Subject: Re: Something to shoot for someday...
To: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
From: Chris G. Demetriou <cgd@netbsd.org>
List: tech-install
Date: 07/01/1999 23:57:04
Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU> writes:
> Last: my impression is that most of the actual problems with sysinst
> are due to the x86 MBR handling.  Lest some people forget,
> most of the feedback on 1.3/pmax was along the lines of:

Strongly disagree.

Go look again through some of the remaining sysinst PRs, and the ones
I recently fixed.  There are plenty of things which have nothing to do
with i386 MBR handling.

For instance, there was a _really_ annoying problem in 1.4 where if
you'd enter some characters for a network parameter, backspace to
beginning-of-field and hit return to accept the default, you'd get the
default with the characters you'd type overwriting the characters in
the default.  (don't understand what i mean?  run sysinst, when
configuring network netmask enter 10<backspace><backspace><return>
then look at what it thinks you've entered).  Of course, I fixed that
one.  8-)

I think it's true that most of the MI problems aren't _fatal_, but if
what we're going for is an installer where all of the serious bugs can
be worked around, well, i think we're setting the bar too low.  8-)

There are scores of problems in the disk partitioning code (non-MBR; I
_never_ do special MBR setups but i've run into N problems with the
partitioning code), in the display/menu code, in the install media
selection code.  Some of them may not be bugs, i.e. the code as
designed and written is functional, but badly misdesigned.



cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.