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Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 18:35:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Steve Willoughby <steve@ichips.intel.com>
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Subject: Problem with install process in 2.1.6
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I just subscribed to this list, so hopefully I'm not making the classic
blunder of asking something already asked a million times...

I just installed 2.1.6-RELEASE on a system, and ran into a bit of a 
problem which I've had in 2.1.5 as well:  The installation program gets
really unforgiving if it ever runs into a problem.  Even problems which
the user can correct and retry.  The installation program appears to just
throw up its hands and say "that failed last time, I won't try it again."

The most recent case:
  * I recently had to install from floppies (yeah, I know, but this machine
    had no network card or working serial ports (yet)).  I prepared the 
    floppies as directed in the installation guide, only to have FreeBSD
    reject them, saying that my media contains none of my selected 
    distributions.  

    Looking through the debugging output (ALT-F2), I noticed that the program
    was looking for "bin.inf", not just "bin.??" like it used to.  I re-made
    the floppy, with "bin.inf" on it, and put it back in the machine, and
    told the system to re-commit and go.  It just immediately said that my
    media was incorrect (never even tried to read it).  No menu options I
    tried (and I tried about everything) would convince it to go back and 
    look to see if I put correct media in.  My only recourse was to start 
    over, go through all the disk labelling (well, mounting anyway) menus, 
    etc, etc, and then let it find the first floppy.  

    Now, everything was great and it loaded "bin" like it was supposed to.
    At the end of the last "bin" floppy, 2.1.5 always just prompted for the
    first floppy of the next distribution.  Apparently 2.1.6 just looked at
    that floppy, didn't see any other distributions on *that* floppy, 
    announced that the other distributions were missing, and proceeded to 
    do the post-install configurations.  No option to put in more media.

    Looks like something needs to be fixed, or the documentation changed
    to tell you how to *really* set up the floppies so that the new 
    install program will recognize them.

Otherwise, I like the improvements to the installation process, but I'd 
like to see more opportunity for the user to intervene, fix problems,
and have the flexability to continue again from there.

--
Steve Willoughby * Intel MD6 | It's said that the only thing scarier than    
steve@ichips.intel.com       | a sysadmin with a screwdriver is a programmer 
Unix Systems Administrator   | with the root password.
MD6 E-Mail Postmaster        | Then again, I'm both...  Scares *me* anyway...