Subject: Re: disklabel(8) UI (was Re: IBM DFHS-31080 SCSI drive problem)
To: Simon Burge <simonb@netbsd.org>
From: Brett Lymn <blymn@baea.com.au>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 05/19/1999 20:06:57
According to Simon Burge:
>
>Hopefully sysinst will get to the stage where it's a useful program on
>an installed system as well (adding new packages, (re)configuring system
>config files) - maybe it would be good enough to keep disklabel(8) and
>use sysinst for more complex tasks.

Though we were not thinking of supplanting sysinst - there is a
project going to make the configuring/maintaining of a system easier.
David Forbes & myself both had independent stabs at this and have now
put our heads together in a joint effort.  We were aiming at doing a
kernel config tool first but managing other configuration files is on
the cards.  I suspect what we are planning may be a bit weighty for
sysinst but possibly making a cut down version would be useful.

>  Of the top of my head, making
>something that can handle multiple disks as a standalone program seems
>like overkill and would probably make integration with sysinst harder,
>but I'm open to ideas...
>

I don't know about that - there is a precedent, just look at Sun's
format program.  The old suninstall just used to run format so you
could partition the disks, something that Sun has forgotten in it's
newer installs which now (well, up until 2.6) just barf if the disk
had not been labelled.


-- 
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Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, British Aerospace Australia
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