Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2012-01-03 Thread Freddie Cash
Not directed to Doug in particular, just selected the first message to
reply to, to keep the depth of the thread from exploding.  :)

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Doug Barton do...@freebsd.org wrote:
 The story so far ...

 sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
 the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
 configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
 were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
 used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
 restore sysinstall.

 So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
 in HEAD something that we care about?

Unless someone is willing to put in the time and effort to fix
sysinstall such that it doesn't just spam settings to the end of the
rc.conf file, it should remain dead, gone, buried, expunged, etc.

While it may be nice for some users to have a pretty TUI to browse
through packages, or configure networking, or whatever, sysinstall
should not be it.

The number of times new users have screwed up their systems by using
sysinstall as a post-install configuration tool is too numerous to
count.  As a moderator on forums.freebsd.org, the first thing I tell
new users is to forget sysinstall even exists once the OS is
installed.  JUST DON'T USE IT AS A POST-INSTALL CONFIGURATION TOOL!
It's not worth the headaches it will cause down the line.  And some of
those headaches are large indeed.

Plus, it doesn't support even half of the network configuration
features that rc.conf support.  Let alone the rest of stuff that can
go into rc.conf.  And it has no concept of rc.conf.local (which is
very useful for configuring multiple systems that share an rc.conf).

Instead of resurrecting this horrible tool, perhaps we should look at
Devin Teska's host-setup tool.  Or better documenting the standalone
parts of sysinstall like SADE.  Or even just improving the first-login
fortune entry to point to a couple of useful man pages to get people
started.  Or even writing a new things to do once the OS is
installed man page (similar to what OpenBSD has).

sysinstall has served its purpose; and long out-lived its usefulness.
It's time to let it out to pasture.  Please, let's leave it in the
attic where it belongs.

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwc...@gmail.com
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-30 Thread Nathan Whitehorn

On 12/29/11 14:04, John Baldwin wrote:

On Thursday, December 29, 2011 2:55:10 pm Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

On 12/29/11 10:52, Warren Block wrote:

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, John Baldwin wrote:

A way to select from available partition types (UFS, boot, swap, ZFS,
etc.)
rather than requiring the user to remember the 'freebsd-xxx' string
would be
one improvement.

There are PRs for that and several other common suggestions:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?text=bsdinstall

The problem with, say, a dropdown menu is that libdialog doesn't provide
a combination dropdown-and-text-entry window. The only alternative would
be to split partition creation into two screens (first a list of types,
and later a thing to set it up). That has the disadvantage of requiring
two screens, or a third if you want alternate types.

sysinstall just popped up a new modal dialog with a menu to pick the partition
type.  Would something like that work in bsdinstall?



It would. I was hoping to avoid extra dialogs and keystrokes, but it's 
easy to do.

-Nathan
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Warren Block

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, John Baldwin wrote:


A way to select from available partition types (UFS, boot, swap, ZFS, etc.)
rather than requiring the user to remember the 'freebsd-xxx' string would be
one improvement.


There are PRs for that and several other common suggestions:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?text=bsdinstall
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread John Baldwin
On Thursday, December 29, 2011 11:37:25 am Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
 On 12/29/11 06:52, John Baldwin wrote:
  On Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:32:52 pm Lawrence Stewart wrote:
  On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:
  On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:
  On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
  resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
  closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
  post-installation configuration tool has materialised.
 
  My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
  and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
  resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
  year or 2 would make it impossible.
 
  Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge
  to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would
  be very minimal work. We'd also probably need a few extra build system
  changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into
  sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard
  either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it
  would become harder the longer we wait.
 
  I think Doug is worried that the list will just get longer, and I agree.
  Bits rot faster once they aren't part of the build.  It is easy to delete
  sysinstall or trim it, it is not easy to resurrect it.  Personally, the one
  time I used bsdinstall recently I found it to be a bit uneven, and not 
  really
  a step forward for a new user compared to the standard install mode of
  sysinstall.  It's biggest win is it's ability to do more disk 
  configurations,
  but it seemed less user-friendly in almost every other regard (and even the
  disk editor seemd less user-friendly even if it had more functionality).
 
 
 I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and especially 
 specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people who are old 
 hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally positive comments 
 on the user experience. Patches would be even more appreciated, since 
 real life has intervened to steal most of my FreeBSD time.

