Mark Andres writes:
>On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Mike Long wrote:
>
>> >Problem 1: MSDOS and NetBSD cannot share the HD:
>> 
>> Yes, if you want to share a disk between MSDOS and NetBSD you have to
>> use fdisk to create a DOS MBR, and create DOS and NetBSD partitions in
>> it.
>
>Umm, OK. Putting this in the INSTALL document would be helpful. If you are
>going to tell new users "read the INSTALL document! read the INSTALL
>document!" then you should have the documentation there be complete.

Please send a PR about this.

I think sysint should be (and is) capable of creating an MBR entry for
a `dedicated' disk. If it can do that, and it can also install onto a
pre-configured partition, then the marginal cost to create both an MBR
and an MBR partition for NetBSD that leaves free space on the disk
should be low.  That lets you install NetBSD onto a totally blank hard
disk and leave space for DOS.

If DOS is already on the disk, you'll probably need to take pre-
installation steps to free up space for NetBSD.  This part should be
in the INSTALL document.  So it would help if you could specify the
pre-existing configuration of your disk in the PR.


> >Problem 2: Must download all tarballs EVEN IF you are not installing them
> >all.
> 
> I guess sysinst assumes that the FTP site has the full distribution.
> You probably could have worked around this by creating a zero-length
> games.tar.gz file on your HP.

Please send a second PR.  I haven't noticed this myself, but then most
of the installs i did were over NFS with either 0Mbit or 100Mbit
Ethernet :-)



>> Note that 1.3 is the first release to use the sysinst tool, so it has
>> many sharp edges which need to be polished off.  FreeBSD's tools have
>> been around longer, and also can be simpler because they only have to
>> deal with a single architecture.

>Yes, I understand this. I wanted to point out these problems, because they
>will send many newbies screaming into the night. 
 

Uhuh.  I think the most accurate way to describe sysinst right now is
``not documented''. That's due to a disk failure immediately before
one of the sysinst workers left on summer vacation.  We may be able to
get something better for the upcoming patch release.  At least it's in
a whole different league than the previous shell scripts and the `take
a pencil and paper' instructions.

Last, personally, I'd prefer to bury help menus all through sysinst,
so it could be used by the average installer without reference to
external documentation.  many people don't read documentation anyway:)