with HTTP; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:41:05 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:41:05 -0800 X-Google-Sender-Auth: NNh4L_1OSHmM-D0bpt3GQOEazHg Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: Devin Teske Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, Peter Jeremy , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:41:07 -0000 On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Devin Teske wrote: > > On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > >> On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: >>> That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that >>> changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel >>> becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel >>> partitioned disks). >> >> When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware >> vendors dropping support for MBR. =A0Current disks are at the upper >> limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of >> MBR). =A0Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR's >> limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. =A0And when it >> does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope >> with non-MBR disks. While I love a good discussion (and there have been a number of good points for either side on here), should we agree to switch the default over to bsdinstall, leave sysinstall in (lumps or no lumps), then over the period of the next 2~3 major (that amounts to 4~6 years) releases, and retire sysinstall to the happy hunting grounds? sysinstall didn't take up that much space on the release media I thought, and it might be doable to map both sets of media so that sysinstall can work in harmony on bsdinstall's release media? Preparing custom releases to use the sysinstall init_path isn't that bad, so it would at least give the legacy folks time to transition over while us guinea pigs burn in the new wax :)... Sound good? Thanks! -Garrett From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 05:26:16 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0CD7A106566C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:26:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dteske@vicor.com) Received: from postoffice.vicor.com (postoffice.vicor.com [69.26.56.53]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1CDF8FC12; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:26:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [210.177.209.182] (port=13723 helo=[192.168.1.151]) by postoffice.vicor.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ps7Ep-0000b3-Vz; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:26:15 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1081) From: Devin Teske In-Reply-To: Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:26:09 -0800 Message-Id: <816E26D1-C34D-4A40-BA4F-6C486D622DAD@vicor.com> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> To: Garrett Cooper X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) X-Scan-Signature: ef46d7595948ee90861d7f47ac6dd61a X-Scan-Host: postoffice.vicor.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, Peter Jeremy , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:26:16 -0000 On Feb 22, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote: > On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Devin Teske wrote: >> >> On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: >> >>> On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: >>>> That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that >>>> changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel >>>> becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel >>>> partitioned disks). >>> >>> When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware >>> vendors dropping support for MBR. Current disks are at the upper >>> limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of >>> MBR). Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR's >>> limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. And when it >>> does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope >>> with non-MBR disks. > > While I love a good discussion (and there have been a number of good > points for either side on here), should we agree to switch the default > over to bsdinstall, leave sysinstall in (lumps or no lumps), then over > the period of the next 2~3 major (that amounts to 4~6 years) releases, > and retire sysinstall to the happy hunting grounds? sysinstall didn't > take up that much space on the release media I thought, and it might > be doable to map both sets of media so that sysinstall can work in > harmony on bsdinstall's release media? > > Preparing custom releases to use the sysinstall init_path isn't that > bad, so it would at least give the legacy folks time to transition > over while us guinea pigs burn in the new wax :)... > > Sound good? Love it. Absolutely love it. You are a uniter, sir (tips hat)! > > Thanks! > -Garrett -- Cheers, Devin Teske -> CONTACT INFORMATION <- Business Solutions Consultant II FIS - fisglobal.com 510-735-5650 Mobile 510-621-2038 Office 510-621-2020 Office Fax 909-477-4578 Home/Fax devin.teske@fisglobal.com -> LEGAL DISCLAIMER <- This message contains confidential and proprietary information of the sender, and is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the e-mail sender immediately, and delete the original message without making a copy. -> END TRANSMISSION <- From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 