Subject: sysinst on i386 still broken
To: None <port-i386@netbsd.org>
From: None <Havard.Eidnes@runit.sintef.no>
List: tech-install
Date: 03/09/1999 21:15:58
Hi,
it appears that sysinst on i386 is still broken after the changes I
recently committed, and I won't have any more time this week (or
coming weekend) to work on it, so here's a brief overview of the
recent changes, the current show-stopper, and what I think should
(at a minimum) be done to sysinst.
The recent changes were:
o in run.c, default rows / cols to 24 x 80 if TIOCGWINSIZE
returned 0 x 0 (as it did on a pccons INSTALL kernel).
I've tried a wscons/vt100 INSTALL kernel, which is a little
less than 40K larger, and on that kernel it returns 25x80.
For comparison, here's the sizes of the INSTALL kernels:
# size netbsd.*
text data bss dec hex filename
1495008 1695744 139328 3330080 32d020 netbsd.pccons
1527776 1695744 140552 3364072 3354e8 netbsd.wscons_sun
1531872 1699840 137620 3369332 336974 netbsd.wscons_vt100
o In preparation to switch to wscons in the INSTALL kernel, I
added a new termcap.mini file in distrib/i386/floppies/ramdisk
which contains a vt100 termcap definition. I've not yet
committed the changes to the INSTALL* config files.
distrib/i386/floppies/ramdisk/list similarly updated.
o the new sysinst really wants some pseudo-ttys, but
etc/etc.i386/MAKEDEV didn't create any under the "ramdisk"
entry. It does now. (It caused all external commands to fail,
with no good error message being displayed.)
The current show-stopper in the installation is that sysinst does
not appear to mount the newly created file systems under /mnt, thus
causing a disk overflow when the install sets are transferred (in my
case via ftp). I rummaged a bit around in the sysinst code, but it
was not obvious why this was (not) happening. Again, no error
message was given why it failed to mount (if it even tried...).
A few things I really, REALLY wish would be fixed in sysinst are the
following (OK, the first one is the most important):
o The current sysinst is IMHO way too insistent on manual
interaction during the installation. Requiring a keystroke for
each "user-visible" command that is executed is, um... "highly
undesirable".
Instead, what I would like to see is a single scrollable window
which can be looked at at any time (via some key combination)
which contains both the commands executed and their output.
o It would be really nice if all the commands executed during the
installation could be saved to a file (if it can't already? I
must admit I've not tried the logging options/functions yet -- no
need to tempt fate quite yet ;-). This file could then be used
to build special-purpose install images which could perhaps be
used to automate installation of NetBSD on multiple identical
systems.
Regards,
- H=E5vard