[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Issues with current state of GNU/kFreeBSD



Am Sonntag, 9. August 2009 13:39:59 schrieb Julian Andres Klode:
> Hi everyone,
>
> now that I'm subscribed to this list, and tried out D-I on kFreeBSD
> (r60026), I want to inform you about some issues I experienced.
>
> ISSUES in Debian Installer
> ==========================
>
> D-I: [netcfg] manual network configuration fails
> ------------------------------------------------
> I don't know why, but manually configuring the network fails.
>
> D-I: [grub-installer] fails
> ----------------------------
> grub-installer in the menu fails, I don't know why. You can install
> grub-pc in /target and run grub-install there to get a bootable
> system.
>
> D-I: [partman] Should use slices
> ---------------------------------
> FreeBSD uses slices which contain multiple partitions. The
> first partition being /, the second one being swap by default.
>
> Debian installer should support slices just like it supports
> extended partitions. It should by default create one slice and
> the partitions inside this slice and not on the disk directly.

Note, that while the BSDLabel Disk-format with slices and partitions, 
numbered from a-h is still default, FreeBSD has excellent support for 
GPT and will change to that in the long run.
It is currently supported through the GPT and GPART commands on FreeBSD.

Since d-i support is new anyways, one could skip implementing support 
for creation of bsdlabels altogether and directly go for GPT.

Actually GEOM doesn't really care whether you have a primary disk 
partition or a logical one, a GPT-Partition or BSD-Partition inside a 
slice, or without a slice, or whether you directly create the UFS on the 
disk, it can mount anything. The only thing not flexible is the boot 
loader, which - if I read the last posts correctly - will be replaced 
with proper grub-support anyway, so only the latter is the limiting 
factor. 

Other secondary FS-wishes:
- support for creating encrypted disks (GELI and GBDE)
- support creating Z-Pools (FreeBSD8 is alaredy able to boot of a Z-
Pool)

Regards,
Hannes


> D-I: [parted] parted_devices crashes
>      [parman] Does not list partitions
> ---------------------------
> parted_devices crashes if the device contains UFS volumes
> outside of a slice. This causes partman to not list any
> partitions at all.
>
> This also means that you can't reinstall GNU/kFreeBSD at the
> moment, because it lists no partitions the second time.
>
> D-I: Changes keyboard layout
> ----------------------------
> D-I seems to confuse the system in a way that pressing 'a' on
> the keyboard gives 'q' (and others).
>
>
> Issues in the installed system
> ================================
>
> Installed: keyboard layouts missing
> ------------------------------------
> There appears to be no way to use a keyboard layout different
> than the standard US one.
>
> Installed: Problems with localizations
> ----------------------------------------
> Localized messages display wrong characters for non-ASCII
> characters.
>
>
> Installed: Filesystem of /proc should be procfs
> -------------------------------------
> The filesystem of /proc should be procfs and not linprocfs in
> order to be compatible to FreeBSD. linprocfs only emulates parts
> of a Linux 2.4 procfs and is not really useful. This is needed
> e.g. to get kbuild working, as it calls readlink() on
> /proc/curproc/file which is only available on procfs.
>
> If this gets changed, /sys should maybe be dropped to, and both
> linux compatibility FS should be mounted somewhere in e.g.
> /var/lib/linux (i.e. /var/lib/linux/{sys,proc}).
>
>
> Other Stuff
> ===========
>
> VirtualBox 3.0 on GNU/kFreeBSD
> -------------------------------
> I'd like to have VirtualBox one GNU/kFreeBSD, as upstream already
> has support for FreeBSD. This will require changes to the kbuild
> package and the virtualbox-ose package. I have not talked to the
> maintainers yet, but I would take care of writing the patches.
>
> I already installed an IDE (Geany) on my kFreeBSD VM, so I can
> code on this. I will prepare the needed patches, send them to the
> BTS and will inform you once I'm finished.


Reply to: