Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 19:51:13 -0600 From: Patrick Hartling <mystify@friley-184-92.res.iastate.edu> To: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: adding DHCP client to src/contrib/ Message-ID: <199902090151.TAA75447@friley-184-92.res.iastate.edu> In-Reply-To: Message from Mike Holling <myke@ees.com> of "Mon, 08 Feb 1999 16:53:54 PST." <Pine.BSF.4.03.9902081645090.1994-100000@phluffy.fks.bt>
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Mike Holling <myke@ees.com> wrote: } > > If we want FreeBSD to have any credibility as a workstation OS, we } > > need DHCP. It should be possible for a user or admin to smack in the } > > boot floppy, have it autoconfigure the selected network interface, and } > > perform an FTP installation. This would be really nifty for a lot of people. I've installed Windows NT about a zillion times due to its instability and tendencies to eat itself, but I always liked being able to say at the installation phase that I needed to use DHCP to get my IP address. } I built a static version of the WIDE client and server, both were only } around 140K. What's the problem? It's not like putting emacs in the base } install or anything. I still run FreeBSD on a 386/40 with a 40M MFM main } drive, and even so I'm not worried about the "bloat" of adding DHCP. Lots } of people have been asking about DHCP on the lists and the newsgroups, } probably because DSL/cablemodems are becoming more readily available (at } least in the US). People repeatedly ask me if FreeBSD comes with a DHCP client when I suggest it as an alternative to Linux. I always tell them "You can build the port or install a precompiled package," and as easy as that is for people who are familiar with FreeBSD's wonderful ports and package systems, it still causes some people to shy away. } Windows comes with DHCP. Heck, even my old Mac IIci running System 7.5.5 } comes with DHCP. It's small and increasingly useful, why not make it part } of the base distribution? Or would you rather have FreeBSD be like } RedHat, where you have to install an RPM for just about everything? When someone can simply click a radio button or mark a check box in their network configuration in these operating systems, they seem to assume that having to do anything more than that will be too hard. I think that having this small client (which I have installed as a port) in the base operating system will get people to warm up to the idea of trying out FreeBSD. It's one less thing that inexperiencied people have to worry about. These new people may find it semi-frightening to have to remember all those numbers and have to type them in, possibly more than once if something goes wrong. -Patrick Patrick L. Hartling | Research Assistant, ICEMT mystify@friley-184-92.res.iastate.edu | Carver Lab - 0095E Black Engineering http://www.public.iastate.edu/~oz/ | http://www.icemt.iastate.edu/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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