Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years / thanks for responding

Thanks Sean,

This is the first time I ever actually downloaded all 3 CD's so i didn't
know what I was getting into.  I had always just used the first CD for the
initial install, then ports for everything else.  Next time I will use the
dvd.  Actually that would have been perfect as I got one of those unusual
550kB/s connections from ftp, lol.

But I decided this time to get as many packages as quickly as possible, then
run portupgrade on them to get the latest versions.  I just did a make
buildworld and made the kernel.  Now I'm waiting here to do the make
installworld after I go shopping.

Plus its so hot here in Oregon I have to put the fan on my Sony VAIO
SZ460N/C laptop.  Its small but overheats, esp when using the NVidea
graphics, so I use the i810 instead.

I'm having problems with portupgrade though.  Something got screwed up so a
bunch of package compiles are failing.  Most all of KDE is in there but it
wont start and doesn't even give error messages, even when started with the
console.  In contrast Windowmaker works fine, so that is what I'm using now.

I got another copy of ports.tar.gz as perhaps the old copy was corrupted, so
after world gets installed, I will try portupgrade again.

Sincerely,  Rob

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Sean Cavanaugh <millenia2000_at_hotmail.com>
wrote:

>  > Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:23:48 -0700
> > From: jan6146_at_gmail.com
> > To: freebsd-hackers_at_freebsd.org; freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org
> > CC:
> > Subject: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years
>
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > My depressing analysis- YMMV. I've used FreeBSD since 1998.
> >
> > 1..Installing the packages off of the menu on the 3 CDROMs is an
> incredibly
> > tedious miserable process. I had to switch out the CD's around 40 times.
> > If you don't believe me, just mark a whole bunch of random packages after
> > obtaining the 7.0 release CD's, ad then install. Its frustrating and
> almost
> > like Windows, except its a bit faster as replacing CD's is faster than
> > reboots.
> >
> > 2. When installing any given package, if a dependency is already there ,
> > the package aborts and then goes though some loop where you have to press
> > OK half a dozen times. Thats insane.
> >
> > I think the CD switching problem would be to install all the packages at
> > once from CD1, then CD2, then CD3. As for the second case, I don't know
> > enough about the infrastructure to suggest any thing except to perhaps
> > comment that code in its entirety or put in switch to bypass already
> > installed dependencies.
> >
> > I wish I knew more about your infrastructure to fix this myself. Is it
> > written in Python? Thats the only language I'm not so rusty at. I've
> > programmed in 5 languages, but that was long ago. I'm old. But someone
> who
> > knows the system could probably fix it fast. I think this is such an
> > inherent infrastructure problem that has existed so long that a bug
> report
> > would be futile.
> >
> > Food for thought. Thanks,
>
>
> This is the reason I install everything from ports.
>
> The packages were divided into understandable clusters to make them fit on
> CDs. Perhaps you would benefit from getting the DVD ISO instead which has
> everything together. Im sure someone on the list could provide you the link
> for it or google for it.
>
> -Sean
>
>


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