Re: New installation script

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Kevin Oberman <kob6558_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> I have installed 9-Beta1 using the new installation tool and I am
> generally happy with it.
> The new dialog cause me to need a few more key-strokes because I was
> so used to the
> old behavior, but it really is more intuitive and I would not want to
> see the old behavior
> restored. I'll get used to it soon.
>
> I do have a couple of issues with the new installation tool, though.
> 1. After completing the partition design I am presented with the
> option to "Save" the
> partitions. It is not at all cleared that "Save" actually creates the
> partitions and newfses
> the file systems. I suggest changing "Save" to "Commit" or Execute".
> These are far
> clearer and more frightening. "Save" sounds too safe, not like you are
> about to update
> basic disk structure and may be about to make any data on the disk unusable.
>
> 2. I was installing 9 into an existing set of partitions. (I
> understand that this is NOT
> typical.) First the system asks me about adding a partition. Oops! I
> selected the only
> option that was not clearly wrong, "Cancel". I was not at all sure
> that it was what I
> wanted, but it was. I have no idea how to improve this and it's
> probably not worth
> spending much time think about it. But the next step was confusing.
>
> I selected each of the existing partitions that I was going to use and
> selected modify to
> enter the name of the partition (/, /var, /usr, /tmp). I then quit and
> selected the not
> scarey "Save". I proceeded, but thought the "Save" was rather fast.
> Then the install failed
> because the partitions were already populated. I ended up re-booting
> and then going
> through each partition and deleting it and then selecting the slice
> and creating it again.
> While not a big deal, it seemed like the Modify to name the partitions
> should have
> triggered the newfs that was not done.
>
> I think my first point is pretty important. The second is far less so.
>
> The install went pretty well and I am generally very pleased with the
> new installer. It's
> certainly an improvement over the old one! Thanks to the folks who worked on it.

One of the things that's still a problem as well (since you're talking
about it here) is that the partition editor assumes that all
partitions are properly formatted, etc, when specifying just a
mountpoint. One needs to trash the MBR / GPT metadata and start over
from the beginning. GPT partitions have issues too with incomplete
partition schemes (i.e. user deletes a GPT partition out of an
existing setup, etc) because unfortunately the "boot" partition gets
created improperly the 2nd+ time around and/or gets created multiple
times for some whacky reason (I don't know why this happened, but it
did!).

Thanks,
-Garrett