06:08:00 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A652D106566C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:08:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanegomi@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ww0-f50.google.com (mail-ww0-f50.google.com [74.125.82.50]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D75188FC15; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:07:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwf26 with SMTP id 26so7947244wwf.31 for ; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:07:58 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=YIt8GPdjvnqLDj6Hev3aJJXBL113xh/a4ZCuFyaCbsc=; b=GgoyGZL9PfQTqh9Vz4ErG5F/fOZYjzk8QAc4a3/Dh7v4GrtpwW/kjwAfayhhfs76md CcIjEVop9COWW++IBj+rLsKfKmhH+cS6L8X2Avgcw7rhU/gFmflqsFx75wl04JQpnHPj B3ET5Fn032R9M83aa9Jx3QSoA4cXj4Nodczh4= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=dnLywsyfyKrmjt5DnjVbUzp9FDm12JHkF+otJ9S1Dzdvtk0CwKjNp80Iy4Y96XDW4E waHUcGXpudrZsSviRSPCSytGss3Xq5Z/742JRVPAcHkC/E5TSUurfVVYoOtuvVaJ5kWs +d7YcwNOLJaaKxSw5cCmhMVcLF0kSK/voYJFg= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.216.155.1 with SMTP id i1mr4171649wek.0.1298441278721; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:07:58 -0800 (PST) Sender: yanegomi@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.15.74 with HTTP; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:07:58 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <816E26D1-C34D-4A40-BA4F-6C486D622DAD@vicor.com> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> <816E26D1-C34D-4A40-BA4F-6C486D622DAD@vicor.com> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:07:58 -0800 X-Google-Sender-Auth: yiitFnnI2XoURSNKILkJE2jV7DU Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: Devin Teske Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, Peter Jeremy , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:08:00 -0000 On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Devin Teske wrote: > > On Feb 22, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote: > >> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Devin Teske wrote: >>> >>> On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: >>> >>>> On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: >>>>> That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that >>>>> changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel >>>>> becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel >>>>> partitioned disks). >>>> >>>> When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware >>>> vendors dropping support for MBR. =A0Current disks are at the upper >>>> limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of >>>> MBR). =A0Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR= 's >>>> limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. =A0And when it >>>> does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope >>>> with non-MBR disks. >> >> While I love a good discussion (and there have been a number of good >> points for either side on here), should we agree to switch the default >> over to bsdinstall, leave sysinstall in (lumps or no lumps), then over >> the period of the next 2~3 major (that amounts to 4~6 years) releases, >> and retire sysinstall to the happy hunting grounds? sysinstall didn't >> take up that much space on the release media I thought, and it might >> be doable to map both sets of media so that sysinstall can work in >> harmony on bsdinstall's release media? >> >> Preparing custom releases to use the sysinstall init_path isn't that >> bad, so it would at least give the legacy folks time to transition >> over while us guinea pigs burn in the new wax :)... >> >> Sound good? > > Love it. Absolutely love it. You are a uniter, sir (tips hat)! Well, it's just a proposal. It needs to be presented to a) re@, b) they need to tentatively accept, and someone needs to a) do the work of integrating both pieces together and b) ensure it works in both cases, c) test, test test, d) commit. All of this needs to be done before 9.0-RELEASE. So I wouldn't say "success!" just yet, but we're on the right path. Switching stuff overnight is impossible for something like sysinstall. I'm having to deal with similar issues transitioning acquisition MIBs over to the acquiree company's style and requirements. Providing an ample transition plan is one of the great things I've noticed about BSD anyhow in areas like these :)... it shows real planning and architecture. Thanks, -Garrett From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 06:51:19 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3EF15106566B; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:51:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from m.e.sanliturk@gmail.com) Received: from mail-vw0-f54.google.com (mail-vw0-f54.google.com [209.85.212.