> Jordan has offered more than once to work with NetBSD people on
> further development of install tools.  I don't see why a common
> install team couldn't form, for the betterment of both systems.  I
> think it would be stupid of us to let such an offer vanish without any
> hint of interest.

Me neither. :-)

I'm working on "install: The Next Generation" now, though it's going
slowly what with all my other little jobs.  I gave up on the idea of
using a forth interpreter to give the installer flexibility in coding
custom installs since I knew, in my heart of hearts, that nobody else
was going to want to learn forth.  I've started over with TCL since it
also gives me access to Tk for someday tarting the thing up to the
level where `Red Hat Linux' currently is.  We all (in the *BSD camp)
have a ways to go to catch up with those folks.  My biggest stumbling
block is currently the lack of a decent set of "GUI" tools that work
with ncurses.  I obviously can't mandate X, and I've reached the
limits of what libdialog can do for you.  The dialog stuff was
designed for use by shell script programmers, not to imbed in C
programs, and it really shows.  Anyone feel like helping me code up
some simple scrolling list objects and the like?  I've already got
"buttons" and entry fields, but I need to take it a good deal further
and set this all into a decent framework that lets all the objects
be created from ascii screen descriptions.

Unfortunately, I'm not really a curses programmer, and truly using
ncurses to its fullest extent (color and all) is a black art.  Just
knowing when it's safe to refresh the screen and what effects this
will have at different times is non-trivial, it seems. :(

Ah well.  Whether or not the NetBSD folks decide to jump in or not, I
*will* be banging all of this out in the next 6 months - I haven't
much choice, given the objectives for our next installer.  It'd be
nice if it was used more widely, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I've actually been trying to get Slackware's Patrick Volkerding to
join me in this as well, but it seems like NIH isn't unique to the BSD
camp.. :)
 
					Jordan