Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Thus spake Peter Jeremy ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): -rwxr-xr-x 1 jeremyp inplat 96509 Dec 17 08:08 minigzip % cc -O -o minigzip minigzip.c /usr/lib/libz.a What about stripping? root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 96921 17 Dez 12:35 minigzip root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ strip minigzip root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 90044 17 Dez 12:35 minigzip root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ cc -O -o minigzip minigzip.o /usr/lib/libz.a root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 48699 17 Dez 12:36 minigzip root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ strip minigzip root:/usr/src/usr.bin/minigzip $ ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 45240 17 Dez 12:36 minigzip Alex -- I doubt, therefore I might be. PGP signature
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 15-Dec-99 Oliver Fromme wrote: Alexander Langer wrote in list.freebsd-current: gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4648 Jan 28 1999 /usr/bin/minigzip It requires the 50Kb libz.so.2 though and some of libc. --- Tell a computer to WIN and ... ... You lose --- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote in list.freebsd-current: On 15-Dec-99 Oliver Fromme wrote: Alexander Langer wrote in list.freebsd-current: gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4648 Jan 28 1999 /usr/bin/minigzip It requires the 50Kb libz.so.2 though and some of libc. Only very few of those libs, though. I once had a (self- contained) gunzip.com for DOS that was about 5 Kbyte. Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany (Info: finger userinfo:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) "In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt" (Terry Pratchett) To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Also sprach Oliver Fromme ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4648 Jan 28 1999 /usr/bin/minigzip ok, even better :-) Alex To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 1999-Dec-16 19:55:35 +1100, Steve O'Hara-Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 15-Dec-99 Oliver Fromme wrote: Alexander Langer wrote in list.freebsd-current: gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4648 Jan 28 1999 /usr/bin/minigzip It requires the 50Kb libz.so.2 though and some of libc. % cc -static -O -o minigzip minigzip.c -lz % size minigzip textdata bss dec hex filename 7529985242004 85827 14f43 minigzip % ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 jeremyp inplat 96509 Dec 17 08:08 minigzip % Or, ignoring the libc code (which is indicative of the effect of building it into a crunched executable): % cc -O -o minigzip minigzip.c /usr/lib/libz.a % ls -l minigzip -rwxr-xr-x 1 jeremyp inplat 48523 Dec 17 08:08 minigzip % size minigzip textdata bss dec hex filename 377564848 272 42876a77c minigzip % Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 05:31:13PM -0600, Chris Costello wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, Wilko Bulte wrote: Click-click, hosed up beyond repair. What I mean to say is that GUI != easy to administer. M$ has plenty of examples available. There's a difference between useful GUI design and backwards braindead inconsistant GUI design. Guess which Microsoft is using. Definitely. But as the Unix has yet to come up with something better... [GUI wars etc, no real standards, etc] -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Is Qt going to be put into the base system in this case? If I can wrestle along with figuring out a few little problems with Qt (ones that I could even somehow more easily solve with Motif!), then I'll continue to develop my system administration tool(s) with it. No, I don't envision that Qt would go into the system at any point, in fact. I figure that the minimal infrastructure support to make setup and new package_install work will be part of FreeBSD (e.g. tcl and turbovision would probably replace at least libdialog) and then Qt will be an optional component. As previously mentioned, I'd intend the default setup to be dynamically linked and just dlopen() the Qt library if a suitable DISPLAY and the Qt libraries could be found. Otherwise, it would fall back to Turbovison. Since the floppy version needs to be linked static, that would support only the CUI interface. That said, one of the installer options will be to chain to a more capable installer if the media for same (and all of its dependencies) can be found. So you could use the CUI version only long enough to select "Desktop install" and then the whole VGA16 X server dance would begin, culminating in the execution of a Qt-capable version of setup. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: Peter Jeremy wrote: Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. There is a device called cd-rom which more or less qualifies for the "or similar" category you mention. It happens to be the most popular installation media nowadays (though it probably comes second as far as FreeBSD is concerned). [...] Actually I started to write an X11-based installer some time ago. It was designed to boot off a CD, auto-detect mouse and graphics card and then start the appropriate X-Server in 640x480 mode. Then a series of dialogs popped up, asking the most important system parameters like which disk to install on, internet parameters and so on. Unto that point, it actually worked. You can see how it looked like at http://www.stud.fh-rhein-sieg.de/~sleder2s/totali.html . I ran out of spare time (and out of CD-Rs), however, when debugging the shell script that was supposed to do the actual install. Regards, Sebastian Lederer -- Sebastian Lederer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
This all sounds like a decision, whether we want to be a desktop or a server-only system. For mainly server-oriented, the "install source to update" or console-based setups are quite enough, because the system will most probably administraded by people, that know, what they are doing. But if we want to compete with Linux (and the development of the Linuxulator makes that impression) and if we want to get some market share, we have to be more "user friendly", which means, installs must be easy and *smile* eye-catching. Sorry, but thats the way it is. Thats why Suse is more used than Debian. Thats why some people still prefer Windows over Unix even for servers. So, we have a very good server OS, let's focus a little bit more on the desktop. -- Tom To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Adam Strohl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: Hey, I like CUI. I'd rather install with a CUI than a GUI, all other things being equal. And besides some quirks here and there, I really like sysinstall. Its nice, but its not where it should be. But the fact is that when we get featured in a magazine article, user-friendly install == GUI. No GUI, it's not an user-friendly install. End of review. You can kick and scream all you want, that's the way it is. Either we live by these rules, or we loose. A VESA GUI based sysinstall replacement would probably be small enough to fit on a floppy, yet still have the friendlyness that a new user/reviewer would look for. If we follow jkh's outline, making another "front end target" for the script shouldn't be that hard. You have X, VESA Syscons, and Text Syscons. The script says "ok, prompt user for blah", under X it opens a window, under Text some ASCII dialog, and under VESA a little window. This is important to note... 25% of all the installs I do are on MGA (remember monochrome graphics adapter - a hercules card.) So, I would not be in favor of any replacement that required a VESA or VGA platform... - Dave Rivers - To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Thomas David Rivers wrote: This is important to note... 25% of all the installs I do are on MGA (remember monochrome graphics adapter - a hercules card.) True, hence there would be other display targets, ie; CUI, and I like Jordan's text-only non GUI idea, too. It doesn't really matter. The new sysinstall architecture should be such that it is completely indepentent of the UI (or lack there of). So, I would not be in favor of any replacement that required a VESA or VGA platform... I agree, this would not be a requirement, just another option. - ( Adam Strohl ) - - UNIX Operations/Systems http://www.digitalspark.net - - adams (at) digitalspark.netxxx.xxx. x - - ( DigitalSpark.NET )--- - To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999 10:41:56 +0100, "Thomas Runge" wrote: So, we have a very good server OS, let's focus a little bit more on the desktop. Most developers are more concerned with improving the operating system itself than providing an inviting desktop experience. The problem is that it's very seldom that the people who call for an inviting desktop experience actually follow through with effort. When invited to do so, they usually cite a lack of various combinations of time, inclination and ability. None of the FreeBSD developers are against an improved "look'n'feel". They just happen to be more inclined to focus elsewhere. Ciao, Sheldon. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: VESA syscons, either using libvgl and an array of crude widgets or something like MGR and its widget set, has long been on the wish-list but I didn't even include it in my summary since it's still very much a pipe-dream. :-) Hmm, this has been a fantasy of mine, as well. I was hoping to assist with the syscons code enough so that we could get a simple primative API down for drawing graphics on the screen, but my job seems to be taking up any time I'd have to do that now, hopefully that will change :P However, the syscons cleanup is proceeding anyway from what I've seen on the list. As long as we have basic graphics drawing, we'd be able to impliment our own widgets, if need be. I don't know how big the requirements for libvgl are, or how much spare space on that second floppy we have, though. There's actually one mode you forgot, which is what I call "text mode", and that's straight ascii prompts, no CUI-style dialog boxes or anything. Think about text-to-speach devices for the blind or serial consoles attached to really *dumb* terminals. :-) This is a cool idea, also good for script based installs where you want it to go fast and dirty. - ( Adam Strohl ) - - UNIX Operations/Systems http://www.digitalspark.net - - adams (at) digitalspark.netxxx.xxx. x - - ( DigitalSpark.NET )--- - To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 10:41:56AM +0100, Thomas Runge wrote: This all sounds like a decision, whether we want to be a desktop or a server-only system. I don't agree at all -- I think that's another divsion which is orthogonal to the current discussion. Why can't we be a server OS with a decent installation tool? For mainly server-oriented, the "install source to update" or console-based setups are quite enough, because the system will most probably administraded by people, that know, what they are doing. But is it reasonable to say, "You can't play at all if you don't fit that description"? (Especially since the NT server camp seems to think you can administer a system with zero knowledge of anything; The requirement that they suddenly need to become familiar with how to deal with large archives of source code isn't going to help us get a foot in those doors). - mark -- Mark Newton Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (W) Network Engineer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H) Internode Systems Pty Ltd Desk: +61-8-82232999 "Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton" Mobile: +61-416-202-223 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
