Hi Peter!

In message <199611081905.UAA01433@line9.slipneu.tu-freiberg.de>
          Peter Berg <Peter.Berg@ww.tu-freiberg.de> wrote:

> I suggested to split the installer into several applications. For every need
> one, not one for all. the reason for is:
> 
> 
> - not only one programmer have to do all
> 
> - ist's easier to change the code, because it will be kept short
> 
> - SUIT doesn't support child windows

How would you split it? I don't think you can split the job of installing sets
into more fractions in a sensible way.

> What's the state of your X-based installer, Mark ? (wich lang. and toolkit)

I hope there isn't one yet, I wouldn't like to see Mark using his precious time
for knick-knack (at least it is at the current state of RiscBSD).
I suggest we focus on important and basic things first.
(If you think this doesn't fit what I said on Nov 5: I thought the same. ;-)
I didn't read carefully what I was commenting on then, I thought Peter meant
the program which gets the basic stuff installed, ie. what is done with the
installation disk now.)

Before thinking about fancy X installers, I would rather like to see things
fixed which bother me every day like bugs, slow SCSI drivers, broken console,
no German keymap...
The inst script works fine (apart from the bug that it doesn't list /any/ set
any more because of problems with the new method using awk and all this stuff
I don't know much about), so it's not top priority to replace it IMHO.
Don't forget you won't always be able to use an X based installation program.

The installation and upgrade scripts are rather bad IMHO. It's a shame you have
to do everything by hand, ie. enter the disk geometry, calculate the number of
cylinders and so on. This would need a replacement much more urgently than inst.

It's OK as long as somebody is doing it who can't do anything else, but
somebody who can write a better set installation program should rather write a
decent installation program running on the console so every NetBSD port will
easily be able to benefit from it.

> Before anyone starts writing some stuff we should make clear, that nothing is 
> written twice by several poeple.

That's clear. This also applies to writing documentation or porting programs.
This should ideally be announced by everybody as soon as he starts the work.

> <bigger><italic><bold>I have included a short demo GIF of a SUIT GUI in this
> mail</bigger></italic></bold>

It looks fine.
How difficult is it to write such a program?
Wouldn't tcl/tk also do it? This would have the same advantage as the current
inst script that you can very easily change it.

So long, Markus