Re: CVS commit: src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2022 at 15:31, Izumi Tsutsui <tsutsui%ceres.dti.ne.jp@localhost> wrote:
>
> > > Modified Files:
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/atari: Makefile
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/hp300: Makefile
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/luna68k: Makefile
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/news68k: Makefile
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/newsmips: Makefile
> > >     src/usr.sbin/sysinst/arch/x68k: Makefile
> > >
> > > Log Message:
> > > Pull SMALLPROG stuff to disable unnecessary partitioning methods etc.
> >
> > I'm a bit concerned about the CHECK_ENTROPY part. This has a good chance
> > of resulting in a inferior user experience, so is that really worth
> > saving a few bytes?
>
> - ramdiskbin with CHECK_ENTROPY requires extra 7000 bytes, at least on
>   m68k, so poor tier-II ports that have size restrictions on install media
>   or use slow floppies rather prefer smaller binaries
> - CHECK_ENTROPY has been added after netbsd-9 was branched so I guess
>   ordinary release users won't notice differences
> - actually sysinst(8) itself has been broken on several these ports
>   hp300 (PR/55197), luna68k (PR/55058), and x68k (PR/55384 etc.)
>   since netbsd-9, so it would be much more important to bring them
>   installable state for better user experience
> - src/distrib/atari/floppies/common/Makefile.images already has
>   NO_PROGRESS due to 1440KB restriction, and users (including me)
>   will rather prefer to restore progress bar on ftp for better experience
> - if you would like to discuss about pros and cons without numbers,
>   maybe it would be worth to try installation on various emulators
>   and describe actual experiences

Just wondering - might it be worth an option for a SMALLPROG built
sysinst to be able to exec the version on an installed filesystem -
could allow the SMALLPROG built sysinst to exclude check_entropy() and
even config_menu, at the cost of the extra faff to switch between the
versions (I'm assuming a full-fat sysinst could gain a
'--from-install-path X' or similar to know how to get back to the base
version.

Of course, we could take a page from the sun miniroot install and have
a OHGODITSSOSMALLPROG version which just knows enough to partition and
disk, get the miniroot kernel+fs image written to the swap partition
and then reboot into it. This would need kexec, or something like
pivot_root and the ability to free the in memory filesystem (which
would be cool features to have generally).

Anyway, random ideas, and thanks again to tsutsui@ for all the work on
m68k NetBSD :)

David