At 7:34 AM -0500 1999/12/15, Thomas David Rivers wrote: This is important to note... 25% of all the installs I do are on MGA (remember monochrome graphics adapter - a hercules card.) So, I would not be in favor of any replacement that required a VESA or VGA platform... Agreed. Think "RealWeasel" (see http://www.realweasel.com/). -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy |o| Brad Knowles, [EMAIL PROTECTED]Belgacom Skynet NV/SA |o| |o| Systems Architect, News FTP Admin Rue Col. Bourg, 124 |o| |o| Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.11.11/12.49 B-1140 Brussels |o| |o| http://www.skynet.be Belgium |o| \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Unix is like a wigwam -- no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside. Unix is very user-friendly. It's just picky who its friends are. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
There a more Linux distros with grahical installs. Correl 1.0 - based upon debian. Also, I believe that SUSE 6.3 has one also. Tom Veldhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Don 'Duck' Harper wrote: Sometime Tomorrow, Daniel C. Sobral said something like this: :-)But the fact is that when we get featured in a magazine article, :-)user-friendly install == GUI. No GUI, it's not an user-friendly install. :-)End of review. You can kick and scream all you want, that's the way it :-)is. Either we live by these rules, or we loose. :-) :-) From a techical standpoint, yes, an X based install would be far too large :-) for a single floppy, even at the simplest level. AND, again, as someone :-) who has installed FreeBSD dozens of times on various systems, I think I :-) should also stress that I have NEVER installed FreeBSD from CD :-) :-) :-)Me neither, but CD is still the most popular installation media these :-)days, though we, Open Source OS, probably get more network installs than :-)CD installs. From the linux world ( I know, bad word :), there are two distrubutions which use a GUI based install. Caldera's Red Hat. The Red Hat is based on python, and auto-detects if the graphics card is capable of X. Then it fires up XFree86's VGA server. And it fits all this on one floppy. They do have two floppies, one for local CD/disk installs, and another for NFS/FTP/HTTP/SMB installs. So, I know it can be done. Is it worth the effort? I donno. Just a view from a FreeBSD newbie, long time Linux guy. Don -- Don Harper, RHCE, MCSE | work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cell: (512) 751-9888 Team Austin | Pager: (800) Sky-Page, pin 303-7055 Collective Technologies | http://www.colltech.com http://www.duckland.org A Pencom Company | home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP key He Who Dies with the Most Toys Still Dies. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: VESA syscons, either using libvgl and an array of crude widgets or something like MGR and its widget set, has long been on the wish-list but I didn't even include it in my summary since it's still very much a pipe-dream. :-) There's actually one mode you forgot, which is Since no one seems to have spoken of it yet... GGI! GGI! I bet their X server is far smaller than XFree's, and we don't even _have_ to usa an X server. what I call "text mode", and that's straight ascii prompts, no CUI-style dialog boxes or anything. Think about text-to-speach devices for the blind or serial consoles attached to really *dumb* terminals. :-) Sounds like CLI. :-) -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Thus spake Don 'Duck' Harper ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): fires up XFree86's VGA server. And it fits all this on one floppy. They do have two floppies, one for local CD/disk installs, and another for NFS/FTP/HTTP/SMB installs. So, I know it can be done. Is it worth the effort? I donno. Maybe they gzip the binaries and gunzip them into MFS before using them. gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. Alex -- I doubt, therefore I might be. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Alexander Langer wrote in list.freebsd-current: Thus spake Don 'Duck' Harper ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): fires up XFree86's VGA server. And it fits all this on one floppy. They do have two floppies, one for local CD/disk installs, and another for NFS/FTP/HTTP/SMB installs. So, I know it can be done. Is it worth the effort? I donno. Maybe they gzip the binaries and gunzip them into MFS before using them. gunzip has approx 106 kb, but you save about 50% per executeable. -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4648 Jan 28 1999 /usr/bin/minigzip Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany (Info: finger userinfo:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) "In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt" (Terry Pratchett) To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Chris Costello wrote: So is all of this (TCL, Qt, et. al.) going into the base system to facilitate this work? NOT AGAIN! Please! In particular TCL. -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Chris Costello wrote: What do you want in making Unix quick to administer? Seems to me that's the real goal of those things. Click click click done, you know. /me clear the throat GUI's are *NEVER* the faster way to administer. They can make faster a very limited set of tasks. When I worked with AIX, even though I was very comfortable with SMIT, at any time when I wanted to do something fast, it was CLI all the way. Perhaps you mean "easy" instead of "quick"? Or maybe "quick" as in "flat learning curve"? -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Wilko Bulte wrote: This does, however, have all the risks of building yet another SMIT or SAM. :-( Neither attempt at making Unix sysadm 'user-friendly' makes me want to cheer. Actually, I very much like both SMIT (in it's 4.x incarnation) and SAM. Sure, I'll complain loudly if that was the _only_ way of doing it, but neither of these tools precludes you from cli and file-editing, nor would we have to. -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: Perhaps you mean "easy" instead of "quick"? Or maybe "quick" as in "flat learning curve"? Thats it. We have to provide some tools to easily administrate the system for the *avarage* user (but without breaking the "old fashioned way") It would be nice, if we really could become secretary-, boss- or even mom-ready (1);-) (1) http://insidedenver.com/seebach/0418seeba.shtml -- Tom To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 11:33:19PM +1030, Mark Newton wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 10:41:56AM +0100, Thomas Runge wrote: For mainly server-oriented, the "install source to update" or console-based setups are quite enough, because the system will most probably administraded by people, that know, what they are doing. But is it reasonable to say, "You can't play at all if you don't fit that description"? (Especially since the NT server camp seems to think you can administer a system with zero knowledge of anything; The requirement that they suddenly need to become familiar with how to deal with large archives of source code isn't going to help us get a foot in those doors). Whatever [CG]UI you throw at the problem at hand: there is *NO* programmer- fixable way out from cluelessnes. What good would be a system that is a snap to install but once it is installed it says # to you? -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 05:28:32PM -0600, Chris Costello wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999, Donn Miller wrote: Maybe we could call it "sysconfig", in honor of the old /etc/sysconfig file that was superceded bt /etc/rc.conf. That's not very creative! I had "Trident" in mind. Only problem is that the name is used by a company that makes video card chips and another company that makes chewing gum. Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) :) Wilko -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 05:44:32PM -0600, Chris Costello wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, Wilko Bulte wrote: This does, however, have all the risks of building yet another SMIT or SAM. :-( Neither attempt at making Unix sysadm 'user-friendly' makes me want to cheer. What do you want in making Unix quick to administer? Seems to me that's the real goal of those things. Click click click done, you know. Click-click, hosed up beyond repair. What I mean to say is that GUI != easy to administer. M$ has plenty of examples available. The really hard part is to design something that really appeals to the (general) sense of what is a logic. Assuming there is an universal logic to sysadmin-ing. I happen to really like the current installer. OK, it has some rough edges maybe and as I understand the inner workings are labeled 'There be dragons here' but from the outside it is not too bad. What's more, total newbies to FreeBSD can learn to work with it pretty easily. W/ -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 03:32:09PM -0800, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
And: how many people would volunteer for such a job?
