why BSDs got no love

[jhell]

Friday, December 25, 2009, 9:24:25 AM, you wrote:

> I think what we're looking at here is that sysinstall should probably
> be replaced... but it works well enough that it doesn't *have* to be
> replaced, and most people aren't bothered enough by it to write code
> to come up with something new. Certainly, having things like zfs
> support in sysinstall would be nice... but most of the people using
> zfs boot know the system well enough to do it from the Fixit/LiveFS
> shell anyway.

> Basically... if you really want to see this change, I think you're
> gonna have to do it yourself.

Personally I would like to see something around the likes of
shells/flash menu shell implemented with some modular scripting and
drop-in binaries for other tasks that cannot be accomplished through
the use of shell scripts as elegantly as they would in C. As for
licensing of shells/flash I am unsure but it does bring the ease of
scripting into play that can shield a user from some of the behind the
scenes ugliness.

Snip of the pkg-desc:
Flash is an attempt to create a secure menu-driven shell for UNIX-derived OSes,
while providing user-friendliness and easy configurability. An ideal situation
requiring the use of flash would be a student-run telnet server which needs to:

a) shelter the users from some of the nastiness of UNIX
b) shelter the system from nasty users
c) provide an easy way to launch applications
d) support multitasking/job control as elegantly as possible
e) support easy-to-get-right configuration by administrators
----

In that type of menu it would be easy to drop a script that asks:
A) Would you like a GUI install menu...
B) Would you like a CLI install menu...
C) Get me out of here...
----

It also has a nice little notes side frame that could tell the user a
little more about what is going on if they are confused about the
choices that are selected.


As for my self, I would be willing to contribute some bits & bytes to
see this happen. As for the GUI I would be willing to write the hooks
for it in the menu system but that is as far as I am willing to go
with it. I don't see any satisfactory need or gain in GUI for
just-a-installer.


Best regards.

-- 

 Saturday, December 26, 2009 10:59:02 PM

 jhell