cleanup-boot.messages+overhaul-install

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Greetings All,
 Now that I have your attention. ;) There seems to be some "clean-up" work
that could be done in the boot messaging area. I would like to apply for
the job. I've made some mention of thoughts I had on it in other messages.
So I'll reiterate them here. I think the ASCII spray could be unified
somewhat and that an additional "knob" could be added that would
effectively act as a Volume knob. Technically, it would be a 3
position switch/ knob with: OFF/ NORMAL/ LOUD. It could probably
accommodate additional fine tuning, like subsettings. But initially, the
3 shouldn't freak too many ppl out. ;)
 Also, upon completion of that. I would like to tackle the installer. Yes,
I know about bsdinstaller. But they don't seem to have, or going to get
very deep, very soon. What I propose is replace ncurses with large
beautiful PNG images. Because, as everyone knows, if it's eye-candy, ppl
will install it. HAH! I bet that got the hair on the back of your neck to
stand straight out. ;) Seriously, having become so accustomed to it the
way it is. I wouldn't want to change a thing. BUT. For those of you who
remember your first installation. You'll probably remember that the
intuitive factor was !> -1. Really, for the not-so-technically-inclined
the installer would seem an impossible hurdle. For those who are more
familliar, I think you'll agree that there is certainly room for
improvement(s). For example, if a message is shot to the installer con
it destroys it. The equivilant of a "refresh button" might be nice. Also,
making the whole process more intuitive for the "novice" user is needed
with some "help/ information blurbs". Another thing I *really* hate, is
not knowing that installing this Word Proccessor will start this chain
that ultimately installs an additional 750MB of Gnome $#it that I have
absolutely no use for, and additionally installs another 350MB of
Multimedia and related Sound servers, daemons on my system, when there
isn't even a PC speaker hooked up to the thing. SO, I'd really like to
figure out a better way to handle ports - both through Sysinstall and
*hopefully* through ports as well. O.K. I've probably said enough for
the time being. In closing I'd really like to do this and would appreciate
knowing if there are any objections to my taking these things on. If there
are no objections, I'd appreciate a little "hand holding" at first so
I can become familiar with the process(s) of doing things around here.

Thanks for listening,
 Chris

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 If only Western Electric had found a way to offer
binary licenses for the UNIX system back in 1974,
the UNIX system would be running on all PC's today
rather than DOS/Windows.
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