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

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