Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:04:20 -0800 From: Randi Harper <randi@freebsd.org> To: "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@berklix.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: why BSDs got no love Message-ID: <e277d6c80912230804k57470a3akda9c943ccc40e0d4@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200912231548.nBNFmcn3064359@fire.js.berklix.net> References: <e277d6c80912230658k45c946ddga3ea807704d7dc61@mail.gmail.com> <200912231548.nBNFmcn3064359@fire.js.berklix.net>
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On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Julian H. Stacey <jhs@berklix.com> wrote: > Randi Harper wrote: >> On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 6:50 AM, Julian H. Stacey <jhs@berklix.com> wrot= e: >> > Peer Schaefer <peer.schaefer@hamburg.de> wrote: >> > >> >> BTW, the Debian installer consists (a) of a modular, frontend agnosti= c >> >> backend, and (b) different frontend "plugins", e.g. a curses-frontend= or >> >> a X/GTK+-frontend. This is a modular and very elegant approach (but >> >> surely difficult to implement). >> > >> > Perhaps the way to go is a common table of target defaults eg >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0/usr/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/install.cfg >> > Which could then be edited by all of >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Front end CLI =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 (*) >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Front end curses GUI =A0 =A0(*) >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0(*) =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Maybe these= 2 alternatives should be >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0the fir= st question the installer asks ? >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Front end X11 GUI (for later after main install complet= e >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0- Shudd= er, Not that I'd use it, but someone >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0wou= ld probably want to write one). >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0vi - for editing, & writing back to new boot media, >> > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0to auto install on multiple identical n= ew machines. >> >> >> I would sooner stab myself in the face. > > Not obvious at all which your personal revulsion applies to > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0CLI ? ncurses ? install.cfg ?, X11 ?, vi ? All of the above. The bug list for sysinstall is not small. Even if this wasn't the case, I'm not even going to work on introducing that many options and obfuscating the code that much more. The mere thought of the rewrite involved in adding that kind of support makes my head feel like the knife is already in place. The only support I've been *thinking* about adding is a simple CLI in addition to the existing libdialog (ncurses) install. This would still be a not insignificant modification, but there are issues that make using a libdialog based installer problematic on some displays. It's a fun idea to kick around, but it's not a priority. I don't even know what you mean by vi, but it sounds confusing and unnecessary. This is what install.cfg is for - so you can define the parameters of an installation beforehand. -- randi
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