[OpenIndiana-discuss] We need install images which work!

[Joshua M. Clulow]

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 12:44, Reginald Beardsley via
openindiana-discuss <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org> wrote:
>  I'd be glad to fix them if I knew where the files that need to be modified were located. Please enlighten me.

You have been saying for months that you want to help, if only people
would tell you where all the software is.  As people keep pointing
out, all of the software that goes into the distribution is built via
the userland repository:

    https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland

The only way you'll be able to help is by taking the time to
familiarise yourself with the make files and components and so on in
that repository.  It's a good place to look when you want to find
where a particular component comes from.  For example, I was looking
for the text installer, so I started on my OI system with:

   $ pkg search installer

The most relevant looking result is "OpenIndiana Text Installer",
package "system/install/text-install".  Maybe you don't know a good
keyword, but you know the name of a file like "text-install" and you
want to know which package contains it:

   $ pkg search text-install

This will tell you that the file "usr/bin/text-install" comes from
"system/install/text-install" as well.

Once you have a package name, it's pretty easy even just with grep to
find that the package comes from:

    https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland/blob/oi/hipster/components/openindiana/slim_source/Makefile#L136

Looking further up in that Makefile, you can find that we get the
slim_source component from:

    GIT_REPO=https://github.com/OpenIndiana/slim_source.git

If you then clone _that_ repository, I am sure you will be able to
find what you're looking for.  If not, you'll be able to find where to
look next.

> I tried to find the source for the text-install screen that incorrectly states an EFI whole disk will only use 2 TB. Python loads packages from a library, but I wasn't able to find the source for the library.

A cursory search in the slim_source repository for the text "whole
disk" yields many plausible results:

    https://github.com/OpenIndiana/slim_source/search?q=%22whole+disk%22

Inspecting the live image is interesting, but never paints the whole
picture -- it is necessarily stripped (for size) of much of the
interesting information about where the software originated and how it
was built.  You will generally need to look at the source to
understand.

> The dearth of accurate documentation is a huge barrier.

I agree that there could always be more and better documentation!  But
if, as you keep saying, you want to help, you're going to have to show
some initiative in sifting through the build system and the files.
Things are a bit cryptic sometimes, but it's all in there; by reading
the source you will be able to find it.


Cheers.

-- 
Joshua M. Clulow
http://blog.sysmgr.org