A way to select from available partition types (UFS, boot, swap, ZFS, etc.)
rather than requiring the user to remember the 'freebsd-xxx' string would be
one improvement.  At the time I was more worried about getting my box up
and running than taking detailed notes. :)  The lack of a /compat link is
another issue people have raised.  The lack of a shell running on ttyv3
during the install is probably a feature I think many advanced users would
miss.  I missed having the debug output on ttyv1 as well.  At work here it
would be a deal-killer for my sysadmins to not have ttyv3.  We use a custom
installer for our boxes that I wrote as a shell script and it still does
debug/verbose output on ttyv1.  It doesn't start an explicit shell on ttyv3,
but I have a login prompt there that they can use and I've thought about
even replacing that with an explicit chroot'd shell ala sysinstall.  I can't
count the number of times I've used the shell on ttyv3 during installs.

For new users the ability to browse the packages, etc. I think is important.
It certainly was for me back when I first installed FreeBSD back in college.
I don't recall seeing that option during the one install I did of 9.

-- 
John Baldwin
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Nathan Whitehorn

On 12/29/11 06:52, John Baldwin wrote:

On Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:32:52 pm Lawrence Stewart wrote:

On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:

On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:

On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
post-installation configuration tool has materialised.


My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
year or 2 would make it impossible.


Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge
to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would
be very minimal work. We'd also probably need a few extra build system
changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into
sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard
either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it
would become harder the longer we wait.


I think Doug is worried that the list will just get longer, and I agree.
Bits rot faster once they aren't part of the build.  It is easy to delete
sysinstall or trim it, it is not easy to resurrect it.  Personally, the one
time I used bsdinstall recently I found it to be a bit uneven, and not really
a step forward for a new user compared to the standard install mode of
sysinstall.  It's biggest win is it's ability to do more disk configurations,
but it seemed less user-friendly in almost every other regard (and even the
disk editor seemd less user-friendly even if it had more functionality).



I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and especially 
specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people who are old 
hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally positive comments 
on the user experience. Patches would be even more appreciated, since 
real life has intervened to steal most of my FreeBSD time.

-Nathan
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Nathan Whitehorn
nwhiteh...@freebsd.orgwrote:

 On 12/29/11 06:52, John Baldwin wrote:

 On Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:32:52 pm Lawrence Stewart wrote:

 On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:

 On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:

 On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
 resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
 closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
 post-installation configuration tool has materialised.


 My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
 and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
 resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
 year or 2 would make it impossible.


 Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge
 to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would
 be very minimal work. We'd also probably need a few extra build system
 changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into
 sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard
 either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it
 would become harder the longer we wait.


 I think Doug is worried that the list will just get longer, and I agree.
 Bits rot faster once they aren't part of the build.  It is easy to delete
 sysinstall or trim it, it is not easy to resurrect it.  Personally, the
 one
 time I used bsdinstall recently I found it to be a bit uneven, and not
 really
 a step forward for a new user compared to the standard install mode of
 sysinstall.  It's biggest win is it's ability to do more disk
 configurations,
 but it seemed less user-friendly in almost every other regard (and even
 the
 disk editor seemd less user-friendly even if it had more functionality).


 I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and especially
 specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people who are old hands
 at sysinstall, I've received almost universally positive comments on the
 user experience. Patches would be even more appreciated, since real life
 has intervened to steal most of my FreeBSD time.
 -Nathan





I have installed FreeBSD 9.0 release candidates by using bsdinstall .

I have selected only guided hard disk setup by selecting all defaults .

For a less experienced person , by selecting the only defaults , and giving
root password , a single user definition is sufficient to a successful
install .

With this structure of bsdinstall , I think , it is very well designed and
expertly implemented .

My suggestion would be , for immediate adjustment , after selecting
REBOOT ,
since installer may know that install is from CD/DVD , may unmount CD/DVD ,
warn the user
to remove CD/DVD , and request press a key to continue for booting .

Since this part is missing , it is becoming necessary to enter a race
between the user and the computer to find an interval to eject CD/DVD
before captured by the BIOS .

I did not use USB for install . I do not know how it is handled , but
unmounting and extracting the USB stick and pressing a key to continue is
also will be useful , if it is not already like that .


Thank you very much .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread John Baldwin
On Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:32:52 pm Lawrence Stewart wrote:
 On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:
  On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:
  On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
  resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
  closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
  post-installation configuration tool has materialised.
 
  My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
  and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
  resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
  year or 2 would make it impossible.
 
 Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge 
 to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would 
 be very minimal work. We'd also probably need a few extra build system 
 changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into 
 sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard 
 either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it 
 would become harder the longer we wait.

