BSD Installer Technology Preview (2005.0721) Available - please help test

[Matthew Dillon]

:It doesn't touch /var, /etc, or /usr/local.
:...
:
:Ideally, it should also apply all the upgrade procedures between the old
:version and the new version... however, these procedures change often
:(witness Joerg's pam.conf change of today,) aren't rigorously documented
:(src/UPDATING still claims that DragonFly can be built on FreeBSD 4.x
:although ISTR it can't anymore,) aren't automated perfectly ("make
:upgrade", as you noted, requires a source tree,) aren't necessarily
:agreed upon (even though it is not supported, some people prefer
:mergemaster to "make upgrade" because mergemaster is more accomodating)
:and in the end, might conflict with whatever customized process the
:admin really wants anyway.
:
:(This hasn't even addressed ports/packages and what changes they may
:require, which is a whole nother headache.)
:
:So, in short, we'll try to come up with some reasonable configuration-
:updating process (suggestions are welcome!) but the lowest common
:denominator will still have to be to tell the user to update their
:configuration manually.  :(
:
:Thanks,
:-Chris

    One thing to note is that the 'make upgrade' target in /usr/src 
    generally does (or should do) all required post-installworld activities.
    If it doesn't, pound on the people responsible for breaking it :-)

    When I do a quick look at the make upgrade target, there actually aren't
    a whole lot of dependancies on /usr/src itself.  It seems to need:

    /usr/src/share/mk
    /usr/src/share/termcap
    /usr/src/usr.sbin/rmt
    /usr/src/etc

    And perhaps a few others.  But the total amount of data appears to be
    quite limited, perhaps 1-2 MBytes.

    What if we incorporated those elements required for the make upgrade
    target to work into the distribution?  The installer could then install
    all the files like it does now, then it can run the 'make upgrade'
    target to clean up any remainder.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at xxxxxxxxxxxxx>