Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 22:22:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Vince Vielhaber <vev@michvhf.com> To: Chris Hill <jchill@dgsys.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: Install *actually* friendly Message-ID: <XFMail.980804222236.vev@michvhf.com> In-Reply-To: <v03007800b1ed30dc8847@[204.97.64.155]>
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On 04-Aug-98 Chris Hill wrote:
> I was going to post this anyway, but the recent message from Steve
> Roskowski (and its followups) has goaded me into action.
Actually I've also considered commenting but until now haven't bothered.
[snip]
> 4. Since FreeBSD runs on PC hardware, I would have thought the default
> configuration would be set up to deal with all the "normal" devices one
> might expect to find on a PC. Although I don't anticipate using the floppy
> drive much if at all, still, it *is* there. I would have liked not to have
> had to manually edit my /etc/fstab just to be able to use my floppy drive.
I'm not concerned as much about the floppy as I am about the beginning of
this one. The problem I had was that the ATAPI CD wasn't found when it
came time to do the actual install. How did I get to sysinstall? I booted
from the damn CD! Going thru the mail archives and tearing into the
machine I found that the CD was set up as a slave on wdc1 and there was
no slave on wdc0 and no master on wdc1. Someone else mentioned that it
was an illegal IDE configuration. Here's the problem with that statement:
PC's are being shipped that way! The particular machine that happened to
me on was an Intel, not a machine built by Joe Blow's 'Puter Parts. I'd
already installed FreeBSD on a number of systems and it's my preferred
Unix so I was a bit more persistant than the typical user. Right now that
machine has the hard disk and CD on wdc0 and FreeBSD *still* doesn't even
see wdc1 (even tho there's nothing on it). The controllers are built onto
the motherboard.
The average computer user that may want to experiment with unix or that may
be tired of the M$ buggy operating systems, or both, may borrow a FreeBSD CD
from a friend or someone else (don't worry, I'm on the subscription plan) and
be totally turned off by the lack of hardware recognition when in fact it
should have no trouble recognising the hardware. From there they either give
up or try linux. If people aren't using FreeBSD, folks like RealPlayer and
Adobe aren't going to make native FreeBSD versions no matter how easy it is.
RealPlayer's support staff told me the reason they haven't released anything
for FreeBSD beyond 3.0 is that there's no demand for it. How many people
have left FreeBSD and gone back to windoze or over to linux because the other
versions of these packages won't run under FreeBSD? How many people have we
lost to improper hardware detection (legal or not)? I don't wanna see FreeBSD
turn into another OS/2; more stable than the 'other' operating system but
dying because the 'other' os in more widespread use for whatever reason.
Chris' point above about the floppy and one of the responses I've seen since
then are a good example of what I'm typing about. Why should the poor user
be made to suffer 'cuze it's assumed (either right or wrong) that most people
disable the floppy in BIOS? At the very extreme, ASK THE USER don't decide
for him/her!
Vince.
--
==========================================================================
Vince Vielhaber -- KA8CSH email: vev@michvhf.com flame-mail: /dev/null
# include <std/disclaimers.h> TEAM-OS2
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