Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:56:55 -0600 From: Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org> To: John Hixson <jhixson@gmail.com> Cc: Garrett Cooper <yanegomi@gmail.com>, Bruce Cran <brucec@freebsd.org>, john@ixsystems.com, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, Marco Steinbach <coco@executive-computing.de>, matt@ixsystems.com, freebsd-sysinstall@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSDInstall: I want the bikeshed painted plaid Message-ID: <4D2486B7.2040305@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikT891Z-kY33iU08zo%2BFOpH4B=cFtER%2Bx_jVFyZ@mail.gmail.com> References: <4D20C8BF.701@freebsd.org> <A8ADEA5D-DE5D-43EE-A123-364EB6593FEF@gmail.com> <29AA82C4-6301-4DCD-BC9D-423AD162998E@gmail.com> <4D20DDE4.8080306@freebsd.org> <AANLkTinPyKgQsyH4GeTGCUhFwyrYgBxtc9w-gsd%2BZ-wv@mail.gmail.com> <4D22D30A.2050606@executive-computing.de> <AANLkTikT891Z-kY33iU08zo%2BFOpH4B=cFtER%2Bx_jVFyZ@mail.gmail.com>
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On 01/04/11 15:25, John Hixson wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Marco Steinbach > <coco@executive-computing.de <mailto:coco@executive-computing.de>> wrote: > > John Hixson wrote on 02.01.2011 22:51: > > On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Nathan Whitehorn > <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org <mailto:nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>>wrote: > > I spent a bunch of time looking at pc-sysinstall before > starting to work on > this. The major problem for non-x86 systems is that it > heavily assumes that > your disks are either MBR+bsdlabel or GPT. If you have > anything different > (APM, VTOC8, or even a raw bsdlabel or MBR installation on > x86), it breaks > in strange and fascinating ways due to a random mixture of > if (scheme == > MBR) else and if (scheme == GPT) else in the backend. Some > of these are > easily fixed, but it looked quite difficult to root out > all of the places > this assumption is made, not to mention teaching it about > various styles of > boot code, that the same partitioning scheme may need to > be set up different > ways on different architectures, etc. txt-sysinstall also > segfaults when you > try to run it on powerpc at the moment, though that is > likely a simple bug > and I didn't look into it in detail. > > What I intended with bsdinstall is to have something > simple, flexible, and > easily maintained that works immediately on all platforms > and will be ready > for 9.0 for sure. If pc-sysinstall materializes before > then, or after then, > and people like it better, I'm more than happy to get out > of the way; this > is the reason the wiki page is titled "Stopgap Installer". > In the interim, I > hoped to at least start laying out the hammer and nails > next to sysinstall's > coffin. > -Nathan > > > I would be more than happy to help out with making > pc-sysinstall work on > non-x86 systems, however I don't have access to any. Do any of > you have > hardware that could possibly be used by interested parties? > I'm sure all the > work that's gone into bsdinstall could be used in > pc-sysinstall or vice > versa. > > > I have PowerMacs (G3/G4) and Netras/Ultras (T1 105, U10, U5) at my > discretion. I've never installed FreeBSD on any of them, but > would be willing to give it a shot. > > I can provide serial console access to the Sparcs, but the > PowerMacs supposedly need "hands on", which I can also provide. > > If there's interest, I humbly suggest discussing further details > on the course of action at sysinstall@, to which I just subscribed. > > > I just subscribed to sysinstall@. I'd be happy to help starting out on > the sparcs. I have no experience whatsoever on powermac, but it sounds > fun ;-). > You can look in bsdinstall's partedit/partedit_${MACHINE}.c for how various platforms need to be set up. APM on PPC is very similar to GPT, and VTOC8 is a little bit of an oddball scheme because UFS partitions need partcode on them. Bear in mind that PPC will very soon support non-powermac platforms, so please avoid hardcoding any assumptions about what "powerpc" requires. Similarly, several partition types (MBR, GPT) require different setup on different platforms. -Nathan
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