OK folks, here's some feedback on 4.0-RC2 from somebody who hasn't done a CD
install in a while ... I got my new HDD in last night, put her in the machine
and let it rip. Here's the things I found that either puzzled me or might
stand a bit of enhancement before RC2->RELEASE.
o As I've seen other people mention, there was a considerable delay while
waiting for the kernel to get done probing IDE disks. This new disk I got was
a Quantum Fireball and the ATA code detected it and used UDMA33 without a
hitch. However after the probe message:
ata0 at 0x01f0 irq 14 on ata-pci0
the kernel "sat there" for 30-50 seconds. I know I've read this is "needed
per the spec" but it would be much less mysterious if a message could be
printed before that wait had to happen (much like the scsi subsystem when the
bus is reset). I didn't see anything in the FAQ about this, but I'm sure it
will become one soon ...
o label, partition, and dist. extraction went without a hitch!
o I then chose the option of doing "final configuration" (or whatever
sysinstall says) where it allows you to pick packages, set root's password,
etc. After I picked the packages I wanted to be installed, I hit the
"Install" button and things proceeded to install with no hitches--however, it
seemed that randomly (because I couldn't pick out any pattern to it) the
screen would flash back to the "FreeBSD Configuration Menu" as it cycled
through new packages to install. The gray dialog that shows which package is
being installed would show this info, then disappear, the "FreeBSD
Configuration Menu" would reappear for about 1/5 of a second, then the gray
box would show up again with a new package name as it was installed. Now, I
haven't done a raw CD install for about a year, but I can't say that I
remember that behavior. What I remember is the gray box staying up
continuously while all the packages were installed. The constant "flashing"
between "gray box on blue" to "FreeBSD Configuration Menu" and back was a
little wierd. Everything was physically installed correctly, but it's one of
those "polishing" things that would make the install look "better"
(IMHO of course ...).
o I then tried to configure X. I think sysinstall needs to present a dialog
before running the GUI X configure program saying that there is a good chance
that the mouse won't work in the GUI program. It should then explain that if
you did choose to configure moused (and moused was started by sysinstall at
that point--I assume) that you should choose /dev/sysmouse and hit "a" to
"apply" the changes so the mouse is found. Equivalently, if you have a ps/2
mouse and are not running moused, choose /dev/psm0 and then hit "a" to apply
the changes. I'll be the first to admit that in all the previous times I've
configured X on a new machine, I didn't RTFM the on-screen text from the X
GUI and didn't hit the 'apply' button (until the run last night). My mistake,
but I think it might be a common enough one for sysinstall to specifically
say something about it. If you disagree with that point, at least consider
having sysinstall direct the user to which device file to point to if his/her
mouse isn't recognized. If you were a brand new user to FreeBSD, would you
know that /dev/psm0 is to be used for ps/2 mice when not running moused? If
you were a brand new user to FreeBSD, would you know that if you did
configure and run moused that /dev/sysmouse is the device you should point
to? I think not.
o The configuration of GNOME+E. worked. However, I had to manually put
"gnome-session" in my .xinitrc file. It seems to me that a more "friendly"
install would be one where if you chose KDE or GNOME+<whatever> that it asks
you which accounts you want to setup and does the appropriate things. That
way, the first time the new user reboots, logs in, and types "startx" he/she
goes into the windowing environment that he/she chose in sysinstall. If I
were a completely new user to FreeBSD, I wouldn't have known to put
gnome-session in my .xinitrc in order to get it to work. I would have fired
up X and saw the ugly-as-sin twm setup that comes with X and thought to
myself "boy, GNOME sure is ugly and worthless...". It's a small thing, sure,
but a gigantic thing to new-comers.
o Finally, again, it seems to me that the skeleton .cshrc, .profile,
etc. files that are used for accounts creating during install should have the
following variables set:
setenv LC_ALL en_US.ISO_8859-1
setenv LC_CTYPE en_US.ISO_8859-1
setenv LANG en_US.ISO_8859-1
(to whatever values are appropriate--this could even be asked if not guessed
correctly from the time zone info). Lots of the GNOME/GTK stuff that I
installed and ran complained that "LOCALE could not be set" (or whatever--I'm
not at the machine and am paraphrasing--those who know what the above
variables are for know the error I'm talking about when you don't have them
set). When I went to compile a custom kernel, some perl scripts used at the
beginning of "make depend" complained about the same lack of these variables.
Everything else seemed ok and very speedy. I tweaked rc.conf values to add my
default route, NFS, blah blah blah and it all worked A-OK like my 3.4 machine
(connecting and routine through my 3.4-S gateway). No problems there!
All in all, I think most of the things I experienced last night were
"cosmetic" in nature--however, if they could be polished away, it would make
for a *completely* bullet-proof and awesome install experience--especially for
a new user coming to FreeBSD for the first time.
"I'm John, and this has been my Report."
-Jr
--
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| John Reynolds WCCG, CCE, Higher Levels of Abstraction |
| Intel Corporation MS: CH6-210 Phone: 480-554-9092 pgr: 602-868-6512 |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www-aec.ch.intel.com/~jreynold/ |
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