I think Doug is worried that the list will just get longer, and I agree.
Bits rot faster once they aren't part of the build.  It is easy to delete
sysinstall or trim it, it is not easy to resurrect it.  Personally, the one
time I used bsdinstall recently I found it to be a bit uneven, and not really
a step forward for a new user compared to the standard install mode of
sysinstall.  It's biggest win is it's ability to do more disk configurations,
but it seemed less user-friendly in almost every other regard (and even the
disk editor seemd less user-friendly even if it had more functionality).

-- 
John Baldwin
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Pedro Giffuni


--- Gio 29/12/11, Nathan Whitehorn nwhiteh...@freebsd.org ha scritto:
...
 
 I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and
 especially 
 specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people
 who are old 
 hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally
 positive comments 
 on the user experience. Patches would be even more
 appreciated, since 
 real life has intervened to steal most of my FreeBSD time.
 -Nathan


FWIW;

I have practically given up on installing FreeBSD lately
and I mostly use PC-BSD. I mainly see two big issues:

-X.Org has become very difficult to install. Setting up
hald and friends, not to mention that you have to choose
carefully your hardware previously. It's a nightmare.
- I am OK with sysinstall disappearing: however it was
nice to have all the setup tools in one place. How am
I supposed to install prebuilt packages (and the myriad
of dependencies) from now on? Ports are cool but having
to wait to rebuild gcc to be able to use scilab is a
nonsense.

PC-BSD is not without problems though. In my system
it wants to use latam kbd which doesn't even
exist AFAICT.

Just my $0.02, I know writing a replacement for the
full blown sysinstall is a rather heroic thing to do.

Regards,

Pedro.

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Nathan Whitehorn

On 12/29/11 10:52, Warren Block wrote:

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, John Baldwin wrote:


A way to select from available partition types (UFS, boot, swap, ZFS,
etc.)
rather than requiring the user to remember the 'freebsd-xxx' string
would be
one improvement.


There are PRs for that and several other common suggestions:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?text=bsdinstall


The problem with, say, a dropdown menu is that libdialog doesn't provide 
a combination dropdown-and-text-entry window. The only alternative would 
be to split partition creation into two screens (first a list of types, 
and later a thing to set it up). That has the disadvantage of requiring 
two screens, or a third if you want alternate types.


The shell on v3 is a good idea, and belongs in 
/usr/src/release/rc.local, where it already handles some things like 
this (including figuring out if the console is a serial port, which 
needs to be taken into account).

-Nathan
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Chris Rees
On 29 December 2011 18:23, Pedro Giffuni p...@freebsd.org wrote:
 --- Gio 29/12/11, Nathan Whitehorn nwhiteh...@freebsd.org ha scritto:

 I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and
 especially
 specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people
 who are old
 hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally
 positive comments
 on the user experience. Patches would be even more
 appreciated, since
 real life has intervened to steal most of my FreeBSD time.
 -Nathan


 FWIW;

 I have practically given up on installing FreeBSD lately
 and I mostly use PC-BSD. I mainly see two big issues:

 -X.Org has become very difficult to install. Setting up
 hald and friends, not to mention that you have to choose
 carefully your hardware previously. It's a nightmare.

I've not found that... installing xorg-drivers with the correct
options is hassle-free... have you posted these problems to -x11@?

 - I am OK with sysinstall disappearing: however it was
 nice to have all the setup tools in one place. How am
 I supposed to install prebuilt packages (and the myriad
 of dependencies) from now on? Ports are cool but having
 to wait to rebuild gcc to be able to use scilab is a
 nonsense.

Use packages, we do do them!

Chris

 PC-BSD is not without problems though. In my system
 it wants to use latam kbd which doesn't even
 exist AFAICT.

 Just my $0.02, I know writing a replacement for the
 full blown sysinstall is a rather heroic thing to do.

 Regards,

 Pedro.
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread John Baldwin
On Thursday, December 29, 2011 2:55:10 pm Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
 On 12/29/11 10:52, Warren Block wrote:
  On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, John Baldwin wrote:
 
  A way to select from available partition types (UFS, boot, swap, ZFS,
  etc.)
  rather than requiring the user to remember the 'freebsd-xxx' string
  would be
  one improvement.
 
  There are PRs for that and several other common suggestions:
 
  http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?text=bsdinstall
 
 The problem with, say, a dropdown menu is that libdialog doesn't provide 
 a combination dropdown-and-text-entry window. The only alternative would 
 be to split partition creation into two screens (first a list of types, 
 and later a thing to set it up). That has the disadvantage of requiring 
 two screens, or a third if you want alternate types.

sysinstall just popped up a new modal dialog with a menu to pick the partition 
type.  Would something like that work in bsdinstall?

