Silly Sysinstall Tricks, redux

[Sean Bruno]

On Fri, 2010-07-09 at 13:10 -0500, Randi Harper wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Sean Bruno <seanbru at yahoo-inc.com> wrote:
> > Karsten asked for a "proper bug report" so I'll try to comply.
> >
> > Setup:
> >        Partition a USB stick into 3 seperate partitions
> >        -- Part 1: VFAT, 128MB, Grub boot loader and related files
> >        -- Part 2: Empty partition, 1.2GB, no F/S
> >        -- Part 3: Empty partition, 1.2GB, no F/S
> >
> >        Download the latest i386 and amd64 USB install images:
> > ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201006/FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201006-amd64-memstick.img
> > ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/201006/FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201006-i386-memstick.img
> >
> >        I'm using 201006 for now as July hasn't appeared.
> >
> >        dd the downloaded images to each of your empty partions as per common
> > instructions:
> >        dd if=FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201006-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0s2
> > bs=10240 conv=sync
> >        dd if=FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201006-i386-memstick.img of=/dev/da0s3
> > bs=10240 conv=sync
> >
> >        Setup your grub configuration to boot off of these images:
> >        e.g.
> >        title FreeBSD-CURRENT-i386
> >                root (hd0,1)
> >                chainloader +1
> >        title FreeBSD-CURRENT-amd64
> >                root (hd0,2)
> >                chainloader +1
> >
> >        Boot new system off of USB stick, at this point the system will boot
> > normally and come up into the sysinstall menu.  I can configure drives,
> > select packages and things seem to work fine until the I get to the
> > "select media from which to install" section where I can chose CD/DVD,
> > FTP, HTTP, USB etc.
> >
> >        Selecting USB install fails to find any media.  Hence I *ass*ume that
> > sysinstall doesn't understand that the media can have more than one
> > partition and that I might want to use something other than da0s1 to use
> > as my source of packages.
> >
> >
> >        Clear?  Confusing?  Nonsense?  :-)
> >
> > Sean
> >
> 
> So, the way I did the USB stuff was a dirty, dirty hack. It looks for
> da0a (or c, i can't recall). Eventually, this is going away. But the
> jist of it is that you have to dd the memstick to da0, not a slice. :(
> 
> Someday (soon, hopefully) we'll be using labels for install media.
> 
> -- randi


Dirty-Dirty Hack Proposal:

How about a dialog box option that allows you to select a /dev device to
attempt to mount as a install source?  The dialogue can pop up when
selecting USB install media and default to /dev/da0a 

Feel free to say, "NO" at this time.  :-)

Sean