Install problems for DragonFlyBSD 6.4.1

[David Crosswell]

On 1/5/25 23:58, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:
> Thanks to yesterday's suggestion by Antonio Huete Jimenez
> <tuxillo at quantumachine.net> to try formatting the disk multiple times
> during the DragonFlyBSD 6.4.1 installation process, I was able to
> install it without difficulty in a virtual machine on my home
> workstation last night, and it came up with the correct disk size this
> time.


I have found this to be a common problem with installations.

It is now standard practice to format the disc a couple of times with 
GParted, rather than rely on the installation format.

There always seems to be some dirt hanging round from past installations 
that interferes.

>    
>
> I then installed a large of packages on it, and this morning, copied
> the disk image to a campus machine, successfully booted, changed its
> hostname and IPv4 address, and rebooted.
>
> I now have two working DragonFlyBSD 6.4.1 VMs: I need both, because a
> security wall around our campus prevents in-bound access from outside
> campus, and I do software development in both places.
>
> I hope that the DragonFlyBSD installer team can compare the 6.4.0 and
> 6.4.1 installers, and figure out why the new version fails to get the
> correct disk size on the first try.  I have done more than 800 VM
> installations by now, and this is the first time that I can recall
> where an installer got the disk size wrong.
>
> Also, I'd like to request consideration of some (I hope) simple
> changes in the installer:
>
> (1) Many users will have IPv4 address w.x.y.z, where only the last
>      octet changes in their enviroment.  It would be nice if the
>      installer portion where a manual IPv4 configuration is done to
>      offer w.x.y.1 as defaults for the router and gateway addresses,
>      and 255.255.255.0 as the default network mask.  I have used
>      installers for other O/Ses that do just that.  Numeric addresses
>      are easy to make typing mistakes in, and providing sensible
>      defaults is most helpful.  Typos in those addresses result in loss
>      of the network, and can sometimes be hard to spot.
>
> (2) During the manual IPv4 configuration, it asks for the bare
>      hostname and domain, and then later in the main configuration
>      menu, it wants them again.  Surely the first set could be
>      propagated as the default to the second set?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
> - University of Utah                                                          -
> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
> - 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: https://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe -
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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