-- 
John Baldwin
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Bruce Cran

On 29/12/2011 16:37, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and especially 
specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people who are old 
hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally positive 
comments on the user experience. Patches would be even more 
appreciated, since real life has intervened to steal most of my 
FreeBSD time.


There was talk in the past that any future installer should be based 
around the pc-sysinstall backend - has there been any progress towards 
moving bsdinstall to it?


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Chris Rees
On 29 December 2011 21:25, Pedro Giffuni p...@freebsd.org wrote:
 --- Gio 29/12/11, Chris Rees cr...@freebsd.org ha scritto:

  FWIW;
 
  I have practically given up on installing FreeBSD
 lately
  and I mostly use PC-BSD. I mainly see two big issues:
 
  -X.Org has become very difficult to install. Setting
 up
  hald and friends, not to mention that you have to
  choose carefully your hardware previously. It's a
  nightmare.

 I've not found that... installing xorg-drivers with the
 correct options is hassle-free... have you posted these
 problems to -x11@?


 Hmm.. I think it was 8.2 and X.org -configure didn't
 give me a working screen, and then I discovered I had to
 be using hald, it was painful and I starting keeping a
 copy of my working configuration in a USB mem. TBH the
 -x11 guys were really doing their own homework keeping up
 with linux and I was able to find out the information on
 the net.

 I use the nvidia driver, no idea what people with ATI
 cards do.

I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with that, if you ever want to
try again and you can't work it out get me off list ;)

  - I am OK with sysinstall disappearing: however it
 was
  nice to have all the setup tools in one place. How am
  I supposed to install prebuilt packages (and the
 myriad
  of dependencies) from now on? Ports are cool but
 having
  to wait to rebuild gcc to be able to use scilab is a
  nonsense.

 Use packages, we do do them!


 Of course, but no idea how to use them without
 sysinstall's post-install configuration screen: it
 was just too easy.

 I hope I don't have to start downloading manually all
 the prepackaged dependencies (I still do that with
 Java and it's not nice).

Nah, pkg_add -r works and grabs anything you need. Try it with
something monstrous (like gcc...)

Chris
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Bruce Cran

On 29/12/2011 21:30, Chris Rees wrote:
Nah, pkg_add -r works and grabs anything you need. Try it with 
something monstrous (like gcc...)


But then you have to know the exact name of the package, which isn't 
always obvious.


--
Bruce Cran
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Pedro Giffuni


--- Gio 29/12/11, Chris Rees cr...@freebsd.org ha scritto:

  FWIW;
 
  I have practically given up on installing FreeBSD
 lately
  and I mostly use PC-BSD. I mainly see two big issues:
 
  -X.Org has become very difficult to install. Setting
 up
  hald and friends, not to mention that you have to
  choose carefully your hardware previously. It's a
  nightmare.
 
 I've not found that... installing xorg-drivers with the
 correct options is hassle-free... have you posted these
 problems to -x11@?


Hmm.. I think it was 8.2 and X.org -configure didn't
give me a working screen, and then I discovered I had to
be using hald, it was painful and I starting keeping a
copy of my working configuration in a USB mem. TBH the
-x11 guys were really doing their own homework keeping up
with linux and I was able to find out the information on
the net.

I use the nvidia driver, no idea what people with ATI
cards do.


  - I am OK with sysinstall disappearing: however it
 was
  nice to have all the setup tools in one place. How am
  I supposed to install prebuilt packages (and the
 myriad
  of dependencies) from now on? Ports are cool but
 having
  to wait to rebuild gcc to be able to use scilab is a
  nonsense.
 
 Use packages, we do do them!


Of course, but no idea how to use them without
sysinstall's post-install configuration screen: it
was just too easy.

I hope I don't have to start downloading manually all
the prepackaged dependencies (I still do that with
Java and it's not nice).

Pedro.
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Chris Rees
On 29 Dec 2011 21:36, Bruce Cran br...@cran.org.uk wrote:

 On 29/12/2011 21:30, Chris Rees wrote:

 Nah, pkg_add -r works and grabs anything you need. Try it with something
monstrous (like gcc...)


 But then you have to know the exact name of the package, which isn't
always obvious.

If an educated guess doesn't work...

make -C /usr/ports/category/name -V PKGNAME will get you the package name.

Chris
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Mark Linimon
On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 10:23:58AM -0800, Pedro Giffuni wrote:
 How am I supposed to install prebuilt packages (and the myriad of
 dependencies) from now on?

