Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years

> Robert Watson wrote:
>> On Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Lothar Braun wrote:
>>
>>> Robert Watson wrote:
>>>
>>>> My primary concern about some of these replacement installer
>>>> projects
>>>> is that they've placed a strong focus on making them graphical
>>>> -- I
>>>> actually couldn't care less about GUIs (and I think they
>>>> actually
>>>> hurt my configurations, since I use serial consoles a lot), but
>>>> what
>>>> I do want is a very tight and efficient install process, which I
>>>> feel
>>>> sysinstall does badly on (not just for the reasons you specify).
>>>
>>> Hmm, how should a tight and efficient installation process look
>>> like
>>> in your opinion? And what are the other points that are bad in
>>> systinstall?
>>
>> For me, it's really about minimizing the time to get to a generic
>> install from a CD or DVD.  Most of the time, I don't do a lot of
>> customization during the install -- I configure machines using
>> DHCP, I
>> add most packages later, and I tend to use default disk layouts
>> since my
>> servers don't multi-boot and the defaults currently seem
>> "reasonable".
>>
>> I don't like being asked many more questions than whether or not
>> to
>> enable sshd, and what to set the root password to.  This means
>> that I
>> find our current distributions menu a bit inefficient (I don't
>> want
>> sub-menus, I just want checkboxes), and that the inconsistency in
>> the
>> handling of the space/enter/tab/cursor keys across different
>> libdialog
>> interfaces in the install is awkward.  The current generic and
>> express
>> installs seem to capture a lot of my desire, in that I can get a
>> box
>> installed in <5m including actual time to write out the file
>> systems,
>> which is great.  I really don't want to lose this with a new
>> installer :-).
>
> What about having two utilities for the installation process?
> Something
> like a very small (non-gui/non-X) version of "sysinstall" that just
> installs a base system and only has the functionality to
>
> - partition/label a disk
> - configure the network (if needed for installation)
> - install the base system (or parts of it)
> - install a boot manager
>
> and a second utility "sysconf" that provides the other stuff like
> post
> installation system configuration (sshd, mouse), installing
> packages,
> etc. The second utility could have an X-based GUI without disturbing
> the
> installation process of serial console users or people that don't
> like X
> on their machines.
>
> Would that be a good idea?
>
> Best regards,
>    Lothar

I understand the desire to have an automated installer to make
things real easy for first time installation for new users. But many
people, including myself, will want to retain the current ability to
specify exactly what we want as well. So, why not have a single menu
at the start with 2 options:

1 - automatic desktop install (new user)
2 - traditional installer (veteran user)

Perhaps the automatic installer can just use whatever disk space it
finds (with suitable warnings) and attempt to install everything, ie
equivalent of choosing All at the 'select distributions' stage.
Maybe even do DHCP for net config. This would give a first time user
a working system with a nice shiny X to make them feel good about
choosing FreeBSD.

Yes, I know they could just go to pcbsd, but I would prefer to have
a new user at least attempt to learn proper sysadmin skills on
vanilla FreeBSD. And if a new user gives up just because the
installer is too confusing (especially the partitioner - it is
wonderfully powerful, but it does take a bit of getting used to)
then I think that is a shame.

My <adjust for current exchange rate> cents.

Tim.

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