> The example I have is one of a cluster of about 50 small machines with > 16GB flash cards each. Currently the alloc_big scheme is used by > disklabel for these (as with anything > about 8GB, depending on RAM). On > a 16GB flash card it will allocate about 17% of total space to /usr/src > and /usr/obj. I have no intention at all of rebuilding OpenBSD on any of > these, so I consider this wasted space.
Do you have a specific need for that 2.7GB of space, or do you wish to add it to another partition because the "waste" looks offensive? By the way, not using that space can have a side benefit. If it is currently scrubbed, it can stay in the flash scrubber's hands, and thus improve wear-leveling. > I agree that such a use case seems to be very uncommon, and after > reading the replies I withdraw my question as to whether there could be > a useful patch to come out of it. As Alexander and I have explained, complicated hacks like this come with maintainance downsides. Secondly, the usage pattern for this so twisted and obtuse, some of us doubt more than a handful would use it before it passes into obscurity. A better over-reaching solution was suggested around a year ago, which is to replace the entire prompt-answering mechanism with something more like expect. Steps towards adding this would be: add pty support to the media, write a minimal command with the functionality of "expect"; then run the install script on a pty, and subject the questions to answers subject to the autoinstall scheme. That would allow input into ALL the command prompts, not just the ksh-provided questions. That would need to be written, then looked at to see if there are downsides. Please understand that uwe's autoinstall was not the first attempt at adding the mechanism... rather, it was the first clean one which did not make the install scripts much more complex (in fact, his changes pushed the scripts to be become simpler). > Building a patched bsd.rd locally for such a unique need is not a > problem at all. I asked out of curiousity more than anything else, so > I'm sorry to waste your time on it.
