--kA1LkgxZ0NN7Mz3A
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:38:21AM -0500, Chapman Flack wrote:
> In my first 1.6.2/i386 install where sysinst picked an inadequate default
> size for wd0e and /usr filled during the tarball extraction, I only notic=
ed
> because I happened to glance at the screen and see what looked like a bun=
ch
> of 'disk full' messages zip by, messing up the sysinst form,
> just before sysinst refreshed its form and reported the extraction was
> *successful* (!).
>=20
> It would have been worse with an X gui install because unless sysinst made
> sure to create an xterm just in case, there would be no place for unexpec=
ted
> messages to show up.

Seems to me that the main problem is that the errors/messages were=20
unexpected. :-) sysinst should have noticed/been told that the install=20
didn't work, and acted accordingly. A GUI can do the same.

Put another way, the point you raise will be true for _any_ tool that gets=
=20
between the user and the end tools. :-)

> Of course it's not necessary to keep a box of paper under the old DECwrit=
er,
> a log file can be used, but it's still important to make sure everything =
that
> happens, expected or not, winds up in the file, which is trivial to do if=
 the
> install process is basically scrolling text, not quite as trivial if it's
> curses, but requires very careful and pervasive design in a gui system, f=
or
> the basic reason that you're interacting with the user in a way that does=
n't
> have a natural log-file representation.

I think it would depend on the particular install. To the extent the=20
install is a sequence of steps (partition disk, format partitions, install=
=20
sets, install boot loader, configure boot loader, configure other stuff),=
=20
then a sufficient log would be to dump the choices for each step. I agree=
=20
that a log like, "User clicked checkbox 512" would be useless. ;-)

Take care,

Bill

--kA1LkgxZ0NN7Mz3A
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (NetBSD)

iD8DBQFBONvEWz+3JHUci9cRApUfAKCYO2fZL/TSC7M8JO7GSZ6p0+phuACeKKm0
ktrfs5XmEzjAlSZ2+twBthU=
=ty16
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--kA1LkgxZ0NN7Mz3A--