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A605C8FC0A; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:51:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: by vws16 with SMTP id 16so2664160vws.13 for ; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:51:17 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=IcjbxkHN6u98R1sBhKZxVHPUkfOElh8tCZga2U4/Ik4=; b=J7REbfd7hqcm5Nq4JMFsAXvhC9UOnABw/fha4jXveoplEAW81y1AoC2p4kMK+o40XU 2Vg19z260cRXV/r4BTWzo4e2TIgA/N0f05BL78njvq01EUg7LlQCPQFU3Pfn+VnQPKJi JnSX0LCcBbWJFfZ5BCMC3L1O/y/LieD0z2yTU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=RtitDscbEnE5PWKipd3l+WBmELkCoFj5sSGXrubWL56iCMYlqnz5ZnoE2DcTwrfTHx c4qW6caqKL7XPopDNjkH3SD1ooqF+XUy2cO2fb+dOphGmFxftrYY5usaDFygqTnkw9/l ckWTMg0ML9js3nHUavZ8OWFTXn2Hzujvcr63M= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.164.36 with SMTP id yn4mr5436419vdb.307.1298442130093; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:22:10 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.52.166.74 with HTTP; Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:22:10 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <6A5ECC9D-9EF4-4331-9BB0-E14FE6087D53@vicor.com> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 01:22:10 -0500 Message-ID: From: Mehmet Erol Sanliturk To: Garrett Cooper Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, Peter Jeremy , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:51:19 -0000 On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote: > On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Devin Teske wrote: > > > > On Feb 22, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > > > >> On 2011-Feb-22 02:50:54 -0800, Devin Teske wrote: > >>> That's the operative word here ("supports"). Lord help us when that > >>> changes to "requires" (that is to say, if/when the FreeBSD kernel > >>> becomes legacy-free with respect to supporting fdisk/disklabel > >>> partitioned disks). > >> > >> When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware > >> vendors dropping support for MBR. Current disks are at the upper > >> limit of what MBR can be support (and that's after several revamps of > >> MBR). Since GPT already provides a superior feature set without MBR's > >> limits, the next step will be to just drop MBR support. And when it > >> does come, FreeBSD needs to be ready with an installer that can cope > >> with non-MBR disks. > > While I love a good discussion (and there have been a number of good > points for either side on here), should we agree to switch the default > over to bsdinstall, leave sysinstall in (lumps or no lumps), then over > the period of the next 2~3 major (that amounts to 4~6 years) releases, > and retire sysinstall to the happy hunting grounds? sysinstall didn't > take up that much space on the release media I thought, and it might > be doable to map both sets of media so that sysinstall can work in > harmony on bsdinstall's release media? > > Preparing custom releases to use the sysinstall init_path isn't that > bad, so it would at least give the legacy folks time to transition > over while us guinea pigs burn in the new wax :)... > > Sound good? > > Thanks! > -Garrett > Yes , very much . My suggestion is to include the item sysinstall in BSD-Install by Nathan Whitehorn as an option in installation start up menu . In that way , existing installation works will be upward compatible with bsdinstall . My another suggestion is to move installation startup menu part into /boot/install/ directory for each architecture and allow platform specific installers by using common parts from common directories . For example , in PC-based installations ( amd64 , i386 , ... ) PC-BSD pc-sysinstall will be usable from bsdinstall as an option at present . In that form , the initial installation menu will be seen in PC environment as follows : bsdinstall ( by Nathan Whitehorn ) pc-sysinstall ( by Kris Moore ) sysinstall ( by John Hubbard ) Thank you very much . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 16:33:25 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3EFE1065679; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 948B68FC1E; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (66.111.2.69.static.nyinternet.net [66.111.2.69]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 2F47A46B0C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.10]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 564978A009; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:24 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:10 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/7.4-CBSD-20110107; KDE/4.4.5; amd64; ; ) References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> In-Reply-To: <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201102231133.10571.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:33:24 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.3 at bigwig.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.5 required=4.2 tests=BAYES_00,MAY_BE_FORGED, RDNS_DYNAMIC autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on bigwig.baldwin.cx Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, "James R. Van Artsdalen" , Peter Jeremy , freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:33:25 -0000 On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:15:09 am James R. Van Artsdalen wrote: > On 2/22/2011 2:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > > When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware > > vendors dropping support for MBR. > > MBR is not a BIOS concept. MBR is an OS thing. The BIOS does not care > or know what kind of partitioning you use, or if you partition at all. That is mostly true. There are some SCSI BIOSes that would examine the MBR and infer what C/H/S geometry the OS was expecting from the MBR. The original dedicated disk dummy MBR triggered a divide by zero in one of these BIOS ROMs. > A GPT disk with FreeBSD should boot fine on a quarter-century-old IBM > PC/AT, until FreeBSD's "don't support 80286" message. Even a GPT has a legacy MBR (the PMBR) at the front of the disk (it marks the entire disk as in use by a special 0xee partition or some such). -- John Baldwin From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 16:54:26 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4B72106566C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:54:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from james-freebsd-current@jrv.org) Received: from zimbra.jrv.org (adsl-70-243-84-11.dsl.austtx.swbell.net [70.243.84.11]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F5EE8FC17; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:54:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.jrv.