Why is sysinstall considered end-of-life?

[Oliver Fromme]

Niek <niek at bigfoot.com> wrote:
 > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
 > 
 > > > 
 > > > 3) The largest complaint about sysinstall is that it's not graphical.  The
 > > > problem is that a graphical installation program has some -severe-
 > > > constraints on it.  First, it has to work in ALL instances.  That means,
 > > > 640x480x16 colors VGA screen.  You have a lot of people out there
 > > > installing on systems that have, for example, monitors with inadequate
 > > > horizontal/vertical frequency ranges and very capabable video cards,
 > > > unless you force the X-server to use the original VGA resolution, it's
 > > > going to overdrive those monitors and the user is going to see a black
 > > > screen when the installation program comes up.  And the only way FreeBSD
 > > > is going to get a graphical anything is by using Xorg, and FreeBSD does
 > > > not maintain that distribution - so we are now dependent on the Xorg
 > > > group writing their code with no bugs for our installation program to work.
 > > 
 > While I admit that sysinstall could be polished at the rough edges,
 > I vote for a non-graphical installer for server aimed installations.

Nobody is going to put a graphical-only installer in
FreeBSD.  How do people get that idea?

Currently, FreeBSD's installer runs on standard VGA
graphics cards, on monochrome Hercules cards, on serial
VT100 terminals, maybe even on hardcopy terminals and
everything else that you could imagine.  Not to mention
the scriptability for easy installation of a larger
number of headless machines.

And all of that won't change.  If the installer --
sysinstall or other -- will support graphical mode
one day, it will be an addition, not a replacement.

For example, look at the "BSD installer" that's used
by DragonFly BSD:  It consists of the actual code
that performas the various installation actions (and
is also scriptable), and supports a number of front-
ends.  The standard front-end is curses-based and will
run in text mode on any VGA and serial terminal.  But
you could as well have a graphical front-end or a web-
based front-end.  Or one that communicates with your
cell-phone.  Or whatever else you could think of.
All based on the same installer code (back-end).

If FreeBSD grows a new installer, I' sure it will use
similar concepts.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme,  secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing
Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
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and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.

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