pc-sysinstall committed to HEAD

phoenix

phoenix

Hooray! Modern installer will be available in (hopefully) FreeBSD 9.0. :) With support for (a lot more) modern features of FreeBSD.

From the latest FreeBSD Status Report:
Code: 
New System Installer -- pc-sysinstall

  URL:
  http://lists.FreeBSD.org/pipermail/svn-src-all/2010-June/025660.html
  URL:
  http://www.BSDCan.org/2010/schedule/attachments/142_pc-sysinstall-kris-
  moore-2010.pdf

  Contact: Kris Moore <kris@pcbsd.org>
  Contact: M. Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>

  The new system installation backend, pc-sysinstall, was merged into
  HEAD recently and work is already underway to make it more functional
  and useful as a complete replacement to standard "sysinstall". It is
  written 100% in shell, not requiring any additional tools from what is
  standard to FreeBSD. The backend already supports a number of exciting
  features such as:
    * ZFS (Including support for raidz/mirror/multiple device pool
      setups).
    * Disk encryption via GELI(8).
    * Auto labeling of file systems with glabel(8).
    * Big disk support using GPT/EFI.
    * Full Installation Logging, which is saved to disk for post-install
      inspection.

  In addition to the features above, pc-sysinstall is unique, in that
  every install ends up being a scripted install. Front-ends, be it GUI-
  or text-based, simply generate the appropriate system configuration
  file, and pc-sysinstall does the grunt work of the actual installation.
  This is important for a couple of reasons. First, it makes the task of
  front-end development much easier by not needing to worry about a
  backend-driven program flow. Second it means that any front-end can be
  used to generate the installation configuration file, which can then be
  copied or modified to perform automated installs.

  While pc-sysinstall is still relatively new, it is already in use as
  the default backend for PC-BSD 8.0 and 8.1, and has been getting a very
  good reception and any bugs found are fixed quickly. A text-based
  front-end is already in the works which will allow installation media
  to be created without X11 support.
 
My favourite part?

"It is written 100% in shell, not requiring any additional tools from what is standard to FreeBSD."

+2^64
 
And you can have your GUI installer with pc-sysinstall working in the background. If you read the blurb, it mentions that every install works the same: installer builds an install script, pc-sysinstall executes the install script. IOW, anyone can go out and build a GUI installer. Or use the text installer. Or build a curses/dialog based installer (like sysinstall currently). Or ... whatever you want.
 
But who said anything about a GUI (as in "X+Qt-based"?) frontend? Will they really implement/reuse one? Will they find enough room for it when in 7.2 they had to remove software packages from disc1?

Great news anyway. I particularly like the front-backend architecture and the fact it's coded in shell.
I hope the text-based setup will be similar to OpenBSD's or they keep a sysinstall-like interface.
 
Beastie said:
But who said anything about a GUI (as in "X+Qt-based"?) frontend? Will they really implement/reuse one? Will they find enough room for it when in 7.2 they had to remove software packages from disc1?

Great news anyway. I particularly like the front-backend architecture and the fact it's coded in shell.
I hope the text-based setup will be similar to OpenBSD's or they keep a sysinstall-like interface.
Click to expand...

This bit here
Code: 
it is already in use as the default backend for PC-BSD 8.0 and 8.1
seems to imply that there already is an Xorg+Qt front-end (unless PC-BSD has reverted overnight).

I'm pretty happy with using a live/rescueCD, myself, but it might be a hilarious lark to patch up sysinstall to use the pc-sysinstall back-end.
 
I'm probably the only one that is going to miss sysinstall.. how obscure and weird some of the installation processes that I've had to accomplish in the past, sysinstall worked like a champ! it did it's job and it did it well.. Tonight I think that I will drink a nice frosty beer for sysinstall.

I am interested in knowing how the new installer works over serial connections or PXE.
 
I'm probably the only one that is going to miss sysinstall
Click to expand...
You are not the only one. I don't like it very much, as idea at least. Well, practical will be easier to install FreeBSD. But Gui on FreeBSD sounds bad on my ears. Even on installer. I am not against Gui installer. Just I prefer the classical way. Maybe harder way to install FreeBSD but if I wanted Gui, happy buttons and something easy to be even installed, probably I wouldn't be here :) . I believe that on deep waters you must learn to swim. Is harder but when you learn, you will be better swimmer. Well this is my opinion at least. I like sysinstall. If had the option that Solaris have (Choose ZFS or UFS), then it could be just perfect :)
 
The beauty of pc-sysinstall is that every install is nothing more than a scripted install. The UI layer just builds the script, passes the script to the installer, and the installer just runs the script.

Which means anyone can build any kind of UI on top that they want. Or just build a simple script and pass it manually to the installer.
 
I, on the other hand, would prefer something like RedHat has at the beginning of the install (2 options) so that you can choose for yourself GUI or not-GUI install mode.

A GUI installer is something we should have had a loooong time ago, but IMHO, I think we should be able to choose GUI or non-GUI right at the beginning.
 
What I find nice about the "script based installer" is that you should be able to reuse the script to install another system, which with the current sysinstall does not seem possible.

Whether or not to use GUI is irrelevant -- FreeBSD must always have non-GUI interface available.
 
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