Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:57:57 +0200 From: Roman Neuhauser <neuhauser@bellavista.cz> To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: FreeBSD LIST <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.Org> Subject: Re: What do we need in a FreeBSD desktop? (was: Peter heads back to M$FT WinBloze [support groups]) Message-ID: <20020731095757.GM275@freepuppy.bellavista.cz> In-Reply-To: <20020731033658.GL17787@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <00d301c23504$9bbe0c60$0a01a8c0@mswolf> <20020726210341.N20468-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> <20020728023016.GA51076@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20020729102059.GA73294@freepuppy.bellavista.cz> <20020731033658.GL17787@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:06:58 +0930
> From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
> To: FreeBSD LIST <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.Org>
> Subject: Re: What do we need in a FreeBSD desktop? (was: Peter heads back to M$FT WinBloze [support groups])
OT side note: now i'm confused. wasn't that you with the "if you
don't reply-to-all, i might ignore your email" sig? :)
> On Monday, 29 July 2002 at 12:20:59 +0200, Roman Neuhauser wrote:
> > On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 12:00:16 +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> >
> >> The real problem I have is knowing which of the over 7,000 ports you
> >> want to install to get "basic" desktop functionality.
> >
> > yes. and this is the problem with stuff like your
> > instant-workstation port. you can't please everyone, and i dare
> > to say that any such thing will only please a tiny minority of
> > people.
>
> This is like saying that people won't use Microsoft because it pleases
> only a tiny minority of people.
i don't think so. i'd say freebsd is used by a completely different
type of people. i mean, i could install freebsd on my mother's box,
because for just irc, mail, and web, she couldn't care less. (i
haven't done so because of the fscking winmodem she bought.) but i
wouldn't certainly expect her to install it, or anything into it
later, just as she doesn't install anything into her windows (except
the occasional virus). but i might be terribly wrong here. who
knows? it's possible freebsd has quite a few users who don't know
how to install a port. :)
> > probably the reason you haven't got much feedback on the port.
>
> No, the reason I haven't had much feedback is almost certainly because
> nobody knows about it. That's the problem I mention above.
ok. another wrong assumption on my side, it would seem. i've noticed
that port some time ago, but ignored it, because it didn't fit my
needs.
> >> 2. "instant" is a misnomer, at least if you build from source. I'm
> >> building on a Dell Inspiron 7500 with a 600 MHz processor, and it
> >> takes over 12 hours.
> >
> > as suggested by someone else before, it could use packages where
> > possible,
>
> Yes, of course it does, but you still need to have the ports. The
> instant-workstation port itself really is pretty instantaneous..
>
> > but that would make it fall out of the ports system pretty much.
>
> Why?
i didn't know about the -DUSE_PACKAGES knob mentioned by someone
else in this thread, so my comment doesn't apply. i thought making a
port use packages for its dependancies would require making it
pretty "nonstandard".
> >> My questions to you: is there anything missing?
> >
> > inevitably, yes. plus there are things *i* don't use on that list.
> > shell, for example. i don't use bash. if you want to make the port
> > attractive for me, you have to let me choose my favorite shell.
>
> Nobody's stopping you. You can override anything in the port. That's
> what the Ports Collection is for. But this port is addressing a
> different kind of user.
i know. i'm just unsure whether such a port is the right start in
attracting begginers. i know you're an oldtimer, and prolly used
some variants of unix before i learned to walk; i've started using
freebsd about a year ago (?, it was 4.3 for sure), and so i
perfectly remember what kind of trouble i had. freebsd was my first
unix (barring a short suse 6.4 flirt) btw. installing software was
not the problem. i spent *weeks* trying to get various terminal
emulators behave as i wanted (^? vs ^H vs ^[3~), get this behavior
in sync with vim's expectations, get color support in mutt...
installing ports was a piece of cake compared to the other problems.
> >> Has anybody tried instant-workstation? I'd be interested in
> >> suggestions about how to improve it.
> >
> > you could perhaps abstract the installed software away into software
> > categories similar to the /usr/ports directory:
> >
> > which shell do you want to use? (ash bash tcsh ksh zsh):
> > which browser do you want to use? (...):
>
> That assumes you understand the questions and can decide which is the
> one for you.
if you assume the user of instant-workstation not to know what a
shell is, i'd vote for leaving them with (t)csh, as it's the bsd
default. linux converts can always install bash (linux convert
*will* know what a shell is, after all).
greg, don't take me wrong, please. i'm glad you're here, and i'm
glad you're trying help newcomers. i'm just trying to make sure
it'll be effective help (where the definition of "effective" is of
course based on my own experience).
--
FreeBSD 4.6-STABLE
11:24AM up 19 hrs, 8 users, load averages: 0.05, 0.07, 0.03
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