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 950A016A070; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:15:25 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.housenet.jrv Received: from zimbra.jrv.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.housenet.jrv [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id KKsYMMI-JIqi; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:15:16 -0600 (CST) Received: from [10.0.2.15] (adsl-99-66-60-250.dsl.aus2tx.sbcglobal.net [99.66.60.250]) by zimbra.jrv.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B3C1D16A04E; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:15:15 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:15:09 -0600 From: "James R. Van Artsdalen" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Peter Jeremy References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <201102211612.51233.josh@tcbug.org> <201102220103.20158.josh@tcbug.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:54:27 -0000 On 2/22/2011 2:57 PM, Peter Jeremy wrote: > When that does come, it will probably be driven by BIOS and hardware > vendors dropping support for MBR. MBR is not a BIOS concept. MBR is an OS thing. The BIOS does not care or know what kind of partitioning you use, or if you partition at all. A GPT disk with FreeBSD should boot fine on a quarter-century-old IBM PC/AT, until FreeBSD's "don't support 80286" message. There may be SSDs that know about MBR - I don't know - but otherwise hardware does not care either. >> We've yet to see a "must have" technology that would require us to >> shun sysinstall (as explained earlier, we have no desire whatsoever >> to boot from ZFS, gmirror, geli, GPT, or anything else missing from >> sysinstall). Two vendors have released 3 TB disks and there will be more large disks released before 9.0-RELEASE. sysinstall needs to behave well with them. As stated, it's common to boot from ZFS, mirrors, or GPT disks. These aren't blocker issues now. From owner-freebsd-sysinstall@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 16:58:03 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1D46106564A; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:58:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (unknown [IPv6:2a01:348:0:15:5d59:5c40:0:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C8948FC08; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:58:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1448EE8C0C; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:58:00 +0000 (GMT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject :from:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=mail; bh=r9ebRg1WT/cH ZBvs8e7wc+amF1I=; b=PiAlD0xcVmpfaWZaIpCOG84eVfp1w98XM7h7dPJ+Y/hr lV3Ke6edgvoln5dGTwGuXAAPAMsGWnGsiO8xF1vjlZdQrjJL5YA1UG0yMeF+SCJ4 3Sp3OyaogLqRNd13YsvIOcg31lEu7+VDMjXa5A0BkiHdydH3wgiMU33XlSyBEu0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=cran.org.uk; h=subject:from :to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=mail; b=W6QJUD KXN0n0T6lb3CypgjFm2Tti46/ZHQoMkxtASEIg/FyBellREybkGgCQfkGuw7t6fO sD5yBNYScalW13gdRH3iwBVJ5zUbfDPCnEA6nyBwuS+nlQdTYEqrDunavI/++hWI 7T4lQ7EJf+KYr0H7ak4DkyLL+6eYo7HJWgenQ= Received: from [192.168.0.10] (client-86-31-236-253.oxfd.adsl.virginmedia.com [86.31.236.253]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id AAA65E8BA7; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:57:59 +0000 (GMT) From: Bruce Cran To: John Baldwin In-Reply-To: <201102231133.10571.jhb@freebsd.org> References: <4D35CFFB.3010302@freebsd.org> <20110222205741.GA34103@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <4D65328D.3050709@jrv.org> <201102231133.10571.jhb@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:57:56 +0000 Message-ID: <1298480276.2895.5.camel@core.nessbank> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.32.1 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, "James R. Van Artsdalen" , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installer Roadmap X-BeenThere: freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Sysinstall Work List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:58:03 -0000 On Wed, 2011-02-23 at 11:33 -0500, John Baldwin wrote: > That is mostly true. There are some SCSI BIOSes that would examine the MBR > and infer what C/H/S geometry the OS was expecting from the MBR. The > original dedicated disk dummy MBR triggered a divide by zero in one of these > BIOS ROMs. I guess RAID BIOS's read through the MBR too: my Gigabyte board has an Intel AHCI BIOS (1.20E seems to be the problematic revision) with fakeraid that hangs (requiring a CMOS reset) if you install FreeBSD physically after Windows 7 x64 for example - and some IBM laptops have a bug related to repair partitions and FreeBSD too (http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Laptops), so they must read the MBR too. -- Bruce Cran