Or is it assumed that since this appears suspiciously like Real Work
it will be a paid-for job?
It will be a paid-for job, naturally.
:)
Something we also have to stay aware of in this discussion is the fact
that even if most hackers could give a fig for graphical installers
and consider them to be an unneeded bit of hand-holding, it would
still be nice to have a framework which stuff could drop into and be
accessed via a command line or turbovision type of interface. We're
Fundamental to the discussion is whether there is a desire for a
installer+admintool-in-one. Or that these functions are seperated out
in different tools.
not talking about writing multiple installers for each type of UI,
after all, since that would be an unreasonable duplication of labor.
We're talking about one installation/configuration code base which can
use either X or text mode interfaces at the user's discretion, so
both "camps" get what they want.
Let's please not forget the blind users of FreeBSD..
It's also a sad fact that journalists tend to rate products based on
different criteria than engineers do, and even where we're getting kudos
in the engineering community, magazines are kicking us in the nuts over
not having something which competes head-to-head with Caldera or Red Hat.
Sad, but true.
Very true. I know. Whatever happens, the criterium should not be a
'me too' kind of tool, but rather something better. I happen to dislike
tools that ask a bazillion questions. Assuming ease of use is
related to a more abstract selection ("What do you want to install?
Typical workstation? Web server? Firewall?" along that line) of a
installation type.
DUCKS
I for example like the Solaris/SPARC installation procedure. At least
on a X-display. The character cell variant works, but that is about it.
But it works on your 1970s dumb terminal.
/DUCKS
- Jordan
--
Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project
WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) How about PolarBear in that case? :) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Wilko Bulte wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 05:28:32PM -0600, Chris Costello wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999, Donn Miller wrote: Maybe we could call it "sysconfig", in honor of the old /etc/sysconfig file that was superceded bt /etc/rc.conf. That's not very creative! I had "Trident" in mind. Only problem is that the name is used by a company that makes video card chips and another company that makes chewing gum. Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) The Inuit are my neighbors, just a ways north.. And no, they DON'T have penguins up there. The name would work though.. I will spare the geography, etc. lesson. :-) Darren Wiebe [EMAIL PROTECTED] :) Wilko -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Wilko Bulte wrote: Whatever [CG]UI you throw at the problem at hand: there is *NO* programmer- fixable way out from cluelessnes. What good would be a system that is a snap to install but once it is installed it says # to you? It says /etc/motd to you, actually. :-) -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 11:44:17AM -0800, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) How about PolarBear in that case? :) I was under the impression that Polar Bears are native to the North Pole and penguins are from the South Pole. Promoting a zoologically correct operating system ... -- Jon Parise ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) . Rochester Inst. of Technology http://www.pobox.com/~parise/ : Computer Science House Member To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 15 Dec, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) How about PolarBear in that case? :) Okpicky time here. Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. Back to lurking... Patrick To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Jon Parise wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 11:44:17AM -0800, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) How about PolarBear in that case? :) I was under the impression that Polar Bears are native to the North Pole and penguins are from the South Pole. Very GOOD!! I don't know if I can imagin penguins 750 miles north of were I am. :-) Darren Wiebe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Promoting a zoologically correct operating system ... -- Jon Parise ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) . Rochester Inst. of Technology http://www.pobox.com/~parise/ : Computer Science House Member To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
I was under the impression that Polar Bears are native to the North Pole and penguins are from the South Pole. Really? What eats penguins then? Maybe walrus? - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. I knew we'd get to the bottom of this eventually. We're hackers, not naturalists! :-) OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Okpicky time here. Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. So then ... "Orca"! -- Sanford Owings EECS Instructional Group Staff University of California at Berkeley To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 15 Dec, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. I knew we'd get to the bottom of this eventually. We're hackers, not naturalists! :-) OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) Seconded! Patrick To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 1999-Dec-16 06:53:52 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. And southern Australia (there are penguin colonies in both Sydney and Melbourne), New Zealand, the southern bits of South America, South Georgia Island, probably South Africa. Hemispherically, I don't believe wild penguins are found north of the equator. Their only natural enemies are killer whales How about `Orca' as a name then? Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: I was under the impression that Polar Bears are native to the North Pole and penguins are from the South Pole. Really? What eats penguins then? Maybe walrus? Arctic Foxes. - Donn To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) The northern hemisphere penguin type birds are called Auks. Close cousin to penguins. I don't know whether the Inuit hunt them or not. Bruce -- --- Bruce Burden[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tandem Computers Inc. 512-432-8944Network Verification 14231 Tandem Blvd. Auto answer(4 rings) Austin, TX 78726 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Donn Miller wrote: "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: I was under the impression that Polar Bears are native to the North Pole and penguins are from the South Pole. Really? What eats penguins then? Maybe walrus? Arctic Foxes. - Donn I doubt it. No peguins in the arctic. But Sea Lions definitely do. Tom To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
At 12:04 PM -0800 1999/12/15, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) Except that there is already a well-known tool by that name. See http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~blair/orca/. -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy |o| Brad Knowles, [EMAIL PROTECTED]Belgacom Skynet NV/SA |o| |o| Systems Architect, News FTP Admin Rue Col. Bourg, 124 |o| |o| Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.11.11/12.49 B-1140 Brussels |o| |o| http://www.skynet.be Belgium |o| \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Unix is like a wigwam -- no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside. Unix is very user-friendly. It's just picky who its friends are. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Brad Knowles wrote: At 12:04 PM -0800 1999/12/15, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) Except that there is already a well-known tool by that name. See http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~blair/orca/. -- Stoat then? http://home.capu.net/~kwelch/pp/predators/mammals.html David scheidt To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: With due attention paid to realities I offer the following two code names for your consideration: "freon" YES! This has my vote - ( Adam Strohl ) - - UNIX Operations/Systems http://www.digitalspark.net - - adams (at) digitalspark.netxxx.xxx. x - - ( DigitalSpark.NET )--- - To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 02:53:52PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 15 Dec, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) How about PolarBear in that case? :) Okpicky time here. Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). OK, minor detail. Only half a planet wrong :-) Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural But they are making their ways into the warmer parts of the Earth ;) enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. Hm. Neither of which makes a good name for a sysadm tool unfortunately Follow-ups to -chat. Wilko -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 09:24:04PM +0100, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. I knew we'd get to the bottom of this eventually. We're hackers, not naturalists! :-) OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) With due attention paid to realities I offer the following two code names for your consideration: "freon" Is a TM of Dupont (although I doubt they will be proud enough of it to sue ;-) and/or: "flourocarbons" fluorocarbons aka CFK. There is a relation with computing: Seymour used them to keep his machines thermally sound. -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Hm, if correct, Orca would make a good codename for a sysadm tool: Ordinary Ramblers Can [now] Admin [FreeBSD] Someone pointed out that Orca was already taken The question NOW is: Can you come up with a good acronym for "SHAMU"? -- Sanford Owings EECS Instructional Group Staff University of California at Berkeley To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, Sanford Owings wrote: Someone pointed out that Orca was already taken The question NOW is: Can you come up with a good acronym for "SHAMU"? Systems Have an Administration Monstrosity Underfoot. Sounds a bit derogatory if I want people to _use_ the thing. -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your child processes are? `- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Okpicky time here. Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. Back to lurking... Actually, Penguins are found all the way into the tropics, and their list of incidental predators include sharks and feral cats. However, I think "orca" has a lot of promise as a name to be held in reserve for when we finally have a decent installer to threaten people with. Let's not take the Apple route (announce, tshirts, then code). -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: Polar bears and Inuits are found near the North Pole (Alaska, Greenland, etc). Penguins are typically only found in Antarctica. Their only natural enemies are killer whales and leopard seals. I knew we'd get to the bottom of this eventually. We're hackers, not naturalists! :-) OK, I hereby vote for "orca" as the code name. It's shorter than "leopard seal" :) With due attention paid to realities I offer the following two code names for your consideration: "freon" and/or: "flourocarbons" "Plastic Bag" "Driftnet" "TWA800" (Ok, it was a bit far north), "EXXON Valdez" (ditto)... -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Hm, if correct, Orca would make a good codename for a sysadm tool: Ordinary Ramblers Can [now] Admin [FreeBSD] Someone pointed out that Orca was already taken The question NOW is: Can you come up with a good acronym for "SHAMU"? Easy... Some Help for Another Misguided User -- Rod Grimes - KD7CAX @ CN85sl - (RWG25) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Rodney W. Grimes wrote: Hm, if correct, Orca would make a good codename for a sysadm tool: Ordinary Ramblers Can [now] Admin [FreeBSD] Someone pointed out that Orca was already taken The question NOW is: Can you come up with a good acronym for "SHAMU"? Easy... Some Help for Another Misguided User "System Hoser and Mangling Utility" (ducking) -- Neal Westfall | mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.odc.net/~nwestfal "What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combatted; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassionate debate." -- J. Gresham Machen, "Christianity and Culture" To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Neal Westfall writes: : "System Hoser and Mangling Utility" Shamu Helps Any Moronic User Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Wilko Bulte wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 05:28:32PM -0600, Chris Costello wrote: On Tue, Dec 14, 1999, Donn Miller wrote: Maybe we could call it "sysconfig", in honor of the old /etc/sysconfig file that was superceded bt /etc/rc.conf. That's not very creative! I had "Trident" in mind. Only problem is that the name is used by a company that makes video card chips and another company that makes chewing gum. Call it Inuit. (rationale: Inuit feed on pinguins (right?)) When I first saw 'Inuit', I thought it was 'Tuit'...therefore we, when distributing on CD's, can claim that we are providing a 'round-tuit'. /me ducks - Chris D. Faulhaber - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED] FreeBSD: The Power To Serve - http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Thu, Dec 16, 1999, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: GUI's are *NEVER* the faster way to administer. They can make faster a very limited set of tasks. When I worked with AIX, even though I was very comfortable with SMIT, at any time when I wanted to do something fast, it was CLI all the way. Perhaps you mean "easy" instead of "quick"? Or maybe "quick" as in "flat learning curve"? I'm not going out of my way to make it so that you'll see "Click this thing here to make it so that hackers cannot send floods to port XXX" I'll do my best to make it as featureful as what we have in our commands here. -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Never trust a computer you can't lift. - Stan Masor ` To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 10:21:40PM +0100, Wilko Bulte wrote: "flourocarbons" fluorocarbons aka CFK. There is a relation with computing: Seymour used them to keep his machines thermally sound. Call it "cfc" -- "The tool you want to use when you want to keep FreeBSD cool." :-) - mark -- Mark Newton Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (W) Network Engineer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H) Internode Systems Pty Ltd Desk: +61-8-82232999 "Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton" Mobile: +61-416-202-223 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Daniel brings up a good point about SMIT (I don't know about SAM, not being a HP geek :) One helpful feature of SMIT/smitty is that it allows you to display the command that you are about to run. It also saves a history of its session in $HOME/smit.log, which can be used later to repeat actions taken, just a little better than script(1) ;-) For administration, this capability is VERY nice. I don't administer systems, but, occasionally, I have to install packages on a number of systems. Being able to see what 'goes on under the covers' is very helpful - especially if you're doing it for the first time, or are a 'casual' user, sometimes administrator. Having used LINUX since around '92, I am in love with FreeBSD's use of /usr/ports/*. Simply being able to type 'make install' in a port directory, and having everything magically installed is wonderful. If the point of this thread is for the basic 'sysinstall', leave the thing as it is. It works great. If [collective] we want to create an administrative tool, then I, as a user, would want for whatever tool that is to provide me with the information I need to create an action via script, or whatever. Let me see what command is being run, or at least give me the ability to view it. I also want to be able to copy/paste the command in its entirety to a script for use later. Just .02 from a user. Keep up the good work! "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote: Wilko Bulte wrote: This does, however, have all the risks of building yet another SMIT or SAM. :-( Neither attempt at making Unix sysadm 'user-friendly' makes me want to cheer. Actually, I very much like both SMIT (in it's 4.x incarnation) and SAM. Sure, I'll complain loudly if that was the _only_ way of doing it, but neither of these tools precludes you from cli and file-editing, nor would we have to. -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message -- The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
System Housekeeping Advanced Management Utility ? [ can we loose the H please? Sounds like a broom to me ] SHyshtem advanshed managedment utilititily? (hic) To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: All true, I'm afraid. All I can say is that efforts to revive the effort to replace sysinstall are underway and we're even trying to throw some money-shaped darts at the problem in hopes that we'll hit something. I'm cautiously pessimistic, so we'll see. :) As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. It could be a lot like RedHat's "linuxconf", where you can use it as both an installer or system administration tool. Not that I'm in love with RedHat's method of doing things, but I think it would be nice to keep sysinstall (or whatever it'd be called) as an all-in-one tool for adding packages or for first-time installs. Maybe we could call it "sysconfig", in honor of the old /etc/sysconfig file that was superceded bt /etc/rc.conf. I saw in CUBFM (the newsgroup) where a couple of people wanted to do a GUI menu-based interfaced to the kernel configuration (as opposed to editing a file by hand). I don't think this would be too hard at all, but I wondered what the experienced FreeBSD users thought of this idea? I was fiddling around with NetBSD-current i386 on this same machine, and it looks really raw compared to FreeBSD. No offense, but they don't even have anything as nice as sysinstall yet. On top of that, there's no utility like we have (userconfig) to edit device parameters before the boot procedes. As a result, if more than one ISA device is attached to the same IRQ, you'll get a kernel panic on boot-up. Of course, I realize NetBSD is more focused on being multi-platform than we, but there's no reason they can't "borrow" some ideas from us, such as userconfig boot editor or sysinstall. In return, we could borrow some of their code for our SPARC port. I think we should keep the lines open between us and NetBSD/OpenBSD, so that we can exchange some ideas more freely. - Donn To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. It could be a lot like RedHat's "linuxconf", where you can use it as both an installer or system administration tool. Which is about correct, though