I also just tried installing NetBSD 9.0 stable UEFI version yesterday on my laptop, and gave up after it segfaulted on me a couple of times. Two issues I faced: 1. I had OpenBSD and NetBSD installed on it (NetBSD, because I wanted to dual boot, but I could not get the dual boot working. So, I decided to just go with NetBSD). NetBSD installer mounted these partitions (or slices in BSD world I guess), and therefore, when I asked it to erase everything, it could not. So, I dropped into shell, and unmounted these partitions manually, and ran the installer again. But, it again segfaulted. 2. When I selected - use the whole disk, it did not count OpenBSD/NetBSD partitions as free space. Even after deleting all these disk slices manually (and it was not clear that to delete a slice, I have to press enter on the slice - there was no delete all slices/partitions. And despite all this, it again segfaulted.
I think installer is the most important piece for users to form impression about correctness and work-ability of a new OS. And it was a disappointing experience. If I could contribute, I would be happy to do so. Best, Salil On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 4:16 AM Torbjörn Granlund <t...@gmplib.org> wrote: > What is the best way of keeping current users and welcoming new users? > > I believe with a well-working install program, including package > install. Or, negating that, poorly a working install program is a god > way of turning people away. > > I assume everyone agrees thus far. > > I have installed NetBSD hundreds of times, and even used it as a main > platform in production. I moved my Xen virtual machines from NetBSD a > few years ago after serious stability issues. (There are some traces of > those in some NetBSD mailing list, I am sure.) > > So, no I am no beginner who does not know his way around NetBSD or its > installer. > > For unimportant reasons, I today wanted to install amd64 and i386 > virtual guest of NetBSD versions 7.2, 8.2, and 9,0. Six installs in > total. > > With a completely naive default-everything install, all installs except > 9.0-amd64 will misalign the root file system. It will start at sector > 63. But 9.0-amd64 actually makes it start at sector 64! > > (OK, if one used GPT for NetBSD 9.0, things are better aligned also for > i386. Yes, GPT is perhaps the default for 9.0, so I lied a little bit > above.) > > ISSUE 1: Poor partition alignment. > ISSUE 2: Inconsistency even within a release. > > It must be easy to fix this alignment issue? Well, not that easy as it > turns out. > > The offset can be changed in the summary view, but only the actual file > systems' offset can be changed there. The NetBSD partition itself will > not allow itself to be changed. If one (oh so naively!) edits what can > in fact be edited here, the result is a non-bootable image. :o( > > One needs to instead edit the MBR when the installer suggests that. > Here the funny things start. Depending on NetBSD release and on i386 vs > amd64, the default measurement is sectors or "Megabytes". Is Mega = > 10^6 or 2^20? Not specified. > > If I didn't make a mistake in my notes, NetBSD up to 8.2 will use > Megabytes is the sense of 2^20. Se selecting that for partition > alignment works fine. > > But 9.0 is completely wild. One gets crazy values if one selects > Megabytes as input measurement, and not the same for amd64 and i386! I > asked for NetBSD partition start of 1MB and got something greater than > both MB and Mibytes, with alignment of just 2^9. > > ISSUE 3: Megabytes/MB is not fully defined in the installer (please use > MiB for clarity of as it is surely what one expects) > > ISSUE 4: 9.0 is really inconsistent wrt its interpretations of MB. > > I solved this by using sectors as measurement (but only after redoing > the install; it didn't help that in install program segfaults in the > partitioner dialogue a little too often) > > > I less important issue: Why does the NetBSD install program explicitly > discourage the install NetBSD? Twice during the process does it suggest > that one really should not install NetBSD, and if one does not change > the pre-selected alternative, the install is unceremoniously terminated. > > Another less important issue: Do we really need to be bothered by "disk > geometry" in 2020? Having that appear in the install flow is not > helpful. (Yes, I know NetBSD tries to be "real Unix" and thus sticks to > tradtions.) > > > After too many attempts, I finally got all 6 images done with proper > alignment. Now one just needs to manually edit fstab to have ",log" for > the root file system (why is that not on by default, don't you want > NetBSD to have the best possible disk write performance?). > > > But we're far from done. We want some packages! We could compile them > ourselves, but pkg_add/pkgin is more convenient. Or is it...? > > Well, only one system got through our measly little list of desired > packages (devel/gmake shells/bash shells/zsh net/rsync archivers/zstd). > The lucky system is 9.0-i386. All but zsh installed fine on 9.0-amd64. > > The error for 9.0-amd64 was this: > > datan# pkgin install zsh > calculating dependencies...done. > > 1 package to install: > zsh-5.7.1nb1 > > 0 to refresh, 0 to upgrade, 1 to install > 3059K to download, 9815K to install > > proceed ? [Y/n] Y > download error: > > https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/amd64/9.0/All/zsh-5.7.1nb1.tgz > Not Found > proceed ? [y/N] > > For 8.2 and 7.2 things are worse, while pkgin installs fine (with > pkg_add) pkgin then behaves like this: > > bt1nbsd64v82# pkgin -V install bash > SSL support disabled > SSL support disabled > SSL support disabled > pkgin: Could not fetch > > https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/amd64/8.0/All/pkg_summary.gz > > There is no mention of SSL in the pkgin manual, in an Internet search > gives little help. Why is SSL disabled? Who disabled it? How do I, > the poor user, enable it? (Why is the message repeated thrice?) > > I braved editing /usr/pkg/etc/pkgin/repositories.conf to say > "http://..."; instead of the default " "https://...";. > > Here is a sample what now goes wrong: > > bt1nbsd32v82# pkgin install zstd > calculating dependencies...done. > > 2 packages to install: > lz4-1.9.2 zstd-1.4.4 > > 0 to refresh, 0 to upgrade, 2 to install > 135K to download, 2317K to install > > proceed ? [Y/n] > lz4-1.9.2.tgz > 100% 135KB 135.0KB/s 00:01 > download error: lz4-1.9.2 size does not match pkg_summary > > > ISSUE 5: Installing binary package cannot be said to work properly. > > > Please consider working on the NetBSD install experience! Now even I, > who is far from a newbie and have tons of patience, consider giving up. > If this had been my first experience with NetBSD, I would have given up > long before I had arrived to ISSUE 5, I'm afraid. > > > -- > Torbjörn > Please encrypt, key id 0xC8601622 >
