Re: implemented features (Re: Decision time....)

[Bill Hacker <wbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

talon@lpthe.jussieu.fr wrote:
> km b wrote:
>
> > On 6/5/07, Michel Talon <talon@lpthe.jussieu.fr> wrote:
*snip* (64 bit issues)

> whatever he sees fit for his project. My own prejudice is that having a
> good installer and a good package management system (including a good
> upgrade mechanism) is *extremely* important, far more than any kernel
> nicety. This is clearly the Achilles heel of all BSD systems. Beleive it or
> not, the talent to develop such tools is completely orthogonal to the
> talent to do kernel programming.

I don't see a lot wrong with pkgsrc.  Nor any 'easy' (read 'with available 
resources') way to improve upon it.

Though I personally still prefer the scope of the FreeBSD ports tree, we all 
know the huge 'count' of ports has a lot of redundancy and no small amount of 
plain useless or broken junk. So pkgsrc's smaller count is not really all that 
much less w/r what can actually be *utilized*.

As far as 'good installer', I experiment with anywhere from half a dozen OS in 
any given year.

My all-time favorite intaller - 1970's to this very week - remains the legacy 
FreeBSD 'sysinstall'.

Sorry 'bout that, I know a lot of work has been put into DFLY's own installer, 
and more coming - but given the choice I'd prefer 'sysinstall' even over the 
best-of-breed Loonix variants.

It is always readable, local console or remote ssh, gives me the flexibility I 
need - not only for FreeBSD, but to set up HDD for DragonFly and other OS'en as 
well. It doesn't use fonts that eye-confuse, either, and I've gotten 'adjusted' 
to the way one exits/navigates back up the tree, though that *could* be improved.

Whatever the direction is to be, having a solid kernel and core is far more 
important that a slick installer to put in place a 'still needs work' OS.