rvb@sicily.odyssey.cs.cmu.edu writes:

> One of the reasons that sysinst is such a killer problem is that there
> probably has to be bit of explanation in the installation manual that
> better explains this cryptic phrase.  Of course, if we can spare the
> space on the install floppy, we can make sysinst more verbose and have
> a "menu" that explains this.
> 
> On the otherhand, megabytes are normally rounded to cylinders.  Is
> this something that needs to be explained too and why not?

While I'm not expecting the clueless windows user to be able to
install this without some docs, a reasonably clued person should be
able to know what is going on.

So, when the user says "I want to use 2G for my NetBSD partition" grab
2G of the disk, rounded as needed.

When partitioning up the NetBSD space, once again, do the same thing,
but using the reported drive geometry (if known) or the BIOS
information, or even user-supplied physical parameters.

> > Really, there should be two steps.
> > 
> > 	(1)  creating the NetBSD BIOS partition.  This is rounded to
> >              BIOS cylinders.
> > 
> > 	(2)  within the NetBSD portion of the disk, round things to
> > 	     the drive's real geometry when possible.
> This is actually what the code does.  It would take an extra menu to
> make this distinction, but it might well be worth it.

Why?

There is already a distinction, when asked "do you want to use the
whole disk, or part of it" followed by "how much?"  --  just do the
rounding there.

--Michael