I strongly recommend using portmaster.  The manpage is very dense but
to start with, use something like the following (I'm just picking one
port at random, pkg_cutleaves, to install):

  portmaster -PP ports-mgmt/pkg_cutleaves

mcl
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Pedro Giffuni
Hello;

--- Gio 29/12/11, Chris Rees cr...@freebsd.org ha scritto:

 
  I use the nvidia driver, no idea what people with ATI
  cards do.
 
 I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with that, if you
 ever want to try again and you can't work it out get me
 off list ;)


Getting X11 to run on virtualbox from a FreeBSD 9.0 CD
installation is pretty much a nightmare. Is there something
about it in the users handbook? A wiki page about setting up
X11 on FreeBSD would do it too. Perhaps we should write one.

...
  I hope I don't have to start downloading manually all
  the prepackaged dependencies (I still do that with
  Java and it's not nice).
 
 Nah, pkg_add -r works and grabs anything you need. Try it
 with something monstrous (like gcc...)
 

Aha! I guess I just keep doing things the old way then,
the package browser was still very nice but I guess what
is really missing is documentation. How is someone new
to FreeBSD supposed to know what packages are available
and how to install them?

cheers,

Pedro.


 Chris
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-29 Thread Nathan Whitehorn

On 12/29/11 12:51, Bruce Cran wrote:

On 29/12/2011 16:37, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:

I'd appreciate any specific comments you might have, and especially
specific suggestions for improvements. Except from people who are old
hands at sysinstall, I've received almost universally positive
comments on the user experience. Patches would be even more
appreciated, since real life has intervened to steal most of my
FreeBSD time.


There was talk in the past that any future installer should be based
around the pc-sysinstall backend - has there been any progress towards
moving bsdinstall to it?



There has not been much. My free time evaporated, and I haven't had the 
ability to work on this. I heard from some people at iX a while back, 
but I don't know what their progress is. There are a relatively small 
number of relatively major things that would need to be rewritten on 
both sides (e.g. the pc-sysinstall partition editor is x86-only and the 
bsdinstall one is premised around letting the kernel do pre-commit 
staging). There's a relatively bare wiki page at 
http://wiki.freebsd.org/PCBSDInstallMerge for those interested.

-Nathan
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-28 Thread Vincent Hoffman
On 28/12/2011 06:30, Doug Barton wrote:
 On 12/27/2011 22:08, Adrian Chadd wrote:
 Hi,

 Why not just list the things that sysinstall did that people like, and
 extract out / reimplement those bits?
 That's sounds great. As soon as that's done, we can remove sysinstall
 from the base. Until those things exist, removing it is premature.

In that case can I suggest a wiki page or other viewable/editable list
of desirable features from sysinstall?
I only used it for the basic disklayout and component install so I'm not
in a position to start it off or I would.

Vince
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-28 Thread Kevin Oberman
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:25 AM, Vincent Hoffman vi...@unsane.co.uk wrote:

 On 28/12/2011 06:30, Doug Barton wrote:
  On 12/27/2011 22:08, Adrian Chadd wrote:
  Hi,
 
  Why not just list the things that sysinstall did that people like, and
  extract out / reimplement those bits?
  That's sounds great. As soon as that's done, we can remove sysinstall
  from the base. Until those things exist, removing it is premature.
 
 In that case can I suggest a wiki page or other viewable/editable list
 of desirable features from sysinstall?
 I only used it for the basic disklayout and component install so I'm not
 in a position to start it off or I would.

 Vince
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Why not just get the list from sysinstall?
Distributions   Install additional distribution sets
Documentation installation  Install FreeBSD Documentation set
PackagesInstall pre-packaged software for FreeBSD
Root Password   Set the system manager's password
Fdisk   The disk Slice (PC-style partition) Editor
Label   The disk Label editor
User Management Add user and group information
Console Customize system console behavior
Time Zone   Set which time zone you're in
Media   Change the installation media type
Mouse   Configure your mouse
Networking  Configure additional network services
SecurityConfigure system security options
Startup Configure system startup options
TTYsConfigure system ttys.
Options View/Set various installation options
HTML Docs   Go to the HTML documentation menu (post-install)
Load KLDLoad a KLD from a floppy

Several of these simply call other tools that will remain present, but
several are internal to sysinstall. Fdisk and Label should be replaced by
the gpart tools already in bsdinstall. A couple might be simply removed,
but most are either useful or near essential, especially for  new user.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: kob6...@gmail.com
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Lawrence Stewart

On 12/27/11 16:13, Ron McDowell wrote:

Doug Barton wrote:

The story so far ...

sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
restore sysinstall.

So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
in HEAD something that we care about?


