BSD Installer as a replacement for sysinstall?

[Andre Guibert de Bruet]

On Wed, 4 May 2005, Freddie Cash wrote:

> What really needs to be done is to separate the installer from the
> post-install configuration program.
>
> The OS installer should do nothing more than install the OS.  Don't
> configure anything other than the root password and an initial user.
> Just copy the OS to the harddrive.  Everything else (timezone, network
> interfaces, packages, everything) should be done post-install, once
> you have booted into the OS.  All programs should be disabled until
> the admin decides to enable them.  Keep it simple, keep it quick.  And
> make it scriptable.

This would be a serious regression for users which need to deploy freebsd 
roomfulls at a time. PXE boot and install over the network is something 
that is really important for a lot of people; Myself included.

> If a GUI configuration program / package installer is needed, it
> should be done as a separate project, completely unrelated to the OS
> installer.

Fair enough.

> This is the biggest shortcoming, and albatross for, sysinstall.
> sysinstall is a decent OS installer.  But it's a horrible OS
> configurator.  And yet, for some reason, enough people have used it to
> configure the OS that any calls for a new installer always seem to
> come with a (IMO useless) requirement that is also be an OS
> confiugration tool.  Which is ludicrous if you think about it.

Okay. When should we be expecting patches? ;-)

Cheers,
Andy

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