Pcbsd 9.1-beta--64

[kingneutron]

Installer: (Note - I used the XFCE desktop selection)

- Unable to resize (or remove) Swap in the Disk Setup Wizard like we could in 9.0 (the slider was nice!)
- Please include the option to place Swap outside of ZFS (performance)

- Redoing the Customize Disk Layout button again does not remember the previous settings(!)

- It was useful to be able to setup a UFS /boot and non-zfs Swap in 9.0

--I haven't tested this part yet, but please MAKE SURE the installer can repurpose a disk that was previously in a ZFS pool

- The installer doesn't ask to setup root and regular users? How do I log in?? Ah, I see - it's doing this post-boot now. But what if I don't have X working for some reason? Is there a text-mode failsafe?

+ Ah, thank you for putting in the option to disable the Life Preserver. One less icon

--Minor note: It might be a good idea to set the default number of Workspaces to (4).

--Minor note: The default desktop background still says 9 instead of 9.1

--Overall, I pretty much like what you've done with it - the XFCE menus are laid out really nice

--Request: For v10, can we have a post-install ZFS GUI setup tool, maybe even in Webmin? Pleeease?

--I'll play with it a bit more after church -- so far, pretty nice job!

[kingneutron]

Further thoughts:

- The default ZFS root settings are a bit cluttered with mountpoints. I would suggest " / ", /usr, and /var
to start with, and give the user the option for the extended config.


WANT: (for v10)

o Scripted installs, and the ability to save the current install settings to USB stick - Scripted installs would give a web hosting provider the ability to do an automated "kick" to a Cloud server ;-)

o The ability to PCBSD-ify an existing FreeBSD system (takeover and install PCBSD infrastructure)

o Netinstall small ISO

o PXE boot ability for netinstall ISO (and Live DVD)

[kingneutron]

o Installer:

- The ability to set the Shell for non-root user during install was nice in 9.0 (I like bash)
to Fix in the meantime: post-boot, as root issue ' chsh -s /bin/bash username '

- The ability to set the Hostname in the 9.0 installer was nice

--In the installer, I would like the option to enable kernel messages for boot instead of the graphical boot splash screen - this is *NIX, not Windows 95 ;-)
to Fix in the meantime: post-boot, edit /boot/loader.conf and change " splash_pcx_load " and " bitmap_load " to NO


o BUG: PCBSD Network Manager:

- If Proxy is set and then Unchecked, the values disappear


o Warden:

- Warden does not currently use the Proxy setting - if installing more than 1 jail, this could really come in handy to save bandwidth

- BUG: I tried creating a Debian Linux jail from the existing script; it ran, but the jail won't Start -- fails silently
(note that PCBSD is currently running in Vmware Workstation 8.04; not sure if this makes a difference)
--Is there a log file for this somewhere? Nothing found in dmesg or /var/log/messages...

Messages from jail installer:
[[
I: Base system installed successfully
pwd_mkdb: warning, unknown root shell
Success! Linux jail created at 192.168.2.180
Changing root password ... Success
]]

--That's all for now, looks like Warden is broken for me

[kmoore134]

A lot of the warden stuff / post install issues you mentioned have already been fixed for RC1. The installer requests are different though. We are trying to greatly simplify the installer for 9.1, the old installer was way too complicated, and things which can be set post-install (like shell, boot-splash, etc) should be done there.

Quick note about the ZFS default mount-points though. We have that many setup for a reason, so we can safely do ZFS BEADM, datasets for jails, etc. That doesn't mean you can't modify / remove datasets in the disk advanced screens.

The swap is another issue entirely though. Right now there is NO good way to do it. We are trying to support raidz / mirror, and once you move the swap off the zpool, then which disk gets it? Do you setup gmirror for swap across devices? Then zpool can't get the full disk, like it wants to. Personally I've been using the swap on ZFS for a while now, and it seems fine for typical desktop usage. If you want, you can remove it post-install, and setup swap on another disk / partition though. Remember, we are just trying to come up with the sanest set of defaults, which will work best for most users, and in the case of the desktop, not trying to slice / partition up everything works best.