Doug


We have around 90 web servers running 8.2p5 right now [and yes, I did
update the lot on Christmas Eve but that's a different story] and they
will not be upgraded to 9.0 until/unless the post-install functionality
that was lost by the removal of sysinstall is reintegrated in some way.
I also complained about it and was told in effect, too bad. Everyone
who commented said sysinstall caused more problems than it solved,
although I've been using it for any system changes I needed that it was
capable of doing for as long back as I can remember, and my first
FreeBSD box was v2.2.

I think removing any functionality that was in a previous release
without providing an equal-or-better alternative is a bad idea, and that
needs to be considered more carefully in the future.

So this is not just a +1 vote, it's a +90.


Sysintall is in 9 and will not be removed from the 9 branch. The 
installer used on the release media has changed, but as far as I 
understand, there is nothing stopping you from running sysinstall from a 
installer shell or using it for post installation configuration.


Doug is only referring to the head branch (which will eventually in 
~18-24 months become the 10 branch), so you should be able to have the 
best of both worlds with 9 i.e. try bsdinstall, fall back to sysinstall 
when you find bugs or missing features (don't forget to lodge bug 
reports for problems you find so that bsdinstall can be improved).


On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in 
resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much 
closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable 
post-installation configuration tool has materialised.


In the meantime, cajole everyone who pops up saying I really want post 
installation configuration support to get involved with writing a 
bsdinstaller-like script (I think it should be completely separate to 
bsdinstaller, but perhaps use the same backend shell script 
functions/infrastructure) to do the job.


Cheers,
Lawrence
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Bruce Cran
I think such a tool should /not/ be a port, since I expect it would include a 
package browser in it. I think it's something that could really help new users 
get used to FreeBSD without having to trawl through man pages right at the 
start.

-- 
Bruce Cran

Sent from my iPad

On 27 Dec 2011, at 05:05, Doug Barton do...@freebsd.org wrote:

 On 12/26/2011 20:29, Xin LI wrote:
 On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Doug Barton do...@freebsd.org wrote:
 The story so far ...
 
 sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
 the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
 configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
 were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
 used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
 restore sysinstall.
 
 So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
 in HEAD something that we care about?
 
 Perhaps make it a port instead?  I personally don't use sysinstall for
 post-install tasks at all, but it won't hurt to have such
 functionality.
 
 You're not the first person to suggest that, but I don't see how it's
 actually responsive to the problem. This issue only affects HEAD, so a
 port would not be generally useful. It would also be an enormous amount
 of work to make it into a port. It would be much easier to revert the
 necessary changes to bring back the old libdialog and sysinstall itself.
 
 
 Doug
 
 -- 
 
[^L]
 
Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/
 
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Ron McDowell

Lawrence Stewart wrote:

On 12/27/11 16:13, Ron McDowell wrote:

Doug Barton wrote:

The story so far ...

sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the 
post-install

configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
restore sysinstall.

So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
in HEAD something that we care about?


Doug


We have around 90 web servers running 8.2p5 right now [and yes, I did
update the lot on Christmas Eve but that's a different story] and they
will not be upgraded to 9.0 until/unless the post-install functionality
that was lost by the removal of sysinstall is reintegrated in some way.
I also complained about it and was told in effect, too bad. Everyone
who commented said sysinstall caused more problems than it solved,
although I've been using it for any system changes I needed that it was
capable of doing for as long back as I can remember, and my first
FreeBSD box was v2.2.

I think removing any functionality that was in a previous release
without providing an equal-or-better alternative is a bad idea, and that
needs to be considered more carefully in the future.

So this is not just a +1 vote, it's a +90.


Sysintall is in 9 and will not be removed from the 9 branch. The 
installer used on the release media has changed, but as far as I 
understand, there is nothing stopping you from running sysinstall from 
a installer shell or using it for post installation configuration.


You're right.  I stand corrected and am happy to see I'll be able to 
upgrade to 9.0 after -RELEASE.


Doug is only referring to the head branch (which will eventually in 
~18-24 months become the 10 branch), so you should be able to have the 
best of both worlds with 9 i.e. try bsdinstall, fall back to 
sysinstall when you find bugs or missing features (don't forget to 
lodge bug reports for problems you find so that bsdinstall can be 
improved).


On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in 
resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much 
closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no 
suitable post-installation configuration tool has materialised.


In the meantime, cajole everyone who pops up saying I really want 
post installation configuration support to get involved with writing 
a bsdinstaller-like script (I think it should be completely separate 
to bsdinstaller, but perhaps use the same backend shell script 
functions/infrastructure) to do the job.


