Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years

[Michel Talon]

Doug Barton wrote:

> Mike Makonnen has some very interesting ideas on this topic:
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-December/081400.html
> 
> FWIW, I think that there are 3 basic requirements for a new installer:
> 
> 1. It should be library-based and therefore be capable of supporting 
> at least a few different UIs (see above).
> 2. At least one of those UIs should be functional over a standard 
> serial console.
> 3. It should be scriptable

I agree completely with these comments. Much less with the argument
of Mike Makonnen, to the point that using a scripting language in the 
front end (lua for the bsdinstaller) is bad. Using a sensible scripting
language (python, lua, something simple and readable) would ensure that
a lot of people can contribute effectively and that the program can
evolve easily. The argument that there sould be no external dependency
seems to me inspired by the NIH syndrom.
Important points would be to solve the long standing problems with
sysinstall internal fdisk and disklabel program: namely the bogus
geometry problems with fdisk and the 16 sectors offset for partition a.
A bonus would be support for "alien" partitioning such as extended
partitions. 
An other very important problem would be to support modern FreeBSD,
such as "virtual" devices created by GEOM, etc.
As other people mentioned there are inconsistencies in the use of
keyboard keys, and scripted installs are very poor, compared for example
to RedHat anaconda.
Personnally i like a curses interface, like the one of sysinstall, but
a simple shell script like in OpenBSD could also do the job for the 
minimalist people, while a graphical installer running on top of a 
live CD, like in many Linux distributions, Ubuntu, etc. could be
envisioned. The DragonFlyBSD installer runs on top of a live CD, this is
the easiest way to have a full featured installer, but this requires a
machine with sufficient RAM. Anyways all those possibilities point to
the soundness of your propositions 1) and 2).

-- 

Michel TALON