>Number:         8866
>Category:       install
>Synopsis:       Bugs/suggestions on 1.4.1 sysinst
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    install-manager (NetBSD system installation bug manager)
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Nov 23 17:24:00 1999
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Eric Mumpower
>Organization:
	
>Release:        Stock NetBSD 1.4.1<NetBSD-current source date>
>Environment:
	
(An i386 system being upgraded from stock NetBSD 1.4 to stock NetBSD
1.4.1)

>Description:
When running the stock NetBSD/i386 1.4.1 upgrade procedure (on a system
installed with stock NetBSD 1.4)

Right after the upgrade procedure finishes fsck'ing the partitions of the
system being upgraded, it echoes this very disturbing progress message:

> Okay, the first part of the procedure is finished. Sysinst has
> written a disklabel to the target disk, and newfs'ed and fsck'ed
> the new partitions you specified for the target disk.

This caused me to attempt to break out of the installation procedure ASAP
and try to verify that I hadn't somehow actually newfs'd my old data
partitions. Much confusion ensued as I determined that my old partitions
hadn't been newfs'd but that my old /etc directory had been mysteriously
wiped almost empty. I eventually figured out what had happened (/etc.old
...) but it was not obvious that this would have happened at this point in
the installation.

Perhaps it would be good to somehow adjust this message to suggest
that newfs'ing only occurs during a fresh installation and NOT an
upgrade? But, even so, perhaps some users will be uncertain as to
whether they chose 'install' or 'upgrade'. Perhaps this message should
simply be different depending on which action is being performed. In
which case a much more suitable message could be crafted.

Also, the 'INSTALL' documentation is a bit confusing on a few points,
in the section "Upgrading a previously-installed NetBSD System":

 * I'm not sure it's adequate to simply claim that "existing configuration
   files in /etc are backed up and merged with the new files". They're
   backed up, yes, perhaps it would be nice to say that they're backed up in
   "/etc.old"? And they're not really merged very fully. Perhaps it would be
   more accurate and useful to say "existing configuration files in /etc are
   backed up in /etc.old. (A few of them will be merged into the newly
   installed version of the /etc files, but most will need to be
   carefully hand-merged.)" ?

 * sysinst displayed some message about '/dev' which led
   me to believe that it was running MAKEDEV. But the INSTALL docs indicate
   that this will need to be done manually. Which is correct?

	
>How-To-Repeat:
>Fix:
>Audit-Trail:
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