there's a volume of details behind your conceptualization of the system in outline form there. :-) To really understand where we're trying to go, however, it's somewhat helpful to take a good look at where we are now, e.g. stuck with our dear friends sysinstall and the pkg_install suite. The sysinstall program is basically nothing more than a monolithic C program which knows how to do the following "special" things: o Run as init, if so invoked, and do the special inity-things that must be done for an interactive program to subsequently function properly (see system.c:systemInitialize). o How to stomp on disks directly for the purposes of partitioning, writing MBRs, etc. Most of this is already abstracted by libdisk(3) (see also disks.c and label.c). o How to newfs and/or mount filesystems of many different types (UFS, DOS, NFS, CD, floppy, etc) and how to use them as installation media (see media.c and friends). o How to configure network interfaces (with or without DHCP) and how to use FTP servers as media devices, much of the latter being abstracted by ftpio(3) (see tcpip.c and network.c). o How to read FreeBSD "distributions" (gzippied, split tarballs with external property (.inf) files, essentially) and extract them to a mounted hierarchy of UFS partitions (see dist.c). o How to read /usr/ports/INDEX files and enough about the internals of packages to get the pkg_install suite to jump through many hoops you'd rather just not know about (see index.c and package.c). o How to spit out hosts, resolv.conf and rc.conf files from internal variable state, allowing dialogs to be constructed which front-end much of the contents of these files (see config.c and variable.c). o How to use the dialog(3) library in ways that should not be discussed within earshot of small children (see dmenu.c). All of these capabilities adding up to a composite picture with a number of deep and irredeemable flaws. Let's take the UI, for example. Even in a system as simple as sysinstall, we have 2 screens open: the primary interaction screen on VTY1 and the debugging information screen on VTY2 (not counting the possible child holoshell on VTY4 or a child ppp session on VTY3). We put them on separate VTYs because there is no clever multithreaded UI here which allows such output to scroll along in one window while doing other things in another, it's basically a single thread of control per VTY. Anyway, this works great for most things but causes problems the minute you want to install a package which is interactive. Most packages just cause pkg_add to spew various bits of diagnostic output which you'd otherwise be perfectly happy to go onto VTY2, but if a package suddenly takes it into its head to bring up a menu, that's also going to go on VTY2 since sysinstall has no idea in advance that this package might have something meaningful to say and it's going to route its stdin and stdout to VTY2 as always. Unfortunately, that causes consernation on the part of the user who's staring at VTY1 meanwhile and wondering why the package is taking so damn *long* to install. I've seen novices wait so long that medical intervention was necessary in order to save them, leaving us unlikely to win any Tog Awards for interface design in such cases. Sure, I can hear you yelling at those novices from here: "JUST SWITCH TO THE OTHER VTY AND *LOOK*, YOU CHEESEHEADS!", but it's never that simple. Users will be users and even our own annoying common-sense tells us that both pkg_add and sysinstall should really be "rendevousing" on the user, wherever the user's eyeballs might happen to be at the moment, and bringing up the menu in question. It shouldn't be over on the debugging screen and if pkg_add were somehow a library linked into sysinstall and using the same common UI API, initialized by sysinstall to point to VTY1 at startup time, well then by golly that would Just Work(tm) and life would be good again. That's one of the design precepts of the New System, in fact. There is one common UI abstraction which sysinstall II (hereafter referred to as Setup) and the new package system both use. The generic UI front-end API is "bound" at runtime to a back-end implementation class, the two currently supported ones being Qt and Turbovision (the references implementation for the common UI stuff is all written in C++), and everything pops up in the appropriate UI environment from that point forward. Our test code checks for $DISPLAY and does the appropriate Qt magic in that case, otherwise it binds in Turbovision. In theory, one could even write a back-end class which talked to a browser.
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
At 1:49 AM -0800 1999/12/14, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
Sure, I can hear you yelling at those
novices from here: "JUST SWITCH TO THE OTHER VTY AND *LOOK*, YOU
CHEESEHEADS!", but it's never that simple.
Yup, this is me. Been there, done that many times. This is why
I don't use sysinstall to actually install any packages anymore -- I
never know which ones are going to want to be interactive.
No more monolithic prototypes! Framework! Frame-work!
Frame-work! [jkh jumps up on a chair and begins waving his hands
enthusiastically before losing his balance and toppling over with an
abrupt scream].
[{(BOGGLE)}] [{(BOGGLE)}]
"Brain hurt."
[ THUD ]
"I sit down now."
--
Brad Knowles [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.shub-internet.org/brad/
http://wwwkeys.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0xE38CCEF1
Your mouse has moved. Windows NT must be restarted for the change to
take effect. Reboot now? [ OK ]
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 1999-Dec-14 18:36:04 +1100, Donn Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. I know Jordan mentioned Qt before his over-enthusiastic hand-waving made him over-balance, but Lesstif and Qt (or anything else related to X11) have a number of serious problems. Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. The second problem is that X11 needs a fair amount of configuration before it will work. Whilst the VGA16 server forms a convenient lowest-common-denominator position, it offers no real advantages over a character-mode installation (same screen resolution and number of colours) and significantly poorer performance. Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. This manages to overlook the fact that the installer has to have a feed to a much larger source of data in order to actually perform the installation. The second problem is that X11 needs a fair amount of configuration before it will work. Whilst the VGA16 server forms a convenient lowest-common-denominator position, it offers no real advantages over a character-mode installation (same screen resolution and number of colours) and significantly poorer performance. You're welcome to look at the technology demonstrators currently in use by RedHat and Caldera if you think that this is impossible. Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). It's a painful tradeoff between functionality and flash. The latter is an unfortunate necessity if we are to avoid looking hopelessly outdated. -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 07:47:00AM +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote: On 1999-Dec-14 18:36:04 +1100, Donn Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. I know Jordan mentioned Qt before his over-enthusiastic hand-waving made him over-balance, but Lesstif and Qt (or anything else related to X11) have a number of serious problems. That's ok; He also said it could be back-ended by TurboVision, with the decision of which GUI to use based on whether you had a $DISPLAY environment variable set. Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). Long-term, do we want the installer to be a program whose primary mission is to load FreeBSD, or would we prefer a generic framework which provides the situation where loading FreeBSD doesn't differ markedly from loading (and configuring!) any particular package or subsystem after the initial installation event? I think I'll pick the latter. - mark -- Mark Newton Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (W) Network Engineer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H) Internode Systems Pty Ltd Desk: +61-8-82232999 "Network Man" - Anagram of "Mark Newton" Mobile: +61-416-202-223 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Peter Jeremy wrote: Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. There is a device called cd-rom which more or less qualifies for the "or similar" category you mention. It happens to be the most popular installation media nowadays (though it probably comes second as far as FreeBSD is concerned). Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). X install = "user-friendly" install (perceived as) = more market share = more resources -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On 14-Dec-99 Peter Jeremy wrote: On 1999-Dec-14 18:36:04 +1100, Donn Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. I know Jordan mentioned Qt before his over-enthusiastic hand-waving made him over-balance, but Lesstif and Qt (or anything else related to X11) have a number of serious problems. [ snip ] Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). Many people use sysinstall to do post-install configuration of their system, and the seperate X interface (probably a seperate program) would be targeted at this task. Peter -- John Baldwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