I guess this is a good time for me to quit bitching, get off my butt, 
and contribute something back to a project I've been using daily for 
almost 20 years.  Having done similar sysadm development work [way back] 
on Tandy Xenix, SCO Xenix/Unix, and Dell SVR4 Unix, this is an area 
where I actually might know enough to be useful.  To that end, the first 
task I'm assigning myself is to poke around in bsdinstall/libdialog and 
see how they work.


As a related question, is there a good primer somewhere about how to use 
SVN?  I'm using csup at present.



--
Ron McDowell
San Antonio TX

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Steve Kargl
On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 11:50:54AM -0600, Ron McDowell wrote:
 
 As a related question, is there a good primer somewhere about how to use 
 SVN?  I'm using csup at present.
 

http://wiki.freebsd.org/SubversionPrimer

-- 
Steve
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Doug Barton
On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:
 On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
 resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
 closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
 post-installation configuration tool has materialised.

My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
year or 2 would make it impossible.


Doug

-- 

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Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Gavin Atkinson
On Tue, 27 Dec 2011, Ron McDowell wrote:
 As a related question, is there a good primer somewhere about how to use SVN?
 I'm using csup at present.

-  Install the subversion port

-  Downlaod the source.  To get HEAD code:

   svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/head/

   or to get 9-stable code:

   svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/stable/9

  (If you want to check it out into a different directory, append the dir 
   name,  for example: svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/head/ src)

-  Make your changes :)

-  To get a diff of your changes, you can just use svn diff

Gavin
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Lawrence Stewart

On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:

On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:

On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
post-installation configuration tool has materialised.


My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
year or 2 would make it impossible.


Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge 
to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would 
be very minimal work. We'd also probably need a few extra build system 
changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into 
sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard 
either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it 
would become harder the longer we wait.


Cheers,
Lawrence
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Doug Barton
On 12/27/2011 18:32, Lawrence Stewart wrote:
 On 12/28/11 06:29, Doug Barton wrote:
 On 12/27/2011 03:48, Lawrence Stewart wrote:
 On the topic of Doug's actual question, I see minimal sense in
 resurrecting sysinstall in head now. I would suggest it be done much
 closer to (say, 6 months before) the 10.0 release cycle, if no suitable
 post-installation configuration tool has materialised.

 My concern about that approach is that 9.0 hasn't even been released yet
 and we've already seen changes that are going to make it hard to
 resurrect sysinstall if that's the decision we come to. Waiting another
 year or 2 would make it impossible.
 
 Which changes are you referring to? I would have thought a reverse merge
 to undo the deletion of the sysinstall and old libdialog sources would
 be very minimal work.

Then I admire your mad skillz, because it sounds like a lot of work to
me. :)

 We'd also probably need a few extra build system
 changes to make sure old libdialog is perhaps statically compiled into
 sysinstall as it would be the only in-tree consumer, but that's not hard
 either. I may be lacking some imagination, but don't really see why it
 would become harder the longer we wait.

My concern is that it's going to get worse as time goes along. Without
sysinstall in the base people are going to feel free to make changes to
things that sysinstall depends on (as they have already), and waiting a
year or 2 to resurrect it will cause that problem to grow exponentially.


Doug

-- 

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Adrian Chadd
Hi,

Why not just list the things that sysinstall did that people like, and
extract out / reimplement those bits?

Noone's going to complain if you write say, a stand-alone package
browser, or a stand-alone gui upgrade tool, or stand-alone
configuration program, etc.



Adrian
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-27 Thread Doug Barton
On 12/27/2011 22:08, Adrian Chadd wrote:
 Hi,
 
 Why not just list the things that sysinstall did that people like, and
 extract out / reimplement those bits?

That's sounds great. As soon as that's done, we can remove sysinstall
from the base. Until those things exist, removing it is premature.

-- 

You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Doug Barton
On 12/26/2011 18:23, Justin Hibbits wrote:

 Hi Doug,
 
 I do agree that it would be nice to have a post-install configuration
 utility.  However, I think it might be better served with a separate
 tool, rather than a swiss army knife that sysinstall was.  If someone is
 willing to do the work, I think a suitable replacement could be written
 in sh+dialog, along the lines of bsdinstall. 

I don't think anyone would disagree that it would be nice to have a new
tool, but that's not the question.

 That being said, I remove myself from the nomination pool.

... and this is why would we like to have a new tool? is not the
question. :)


Doug

-- 

[^L]

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Justin Hibbits

On Dec 26, 2011, at 6:36 PM, Doug Barton wrote:


The story so far ...

sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected  
on
the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post- 
install

configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
restore sysinstall.

