BSDInstall ISO images

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk m.e.sanliturk at gmail.com
Sun Jan 9 02:00:06 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 5:54 PM, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn at freebsd.org>wrote:

> I've spent some time integrating bsdinstall into startup of install CDs,
> mostly related to building useful live-CD-based installers. An i386 image
> can be found here (other architectures may follow, as my very slow DSL line
> permits):
>
> http://people.freebsd.org/~nwhitehorn/bsdinstall-i386-20110108.iso.bz2<http://people.freebsd.org/%7Enwhitehorn/bsdinstall-i386-20110108.iso.bz2>
>
> The source for this can be found at:
>
> svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/user/nwhitehorn/bsdinstall
>
> The bits related to live CD usage are the testsystem.sh and rc.local files.
> Instead of running sysinstall as an init replacement, I have written a small
> rc.local script that gives the user the option to either start the
> installer, open a single-user-mode style shell, or to continue to boot to a
> multi-user live CD. Also, instead of the md root used by sysinstall, this
> just boots from the CD directly. This prevents the need for sysinstall's
> media selection, since the distribution files are in the mounted root file
> system.
>
> I would appreciate any comments or test results.
> -Nathan
>


I tried to install the .iso .
Here is my steps .


The main board : Intel DG 945 WHMKR
PS/2 mouse
PS/2 keyboard
Samsung Syncmaster 2233SN 1920 x 1080 LCD ( VGA port ) monitor .
No hard disk attached ( Power disconnected )

Installer started . After displaying Welcome ... Installer , Shell , Live CD
,
keyboard and mouse are frozen .

The computer started with Reset  button .

Mouse cursor disappeared , but keyboard worked on install Welcome dialog .

Before starting installation ,
Seagate Desktop Expansion Hard Disk has been attached to a USB port .

ugen2.2 ...
umass0 ...
da0 ...

messages have overwrite ´Installer , Shell , Live CD´ line of dialog .

By pressing Left Arrow and Right Arrow , recovered the dialog selection line
.

Installer has been selected .

Host name has been asked , but any name structure is not explained , such as
a single name or with another name .

( For personal installs , there is no administrator other than installer ,
there is no other person to ask anything . )

A single word is given and reached to the Partition Editor .

In the Seagate Expansion drive , there was Mandriva Linux as installed .

( Pressing red letters in the Partition Editor is not working . It is
necessary to come over the item to be selected and press Enter . )

When Create is selected Add Partition dialog displayed .

Label :  This is a known concept . A more descriptive sentence may be used .

Mount Point :

What is ¨Mount Point" ?

I assumed / would be correct . Pressing Ok displayed

Error : Invalid argument . Size ´195454664´
Ok

I have deleted / symbol from ¨Mount point¨ and pressed Enter .
The above error displayed .


I have selected Edit .
Warning displayed .
I have selected Yes .

Partition Scheme menu displayed .

I thought ´BSD labels´ would be good . I have selected it .

Returned to Partition Editor .
I have pressed Create .
Displayed Add Partition dialog .
Pressing Ok , displayed the above error message .

By entering ´Edit´ , I have deleted existing partitions .


I have pressed Finished .
Dialog ´Confirmation´ displayed . Yes entered .
Initialize dialog displayed .
After that ´Abort´ dialog displayed :

    You canceled ...

Restart entered .

After repeating the above steps , Exit selected because ´Abort´ dialog .

Result : Failure .

My suggestions :

1. Please select an audience of installer :
     Elementary school students .
     High school school students .
     University students .
     University graduates
     Computer engineers .
     FreeBSD experts , or others .

Use a language and steps that these may be easily followed by the installers

2. Before displaying a menu for selection , please check the validity of
items to be selected , and display only VALID items . Doing display first ,
and making checks after selection is causing complete failures sometimes .

3. Please use explanatory sentences as sufficiently long . On the screen ,
there are at least 80 x 25  = 2000 characters available .

4. Lowering the level of prior knowledge about FreeBSD will increase
adoption of it by more inexperienced users .

5. Studying installation of other operating systems may be helpful . It is
not necessary to copy their copy-righted material , but ideas may utilized .
In that respect , my first suggestions , in order of easiness would be
Mandriva , Fedora , Debian Linux , PC-BSD .


Thank you very much for your efforts and contributions . Please accept my
ideas only for toward contribution to remedy difficulties and to make a more
easily usable installer .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk


More information about the freebsd-arch mailing list