Re: sysinst with Lua support

[Izumi Tsutsui <tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost>]

mbalmer@ wrote:

> > It would be better to mention more details:
> 
> I added the file README.Lua, which is in the diff, to give some idea
> what this is about.  More comments inline.

I would be better to quote it in mailing list mesasages for lazy users :-)

> >  - is there any user visible changes on installation itself?
> 
> No, at least not yet.  Since no default Lua script is shipped, the
> default install process will run.  The goal however is to drive the
> installation process from a Lua script.  The default Lua script to be
> shipped with sysinst would implement the installation process as it is
> now, so without any user visible changes again.

I see. Thanks.

> >  - how flexible with lua (i.e. what was so annoying with past menuc/msgc)
> 
> The message system as is not very flexible, to say the least.  And when
> you provide e.g. a site specific install script, you also want to have
> the messages in this.  With Lua, it is very flexible.

What messages/menus are converted to use lua in your current patch?
(english.lua has only "hello" messages in current msg.mi.en file?)
It would be grate if we have more examples that have menu items.
(customize.lua and pkg.lua do that?)

> >  - how much space is required to put lua based sysinst binaries 
> >    i.e. is it possible disalbe whole lua support for poor ports
> >    which have only floppy based install media?
> >    USE_LUA variable in arch/*/Makefile helps?
> 
> Lua is a actually quite small, ~181KB on amd64.  The USE_LUA knob is a
> leftover from when I did not yet add liblua to the list files in install
> kernels.  I will eventually remove that.  Right now, this means adding
> some KB to install media, but in the future, some existing code can be
> removed.

181KB is large enough some poor RAMDISK based ports which have
kernel size restriction.  If we can't remove old manuc/msgc right now
(or lua is larger than past), it would still cause less trouble
to keep USE_LUA option for such tier-II ports.

> >    -llua in LIBS is mandatory even for miniroot or ramdisks?
> 
> Yes, because the crunched binary contains sysinst.

Probably you also have to add -llua in src/distrib/miniroot/list?
(and more MD list files, unless it's optional)

> I hope this clarifies your questions,

Thanks. I also hope people will see how lua can be used...

---
Izumi Tsutsui