Re: Trying to install current from a memory stick and then a DVD and got a new and strange installer.

On 07/24/11 18:03, Ron McDowell wrote:
> Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
>> On 07/24/11 16:29, eculp wrote:
>>> I have been hearing about a new installer but I obviously have not 
>>> payed enough attention, I am afraid. I started running freebsd at 
>>> 2.0 and never really had a problem with understanding the 
>>> installation program.  There is always a first time, I guess.
>>>
>>> ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201105/
>>>
>>> When booting I seem to get a screen that makes me remember installer 
>>> screens of the 1980s.  (They were not exactly intuitive.)
>>>
>>> I somehow got the idea that the new installer was graphic.  Maybe 
>>> something like PCBsd that is not bad at all.  I use it on all our 
>>> employees computers.  Actually, after seeing this, I would love to 
>>> have the old installer back.  Is their an option for that?
>>>
>>> Does this new ASCII installer have a "how to" with a bit of 
>>> information on the flow of the installation.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>
>> Can you please describe what you didn't like about it, and what you 
>> would prefer be changed? "Reminiscent of the 1980s" is not really 
>> helpful, especially given that the new installer in fact looks very 
>> much like sysinstall, which you seemed to like.
>> -Nathan
>>
>
> I'll have to agree with the original poster.  I have no problem with 
> the look and feel of the new installer, but when functionality that 
> WAS there is now gone, that's a problem.  My two, make that three, 
> biggest gripes are:
>
> 1) no "back" button/selection/mechanism on each screen.   Rebooting 
> because I fat-fingered something on the previous screen is, well, 
> unacceptable.

This is why almost all screens have a "cancel" button. You can also 
restart the installer by control-C at any time without rebooting. 
Providing an actual back button is quite tricky and not necessarily 
always well defined in behavior, since the installed system will then be 
in an inconsistent state at which previous steps cannot necessarily be 
repeated. For those steps where that is not true, they can be reentered 
from the menu at the end in case of fat-fingering.

> 2) no "minimal" install.  Most of my installs are single- or few-task 
> servers where I need a base os and a couple ports.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can install just a kernel and 
the base system by deselecting the ports tree, games, and docs when you 
select which system components to install.

> 3) I see no "post-install" uses on the new one.  Sysinstall could be 
> used on an up-and-running system to do everything from adding a user 
> to changing a nameserver and more.
>

This is deliberate. This particular feature of sysinstall made it almost 
unmaintainable, especially as those features slowly bitrotted. We have 
very good system configuration utilities already -- there is no need to 
duplicate them in the installer, especially when it makes maintaining 
and improving that installer more difficult.
-Nathan