I know Jordan mentioned Qt before his over-enthusiastic hand-waving made him over-balance, but Lesstif and Qt (or anything else related to X11) have a number of serious problems. That's ok; He also said it could be back-ended by TurboVision, with the decision of which GUI to use based on whether you had a $DISPLAY environment variable set. Indeed, in fact using dlopen() directly from the front-end in order to instantiate the back-end interface component gives you the option of doing it at runtime, making the nucleus of sysinstall very small indeed. Of course, it would probably be linked statically with turbovision in the single-floppy boot case, but that wouldn't stop you from getting more clever with other installation media. Long-term, do we want the installer to be a program whose primary mission is to load FreeBSD, or would we prefer a generic framework which provides the situation where loading FreeBSD doesn't differ markedly from loading (and configuring!) any particular package or subsystem after the initial installation event? The latter is, of course, not even a difficult choice to make. We've had the former already, been there and done that. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Today Mike Smith wrote: Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). It's a painful tradeoff between functionality and flash. The latter is an unfortunate necessity if we are to avoid looking hopelessly outdated. Not arguing the point in reguard to the "unwashed masses", but when an NT[hates it]/Novell admin watched me install FreeBSD last week his opinion of sysinstall was that it was about the cleanest and most straight forward install program he's seen. Guess he, like I, is more concerned with functionality than flash. :) -- Jack O'NeillSystems Administrator / Systems Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crystal Wind Communications, Inc. Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for my PGP key. PGP Key fingerprint = F6 C4 E6 D4 2F 15 A7 67 FD 09 E9 3C 5F CC EB CD enriched, vcard, HTML messages /dev/null -- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Personally, I like the speed of the current installation and wouldn't want to wait for X to start. It will triple my install setup time since right now I'm hardware speed limited (nearly) with sysinstall. It is much faster to draw the dialog boxes with libdialog than to start X. But I'm a mutant... Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Personally, I like the speed of the current installation and wouldn't want to wait for X to start. It will triple my install setup time since right now I'm hardware speed limited (nearly) with sysinstall. It is much faster to draw the dialog boxes with libdialog than to start X. It will always be an option, don't worry. We're not talking about becoming Red Hat, simply offering people more *options*. :) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Most people I have shown the FreeBSD installer are much more impressed with it than Redhat's snazzy GUI. -Kip On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, jack wrote: Today Mike Smith wrote: Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). It's a painful tradeoff between functionality and flash. The latter is an unfortunate necessity if we are to avoid looking hopelessly outdated. Not arguing the point in reguard to the "unwashed masses", but when an NT[hates it]/Novell admin watched me install FreeBSD last week his opinion of sysinstall was that it was about the cleanest and most straight forward install program he's seen. Guess he, like I, is more concerned with functionality than flash. :) -- Jack O'NeillSystems Administrator / Systems Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crystal Wind Communications, Inc. Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for my PGP key. PGP Key fingerprint = F6 C4 E6 D4 2F 15 A7 67 FD 09 E9 3C 5F CC EB CD enriched, vcard, HTML messages /dev/null -- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 08:33:52AM +1030, Mark Newton wrote: On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 07:47:00AM +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote: Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). Long-term, do we want the installer to be a program whose primary mission is to load FreeBSD, or would we prefer a generic framework which provides the situation where loading FreeBSD doesn't differ markedly from loading (and configuring!) any particular package or subsystem after the initial installation event? I think I'll pick the latter. This does, however, have all the risks of building yet another SMIT or SAM. :-( Neither attempt at making Unix sysadm 'user-friendly' makes me want to cheer. And: how many people would volunteer for such a job? Or is it assumed that since this appears suspiciously like Real Work it will be a paid-for job? -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands - The FreeBSD Project WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999, Donn Miller wrote: Maybe we could call it "sysconfig", in honor of the old /etc/sysconfig file that was superceded bt /etc/rc.conf. That's not very creative! I had "Trident" in mind. Only problem is that the name is used by a company that makes video card chips and another company that makes chewing gum. I saw in CUBFM (the newsgroup) where a couple of people wanted to do a GUI menu-based interfaced to the kernel configuration (as opposed to editing a file by hand). I don't think this would be too hard at all, but I wondered what the experienced FreeBSD users thought of this idea? Just me. I'm not working with anyone on this. -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |No program done by a hacker will work unless he is on the system. `- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
And: how many people would volunteer for such a job? Or is it assumed that since this appears suspiciously like Real Work it will be a paid-for job? It will be a paid-for job, naturally. Something we also have to stay aware of in this discussion is the fact that even if most hackers could give a fig for graphical installers and consider them to be an unneeded bit of hand-holding, it would still be nice to have a framework which stuff could drop into and be accessed via a command line or turbovision type of interface. We're not talking about writing multiple installers for each type of UI, after all, since that would be an unreasonable duplication of labor. We're talking about one installation/configuration code base which can use either X or text mode interfaces at the user's discretion, so both "camps" get what they want. It's also a sad fact that journalists tend to rate products based on different criteria than engineers do, and even where we're getting kudos in the engineering community, magazines are kicking us in the nuts over not having something which competes head-to-head with Caldera or Red Hat. Sad, but true. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: That's one of the design precepts of the New System, in fact. There is one common UI abstraction which sysinstall II (hereafter referred to as Setup) and the new package system both use. The generic UI front-end API is "bound" at runtime to a back-end implementation class, the two currently supported ones being Qt and Turbovision (the references implementation for the common UI stuff is all written in C++), and everything pops up in the appropriate UI environment from that point forward. Our test code checks for $DISPLAY and does the appropriate Qt magic in that case, otherwise it binds in Turbovision. In theory, one could even write a back-end class which talked to a browser. Scary. :) Is Qt going to be put into the base system in this case? If I can wrestle along with figuring out a few little problems with Qt (ones that I could even somehow more easily solve with Motif!), then I'll continue to develop my system administration tool(s) with it. Another possible solution I was thinking about (but will probably really regret) is keeping a binary distribution and enabling source builds only if a Motif or Lesstif port is installed. Yes, this implies that I would write it in Motif. And yes, I'm also sure that it will meet with much disagreement. In order to ensure that the package's installation routines call the common UI routines for all their interaction needs (remember the VTY2 scenario), a package's installation script is also now assumed to be a secure TCL script rather than being the arbitrary executable it is now. This has a number of implications even more important than simple interface unification, of course, most of them in the realm of security. So is all of this (TCL, Qt, et. al.) going into the base system to facilitate this work? -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. ` To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: Peter Jeremy wrote: [...] Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. There is a device called cd-rom which more or less qualifies for the "or similar" category you mention. It happens to be the most popular installation media nowadays (though it probably comes second as far as FreeBSD is concerned). If memory serves, I first joined FreeBSD in 2.2.3, and I've at one point or another ran just about every release in between, (and many more source builds in between THOSE) up to 3.4-RC, which I'm running today on some development/test machines. I have made dozens of installs of FreeBSD, and have logged a great deal of time in sysinstall on running systems. I have often wondered if FreeBSD would benefit from a graphical installer. As an experienced administrator of FreeBSD on a variety of systems, new and old, I am satisfied with the current text-based offering. As someone who was once an inexperienced administrator of FreeBSD, I was satisfied with the then-text-based offering. (Which, for those of you that don't remember, was remarkably similar to the current text-based offering :-) Daniel, here, sees the X install as being "user-friendly". Is the text based install not? Granted, it's not the point and click interface that windows users are accustomed to, but, clearly, if users can't navigate the menus and manage to find their way to a help menu (and don't know how to read install documentation)... It could be reasonably argued that they are going to experience a rude awakening when presented with the good old root prompt. From a techical standpoint, yes, an X based install would be far too large for a single floppy, even at the simplest level. AND, again, as someone who has installed FreeBSD dozens of times on various systems, I think I should also stress that I have NEVER installed FreeBSD from CD :-) For the average newbie "wanna try it" user, buying the CDs, books and everything neat in a box, is more often than not the safest and simplest route to take. In that case, putting a graphical installer on the CD would be a viable option. To take this a step further, why not keep (or keep something similar to) the current sysinstall, but have an option to fetch, install, configure and run X and another GUI installer distribution, then start the X server and continue the installation process from there? The first portion of the install (selecting media type, allocating space, and labeling) could remain text-based, whereas the user could then be presented with a "Get X and continue installation graphically?" option, which would then download/copy/read a (possibly minimal) X binary distribution, small window manager--TWM would probably suffice :-), as well as the graphical installer. No additional floppy storage space required. The rest of the install, including distribution download, package install, startup config, and all the other wonderful goodies, plus (possibly) a graphical disk partition/labeling utility for post-install changes, would all be done within the comfort of X, after a relatively small download/copy/read is done from their chosen media. Or... To take this ANOTHER small step further... For systems with enough memory (this certainly wouldn't justify increasing the requirements), the text installer could mount a large MFS partition to hold minimal X, window manager and installer... Fetch automatically, do a VERY simple configure from selected media, and continue with the install, INCLUDING a graphical disk partitioner/labeller, after that. Of course, with any of these options, development time and relative cost would be an issue, but, all things being equal, it may result in a flexible install option that a) still runs on virtually any supported platform, and b) gives systems with graphical support the option of a very good looking installer :-) Given the primary mission of sysinstall is to load FreeBSD, I'd go so far as to say that developing an X version would be wasting valuable developer resources (IMHO, of course). X install = "user-friendly" install (perceived as) = more market share = more resources -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Ryan Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 50% Owner, Technical and Accounts Phone: +1 (306) 664-1161 SaskNow Technologies http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E Saskatoon, SK S7H 0W2 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, Peter Jeremy wrote: Firstly, size: One of sysinstall's requirements is that it fit (along with a variety of other related commands) onto a floppy disk. Last time I checked, the /stand bundle (sysinstall + friends) was ~640K. The smallest X-server (XF86_VGA16) is 1.7MB (plus libraries). I don't have either Qt or Lesstif installed, but from previous dealings with Motif, it's several times the size of the Xserver. Unless we want to mandate the use of ZIP drives (or similar) as FreeBSD install floppies, we're limited to a syscons (or VTxxx) sysinstall. If it comes down to it, and Jordan's idea for the pkg installation really does/can apply to the actual OS installer, what we could do is have a statically linked, stripped, gzipped X server (though I haven't seen how small VGA16 can be at that point), and a small Xt frontend linked with the installer somehow (depending on what Jordan has in mind), for those with size concerns. Hopefully this won't be the default for things like CDs, however. :) -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Eunuchs, the non-gender-specific OS ` To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, Wilko Bulte wrote: This does, however, have all the risks of building yet another SMIT or SAM. :-( Neither attempt at making Unix sysadm 'user-friendly' makes me want to cheer. What do you want in making Unix quick to administer? Seems to me that's the real goal of those things. Click click click done, you know. And: how many people would volunteer for such a job? Or is it assumed that since this appears suspiciously like Real Work it will be a paid-for job? Maybe I'll get a free T-shirt for writing Trident (or whatever name I decide on), the 'SAM Done The FreeBSD Way' project. -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Managing programmers is like herding cats. `-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
I have one request for whatever becomes of sysinstall. And that is to make it technically consistent with the command line utilities capabilities. For example, I ran into (on several different occasions) problems where i would label a disk, allocate paritions, change parition types, etc., and it didn't really get done. Doing it manually would generally resolve the problem. However, it's a Good Thing(tm) to have a gui of one form or another to cater to less-experienced users. That's just very sensible. Thanks. _F To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Argh!!! SMIT! Hack! Puke! Why do we have to make FreeBSD more like HP-UX? the most sucky UNIX ever invented apart from AIX? Those of us old enough to remember the SunView install tool with graphical disk icons and the amazing 'free disk hog' barchart partition manager, while finding it vaguely entertaining, could not in all concience say its a 'better' way to install a machine. After the first 10, you generally prefer to do something else anyway. And those icons of 5and1/4 in hard disk boxes become so dated, I mean who is going to draw the littley bittley disk icons each year, and are we going to wind up with skins, and will it make /. (like I care) sysinstall is perfectly good enough as an engine. If you want to emulate the new Anaconda Python/tk interface for Linux why not just run it instead of re-inventing it? Not all apps need a GUI. cat -v as a term of abuse seems to be a concept vanishing from the language... cheers -George -- George Michaelson | DSTC Pty Ltd Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]| University of Qld 4072 Phone: +61 7 3365 4310| Australia Fax: +61 7 3365 4311| http://www.dstc.edu.au To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: Something we also have to stay aware of in this discussion is the fact that even if most hackers could give a fig for graphical installers and consider them to be an unneeded bit of hand-holding, it would still be nice to have a framework which stuff could drop into and be accessed via a command line or turbovision type of interface. We're not talking about writing multiple installers for each type of UI, after all, since that would be an unreasonable duplication of labor. We're talking about one installation/configuration code base which can use either X or text mode interfaces at the user's discretion, so both "camps" get what they want. I should perhaps mention here that there are windowing GUIs out there which are not X11. I know of two: W (almost dead, but quite sufficient), and Microwindows (very new, still quite limited, but under active development). Both use either VGA or VESA graphics. Both are very small (around 100kB). Andrzej Bialecki // [EMAIL PROTECTED] WebGiro AB, Sweden (http://www.webgiro.com) // --- // -- FreeBSD: The Power to Serve. http://www.freebsd.org // --- Small Embedded FreeBSD: http://www.freebsd.org/~picobsd/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, George Michaelson wrote: Why do we have to make FreeBSD more like HP-UX? the most sucky UNIX ever invented apart from AIX? Is this a fact? I always sort of liked HP-UX. Not as fun as FreeBSD for obvious reasons, but... sysinstall is perfectly good enough as an engine. No it's not. Ask its author, for one. You can read what he's had to say about it throughout this whole thread. If you want to emulate the new Anaconda Python/tk interface for Linux why not just run it instead of re-inventing it? Why do everything just to be like Linux? Who says we can't be inventive on our own? -- |Chris Costello [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Drive defensively -- buy a tank. `-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, Dec 15, 1999, George Michaelson wrote: Why do we have to make FreeBSD more like HP-UX? the most sucky UNIX ever invented apart from AIX? Hmmph. When FreeBSD has a fully SMP-ized kernel, including filesystem and network stacks and device drivers, and when it has something that allows dynamic paged kernel objects and when it has a device/system configuration manager that successfully balances persistent device names with dynamic reconfiguration, *then* do the comparison. Until then, umm, your underwear is showing, jack To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
"Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: As far as the successor to sysinstall goes, I think it would be nice to have both a console version and an X version, with some X tookit such as Lesstif or Qt, or Tcl/Tk. It could be a lot like RedHat's "linuxconf", where you can use it as both an installer or system administration tool. Which is about correct, though there's a volume of details behind your conceptualization of the system in outline form there. :-) Hear hear! To really understand where we're trying to go, however, it's somewhat helpful to take a good look at where we are now, e.g. stuck with our dear friends sysinstall and the pkg_install suite. [...] We also need to discuss the ways and means of creating not so much an installer but an installation "nucleus" around which we also have a general script execution and menu-generation framework which makes it easy for other people to write "configurators" in secure TCL which take on the job of configuring some utility like, say, Samba. When you pkg_add samba.zip in such a system, it runs its configurator to generate the initial smb.conf file but also drops a copy of the configuration script into some special config directory under the Networking category. Now the next time the user fires up the system configuration tool and goes to the Networking section, they see Samba there as a new item and clicking on it will bring up the configuration tool again (perhaps in the same form, perhaps not). If Samba is deleted from the system, the correspnding item goes away along with the configuration script and I'm sure you all get the idea at this point. No more monolithic prototypes! Framework! Frame-work! Frame-work! [jkh jumps up on a chair and begins waving his hands enthusiastically before losing his balance and toppling over with an abrupt scream]. - Jordan A worthy manifesto if ever I've seen one. I have to add that I've been pretty well amused by the discussions of pretty GUI interfaces and how they'll attract users. My interest lies in exactly the opposite direction: I want to stick a floppy in and have a box find an install server and follow a pre-defined recipe for building itself, ala Jumpstart or Kickstart. If I'm a Systems Administrator rolling out dozens of web servers or hundreds of desktops (and I frequently am), the last thing I want to look at is a GUI, unless it helps me to build the configuration that'll be installed across a large base. If anything will drive the commercialization of FreeBSD it's manageability enhancements. So, when the framework, Frame-work! Frame-work! is being considered, please keep in mind the pre-configured one disk network install. In the meantime, I'm off to learn what sysinstall can do for me. Please keep me in mind if looking for reviewers, commentators, or (*shudder*) coders and documentors for pushing this project forward. Cheers, Eric Jones Collective Technologies is a pretty GUI. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
My interest lies in exactly the opposite direction: I want to stick a floppy in and have a box find an install server and follow a pre-defined recipe for building itself, ala Jumpstart or Kickstart. And you're far from alone in wanting this, another reason I've been wanting to go to a script-based installation for some time. It's not at all difficult to imagine an installer which comes in two-part form: /stand/setup /stand/setup.tcl The latter actually containing just about *all* the user interaction and "installer behavior" that the user experiences during an installation of FreeBSD. That means that if you want to modify the installer to put "Case Western University Special Custom Installation" at the top of the first menu and add lots of distributions of purely academic (haha) interest to the appropriate submenus, it's a simple matter of mounting a floppy and editing a text file. Needless to say, this would also make translation efforts a lot easier. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
Just to to correct a misunderstanding... Ryan Thompson wrote: Daniel, here, sees the X install as being "user-friendly". Is the text based install not? Granted, it's not the point and click interface that windows users are accustomed to, but, clearly, if users can't navigate the menus and manage to find their way to a help menu (and don't know how to read install documentation)... It could be reasonably argued that they are going to experience a rude awakening when presented with the good old root prompt. Hey, I like CUI. I'd rather install with a CUI than a GUI, all other things being equal. And besides some quirks here and there, I really like sysinstall. So what? I'm a Forth programmer. I'm the guy who wrote /boot/support.4th, and find it easy to read and understand, even long after writting it. I'm the guy who wrote the builtin wrapper code in src/sys/boot/common/interp_forth.c, though I'd prefer not to disclose that information in public. :-) But the fact is that when we get featured in a magazine article, user-friendly install == GUI. No GUI, it's not an user-friendly install. End of review. You can kick and scream all you want, that's the way it is. Either we live by these rules, or we loose. From a techical standpoint, yes, an X based install would be far too large for a single floppy, even at the simplest level. AND, again, as someone who has installed FreeBSD dozens of times on various systems, I think I should also stress that I have NEVER installed FreeBSD from CD :-) Me neither, but CD is still the most popular installation media these days, though we, Open Source OS, probably get more network installs than CD installs. -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) who is as social as a wampas [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: Hey, I like CUI. I'd rather install with a CUI than a GUI, all other things being equal. And besides some quirks here and there, I really like sysinstall. Its nice, but its not where it should be. But the fact is that when we get featured in a magazine article, user-friendly install == GUI. No GUI, it's not an user-friendly install. End of review. You can kick and scream all you want, that's the way it is. Either we live by these rules, or we loose. A VESA GUI based sysinstall replacement would probably be small enough to fit on a floppy, yet still have the friendlyness that a new user/reviewer would look for. If we follow jkh's outline, making another "front end target" for the script shouldn't be that hard. You have X, VESA Syscons, and Text Syscons. The script says "ok, prompt user for blah", under X it opens a window, under Text some ASCII dialog, and under VESA a little window. - ( Adam Strohl ) - - UNIX Operations/Systems http://www.digitalspark.net - - adams (at) digitalspark.netxxx.xxx. x - - ( DigitalSpark.NET )--- - To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
If we follow jkh's outline, making another "front end target" for the script shouldn't be that hard. You have X, VESA Syscons, and Text Syscons. The script says "ok, prompt user for blah", under X it opens a window, under Text some ASCII dialog, and under VESA a little window. VESA syscons, either using libvgl and an array of crude widgets or something like MGR and its widget set, has long been on the wish-list but I didn't even include it in my summary since it's still very much a pipe-dream. :-) There's actually one mode you forgot, which is what I call "text mode", and that's straight ascii prompts, no CUI-style dialog boxes or anything. Think about text-to-speach devices for the blind or serial consoles attached to really *dumb* terminals. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
There's actually one mode you forgot, which is what I call "text mode", and that's straight ascii prompts, no CUI-style dialog boxes or anything. You can reprogram the character table and draw fairly nice looking menus in text mode. The last generations of MS-DOS based programs used them to good effect. Tim To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: sysinstall: is it really at the end of its lifecycle?
that "This product is currently at the end of its life cycle and will eventually be replaced." The handy thing about "eventually" is that it can be a long time. :) Amusingly, the man page author (Jordan?) says, "This utility is a prototype which lasted approximately 3 years past its expiration date and is greatly in need of death." All true, I'm afraid. All I can say is that efforts to revive the effort to replace sysinstall are underway and we're even trying to throw some money-shaped darts at the problem in hopes that we'll hit something. I'm cautiously pessimistic, so we'll see. :) In any case, nothing I'm currently trying to bootstrap here will see the light of day before 5.0 at this point, so hacking sysinstall is probably not such a bad prospect for the 3.x and 4.x releases to come. I've even (*shudder*) been putting some work into cleaning the code up a bit these past couple of days. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
