Re: Fwd: How do I instal Dragonfly BSD from a hard drive - rather than CD?

[Hiten Pandya <hmp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Emiel Kollof wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Forwarded to the users list (The forwarded post is below) and also a reply to 
> this guy. I know it's a troll, but I thought it was way too funny for you 
> guys to miss. It nearly made me choke on my morning coffee. This guy owes me 
> a new keyboard because coffee | nose > keyboard.
>
> Heck for this reason alone I'll bite ;)
>
> Hi Pete.
>
> DragonFly can infact be installed from a harddrive. If you searched the 
> archives of the mailing list, you see that it's possible. oh, and why use a 
> harddrive? You can also install via PXE and netboot, just as easy. (well, not 
> really as easy, but it's definately not rocket science).
>
> As for your bootable CD argument, well, that's why they invented CD 
> rewritables. You know, those things you can erase and rewrite. 
>
> Installing in windows is not possible, was never possible, and will never be 
> possible. DragonFly is not a windows application. It's a full blown operating 
> system that wants absolute control over your hardware. It's way easy to just 
> dedicate a partition for DragonFly and just boot from network/cd and install.

I don't know about not possible, it can be made possible.  I have achieved
parts of such an endevour but never continued with it.  But while we are
on the subject of possibilities, it would be possible to:

(o) offer a Windows application that walks a person through creating a
specification file for installing dragonfly, during next boot, the whole
shebam.  The file can then be fed to BSDInstaller, and everything would
just work like an automated install.  The idea is no different from how
Windows uses answer files, except you are pretty much locked into using
floppy disks when it comes to Windows.

(o) install dragonfly onto a second empty partition from Windows, one of
the key parts would be being able to extract information from ISO files. 
User downloads an ISO file from dragonflybsd.org along with the "Install 
Application", specifies path to ISO file, other config info, etc.

I am sure it would attract people to our operating system, no doubt; but I
don't consider writing such an application a priority.  It's in my horizon
of things to do when I get free time.

Anyway, the guy who is flaming us is not really articulate otherwise he
might just be heard by the right people. :)

Kind regards,

Hiten Pandya
hmp at dragonflybsd.org