Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:48:59 -0800 From: Garrett Cooper <gcooper@FreeBSD.org> To: krad <kraduk@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, freebsd-current Current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSDInstall: merging to HEAD Message-ID: <AANLkTind4umAwfvmJ4SioX7sTM8cysjke3UVEe8_AEgZ@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=kyN-pMbUwK=PxOrcpB4caE4zSbsNypjWXpQot@mail.gmail.com> References: <4D309563.1000404@freebsd.org> <AANLkTi=kyN-pMbUwK=PxOrcpB4caE4zSbsNypjWXpQot@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 3:06 AM, krad <kraduk@gmail.com> wrote: > On 14 January 2011 18:26, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> wrote= : >> >> As those of you who have been reading freebsd-sysinstall and freebsd-arc= h know, I have been working for a few weeks on a lightweight new installer = named 'bsdinstall'. This is designed to replace sysinstall for the 9.0 rele= ase. >> >> After two weeks of testing and bug fixes on the sysinstall list, I belie= ve this now has all required functionality and is ready to be merged into t= he main source tree. I would like to do this on Tuesday, 18 January. Switch= ing this to be the default installer would happen a few weeks after that, p= ending discussion on release formats with the release engineering team. Thi= s should provide a sufficient testing period before 9.0 and allow a maximal= number of bugs to be discovered and solved before the release is shipped. >> >> Demo ISO for i386: http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-i386= -20110114.iso.bz2 >> SVN repository: svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/user/nwhitehorn/bsdinstall >> Wiki page: http://wiki.freebsd.org/BSDInstall >> >> Goals >> ----- >> The primary goal of BSDInstall is to provide an easily extensible instal= ler without the limitations of sysinstall, in order to allow more modern in= stallations of FreeBSD. This means that it should have additional features = to support modern setups, but simultaneously frees us to remove complicatin= g features of sysinstall like making sure everything fits in floppy disk-si= zed chunks. >> >> New Features: >> - Allows installation onto GPT disks on x86 systems >> - Can do installations spanning multiple disks >> - Allows installation into jails >> - Eases PXE installation >> - Virtualization friendly: can install from a live system onto disk >> =A0images >> - Works on PowerPC >> - Streamlined system installation >> - More flexible scripting >> - Easily tweakable >> - All install CDs are live CDs >> >> Architecture >> ------------ >> BSDInstall is a set of tools that are called in sequence by a master scr= ipt. These tools are, for example, the partition editor, the thing that fet= ches the distributions from the network, the thing that untars them, etc. S= ince these are just called in sequence from a shell script, a scripted inst= allation can easily replace them with other things, (e.g. hard-coded gpart = commands), leave steps out, add new ones, or interleave additional system m= odifications. >> >> Status >> ------ >> This provides functionality most similar to the existing sysinstall 'Exp= ress' track. It installs working, bootable systems you can ssh into immedia= tely after reboot on i386, amd64, sparc64, powerpc, and powerpc64. There is= untested support for pc98. The final architecture on which we use sysinsta= ll, ia64, is currently unsupported, because I don't know how to set up boot= ing on those systems -- patches to solve this are very much welcome. >> >> There are still some missing features that I would like to see in the re= lease, but these do not significantly impact the functionality of the insta= ller. Some will be addressed before merging to HEAD, in particular the lack= of a man page for bsdinstall. Others, like configuration of wireless netwo= rking and ZFS installation, can happen between merge and release. The test = ISOs are also lacking a ports tree at the moment, which is a statement abou= t the slow upload speed of my DSL line and not about the final layout of re= leases. >> >> Please send any questions, comments, or patches you may have, and please= be aware when replying that this email has been cross-posted to three list= s. Technical discussion (bug reports, for instance) should be directed to t= he freebsd-sysinstall list only. Most other discussion belongs on -sysinsta= ll and -current. > > I dont follow the=A0freebsd-sysinstall and freebsd-arc list so sorry if > this has already been discussed. From what I have seen pc-sysinstall > already does all these things, and can install freebsd. Therefore why > are we reinventing the wheel? > > I don't mean this as any disrespect to the work you have done. Hi Krad, I asked this two weeks ago and in summary: - pc-sysinstall is x86-centric and porting to powerpc is non-trivial, and sysinstall is incomplete on powerpc. Nate sought to get a working powerpc port with minimal effort. Please read other replies in the archives on freebsd-arch / freebsd-sysinstall to get more info as to why things have been done the way they have been done. Thanks, -Garrett
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?AANLkTind4umAwfvmJ4SioX7sTM8cysjke3UVEe8_AEgZ>