Modern FreeBSD Installer?

[Jerry McAllister]

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 08:33:46PM +0200, beni wrote:

> On Sunday 26 April 2009 20:11:36 Neo [GC] wrote:
> > Just my two cents:
> >
> > Why a graphical installer? Shure, it looks nice, easy, modern and more
> > accessable (examples: Mac OS X, Vista), but on the other hand, for me
> > FreeBSD never was intended to be fancy, but to be functional.
> 
> What is wrong with fancy functional ? The two can go together I think. 
> For you it may not be, but I would like it to be for me. And as to now, 
> I don't have any choice : there is no fancy, easy, nice, modern and 
> accessable installer.



You are missing the two key things that have been said.

First, that a GUI installer will not work on many systems that FreeBSD
powers and in some circumstances for which it is used.   Those in particular
are headless servers - a major use of FreeBSD - and where it is being
used by persons who need special communication tools such as the blind.
So, for those large number of cases a text based installer needs to be
retained, though if someone were able to improve it in some way, that
would be OK.

Second, that no one objects to a parallel installer being made available
as long as it is not the default and as long as it does not squeeze out
the text based installer.    The only problem here is finding someone
or some group to work on it.   Most FreeBSD developers see other issues
as higher priority concerns and will be putting their effort in to those
concerns rather than in to a GUI installer.

So, don't try to make an argument that doesn't exist.   Nobody minds
if you write a fantastic GUI installer and submit it for inclusion as
long as it works well and doesn't eclipse other necessities.

////jerry