So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
in HEAD something that we care about?


Doug


Hi Doug,

I do agree that it would be nice to have a post-install configuration  
utility.  However, I think it might be better served with a separate  
tool, rather than a swiss army knife that sysinstall was.  If someone  
is willing to do the work, I think a suitable replacement could be  
written in sh+dialog, along the lines of bsdinstall.  That being said,  
I remove myself from the nomination pool.


- Justin
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Xin LI
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Doug Barton do...@freebsd.org wrote:
 The story so far ...

 sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
 the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
 configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
 were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
 used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
 restore sysinstall.

 So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
 in HEAD something that we care about?

Perhaps make it a port instead?  I personally don't use sysinstall for
post-install tasks at all, but it won't hurt to have such
functionality.

Cheers,
-- 
Xin LI delp...@delphij.net https://www.delphij.net/
FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! Live free or die
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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Doug Barton
On 12/26/2011 20:29, Xin LI wrote:
 On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Doug Barton do...@freebsd.org wrote:
 The story so far ...

 sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
 the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
 configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
 were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
 used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
 restore sysinstall.

 So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
 in HEAD something that we care about?
 
 Perhaps make it a port instead?  I personally don't use sysinstall for
 post-install tasks at all, but it won't hurt to have such
 functionality.

You're not the first person to suggest that, but I don't see how it's
actually responsive to the problem. This issue only affects HEAD, so a
port would not be generally useful. It would also be an enormous amount
of work to make it into a port. It would be much easier to revert the
necessary changes to bring back the old libdialog and sysinstall itself.


Doug

-- 

[^L]

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Ron McDowell

Doug Barton wrote:

The story so far ...

sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
restore sysinstall.

So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
in HEAD something that we care about?


Doug
  


We have around 90 web servers running 8.2p5 right now [and yes, I did 
update the lot on Christmas Eve but that's a different story] and they 
will not be upgraded to 9.0 until/unless the post-install functionality 
that was lost by the removal of sysinstall is reintegrated in some way.  
I also complained about it and was told in effect, too bad.  Everyone 
who commented said sysinstall caused more problems than it solved, 
although I've been using it for any system changes I needed that it was 
capable of doing for as long back as I can remember, and my first 
FreeBSD box was v2.2.


I think removing any functionality that was in a previous release 
without providing an equal-or-better alternative is a bad idea, and that 
needs to be considered more carefully in the future.


So this is not just a +1 vote, it's a +90.

--
Ron McDowell
San Antonio TX

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Re: Removal of sysinstall from HEAD and lack of a post-install configuration tool

2011-12-26 Thread Garrett Cooper
On Dec 26, 2011, at 9:13 PM, Ron McDowell wrote:

 Doug Barton wrote:
 The story so far ...
 
 sysinstall was removed from HEAD in October. I (and others) objected on
 the basis that at this time there is no replacement for the post-install
 configuration role that sysinstall played. More sysinstall components
 were then removed. Then the old version of libdialog (which sysinstall
 used) was removed. Thus at this point it's not possible to easily
 restore sysinstall.
 
 So my question is, how much do you care? Is lack of that functionality
 in HEAD something that we care about? 
 
 We have around 90 web servers running 8.2p5 right now [and yes, I did update 
 the lot on Christmas Eve but that's a different story] and they will not be 
 upgraded to 9.0 until/unless the post-install functionality that was lost by 
 the removal of sysinstall is reintegrated in some way.  I also complained 
 about it and was told in effect, too bad.  Everyone who commented said 
 sysinstall caused more problems than it solved, although I've been using it 
 for any system changes I needed that it was capable of doing for as long back 
 as I can remember, and my first FreeBSD box was v2.2.
 
 I think removing any functionality that was in a previous release without 
 providing an equal-or-better alternative is a bad idea, and that needs to be 
 considered more carefully in the future.
 
 So this is not just a +1 vote, it's a +90.

I hate to steal Devin's thunder, but…

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-rc/2010-October/002077.html

It's been around for a while and does many of the things needed by the 
sysinstall 'post-install' replacement (minus having a registry of commands vs 
services to pick from to configure with a slightly more humanized interface 
*and it's written almost purely with shell logic and built-ins, plus is widely 
tested and adopted in other BSD distros!*.

Most of the other stuff is trivial (configuring an interface, a package 
installer/configuration tool, etc), and if someone actually said hey -- I'll 
help you get it done! then yes I'd do it, maintain it, and cherish it. Offer 
is on the table for a committer who really wants this task done.

Thanks,
-Garrett___
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