Re: [Pcbsd-developer] PCBSD-Developer Digest, Vol 2, Issue 10

[Charles A. L. <lan...@gm...>]

On 7/26/06, pcb...@li...
<pcbsd-developer-> >System Installer - Prompt for settings before
install
> I'd like to have a choice in beginning of installation with radio buttons=
:
>
> "How you want to set up users and all other settings for this computer:"
> 1. Right now, right here.
> 2. After system is installed- in the end on installation. (partitions mus=
t be
> configured first anyway )
> 3. After system is installed and rebooted up successfully. (partitions mu=
st be
> configured first anyway)
> 4. Set "handsfree installation" config from networked server, USB or flop=
py
> disk (set up from XML file data: disk(s), user(s), language(s), keyboard(=
s)
> and auto-installed PBIs).

I think this is pointless. Whether the person types her information
before, during or after installation doesn't matter, she will have the
same effort. Now, joining all install steps together is important.

> >System Installer - Set Timezone for system
> Set multiple keyboards for KDE, multiple languages and timezone.

Multiple timezone? You can be only at one place at a time :) (unless
you have a Doppelg=E4nger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelganger )

> Xorg detects refresh rate automatically but manual intervention is good t=
o
> have.

Yes it does, but it's wrong most of the time (X monitor config is
always wrong in my case anyway).

> >System Installer - Detect Laptop / Desktop (For setting Numlock)
> Detection is not necessary, user can decide itself if this particular mac=
hine
> is desktop computer or notebook/laptop.

Laptop detection is not necessary but it's a big plus. One more thing
the user doesn't need to do to customize his computer.

> >System Installer - Use GRUB for bootloader?
> GRUB is too cryptic for casual user and FreeBSD bootloader is working jus=
t
> fine- never had any problems at all.

Grub can be set up automatically without any user intervention like
Ubuntu does beautifully. A number of users have been dissapointed by
the default FreeBSD bootloader since last year. In a nutshell, they
say it's counter-intuitive, not customizable, and when you have to
load PC-BSD that is on a 2nd hard-drive, instead of loading PC-BSD,
the bootloader reboots the computer when you hit the "Drive 1" boot
option.

> >System Installer - Display time elapsed for install and info screens.
> Display cpu, memory, disk usage like with "systat -vm" command.

No bloat please :P

> And now my additional requests:
> 1) Set multiple partitions for PC-BSD by default
> like: /boot/, /etc/, /usr/, /home/. "/boot/" and "/rescue/" partitions sh=
ould
> be read-only and mounted r/w only when needed.

There are advantages and drawbacks to this. I personnally don't want
that on my system, it's a terrible waste of HDD space, and it's
frustrating when you see you have 5GB left on /var and just 50MB free
on /usr

--=20
Charles A. Landemaine.