ZFS Boot Support from Installer

[Tim Gustafson]

I'm responding to two people's comments here in one response.  :)

> From: "Brian A. Seklecki" <seklecki at noc.cfi.pgh.pa.us>
> I make the suggestions because you're asking about an
> advanced topic, so I gave you an honest answer.

Honest answers are appreciated.  :)  I'm not saying that the way you suggested was invalid, just that there ought to be an "easier" way.

> From: "Tim Judd" <tajudd at gmail.com>
> And those who are unfamiliar with a system will likely use
> the default filesystem an OS provides.  That's UFS2 for most
> people.

For "most people", yes.  Most people don't need to be able to install FreeBSD over a serial cable or parallel cable, but those options are included in the installer.

> From: "Tim Judd" <tajudd at gmail.com>
> Also, since ZFS is a hog when it comes to system resources,
> works best on amd64, and many other factors/tuning, you expect
> this all to be available if someone wants to install to an
> embedded firewall? Or to some little special purpose system?

It already is available to everyone...it's just harder to install than it ought to be.  A firewall probably doesn't need X11, but that's included in the installer.

> From: "Tim Judd" <tajudd at gmail.com>
> I don't use ZFS, UFS2 works fine for me.  I would find it
> ridiculous to see ZFS support in the installer, but all GEOM
> should be supported. Especially the raid3 and mirror.

So, you like the idea of including RAID3 and mirror because that suits your needs, but my desire to see ZFS support is unreasonable because you don't have a need for ZFS?

Tim Gustafson
Baskin School of Engineering
UC Santa Cruz
tjg at soe.ucsc.edu
831-459-5354