Re: New vm-image size is much smaller than previos

> On Fri, May 03, 2019 at 07:39:00PM -0700, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:42 PM bob prohaska <fbsd_at_www.zefox.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Fri, May 03, 2019 at 11:06:15AM -0700, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> > > > > -- Start of PGP signed section.
> > > > > > On Fri, May 03, 2019 at 10:12:58AM -0700, Enji Cooper wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > On May 3, 2019, at 9:57 AM, Alan Somers <asomers_at_FreeBSD.org>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > See r346959.  Before first boot, you should expand the image up to
> > > > > > > > whatever size you want.  growfs(8) will automatically expand the
> > > > file
> > > > > > > > system.
> > > > > > > > -Alan
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 10:32 AM David Boyd <David.Boyd49_at_twc.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >> The vm-image for 13.0-CURRENT
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >>         FreeBSD-13.0-CURRENT-amd64-20190503-r347033.vmdk
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >> is only 4.0 GB in size.  Previous images were about 31.0 GB.
> > > > > > > >>
> > > > > > > >> This smaller image doesn't leave much room to add packages and
> > > > other
> > > > > > > >> customizations.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > This probably deserves a release note.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > It will certainly be mentioned in the 11.3 release notes.
> > > > >
> > > > > And those running head snapshots without reading commit messages
> > > > > are likely to have lots of foot shooting.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Glen
> > > > > --
> > > > > Rod Grimes
> > > > rgrimes_at_freebsd.org
> > > >
> > > > At the risk of being branded a wishful thinker, a firstboot script that
> > > > asked the user for some configuration information would be a great help
> > > > to both new and experienced foot-shooters. I'm thinking of Raspberry Pi,
> > > > but perhaps it applies to non-embedded platforms also.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > That's not a bad idea... we could press bsdinstall into service for that
> > > perhaps... we already expand the partition / filesystem to match the media
> > > size...
> > 
> > As asommers already pointed out a) we already do the for real media
> > like on the rasberry pi's, etc all in that on first boot they do a
> > growfs to fill the real media up with the file system.
> > 
> 
> I misunderstood the significance of "vm-image", thinking it was
> the same as a bootable microSD image. Apologies for the blunder.

It could be better documented, I have no doubts about that.

> My thoughts are about physical media. In that situation the default 
> growfs on firstboot is a real handicap. It makes difficult any local 
> customization of the microSD card, in particular adding a swap partition. 
> A Pi2 is sort of usable without swap, a Pi3 is badly hampered with no swap. 
> 
> Having the existence of /firstboot trigger a configuration script 
> that sets up swap, storage, accounts and network would be a great aid
> to new users (and old users with imperfect memories). 

That is a very good idea.  As well as documenting things like the
/firstboot and growfs behavior of the physical media images.  One
can also modify them pre-boot (adding a swap before boot for example.)
and do much of what you discuss above *iff* you know to do it,
which again is a documentation issue.

> A man page for firstboot would be useful in any case. "What's that empty
> file supposed to do?" is a very natural question. Unfortunately, by the
> time the question is discovered it's too late to ask, and the user has
> to start over. There are references to firstboot in man rc, but that's
> a very hard way to answer a relatively simple question. Working around
> /firstboot requires a serial console and considerable patience, at least
> on a physical Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. 

Do we even have install note(s) pages for these things, or a wiki page
that documents it, or ?    Working around /firstboot does not require
a serial console, if you know about it ahead of time, you can even
mount the sd image up on another system, and remove firstboot if you
want, or create a swap partition at the end of the device, make the
boot partition use up the rest and then iirc growfs on firstboot does
what you want. (Untested at this time, but that should just work.)

> Thanks for reading,  
Thanks for writting, some very good valid input!

> bob prohaska

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes_at_freebsd.org