From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 1 16:08:39 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7304516A4CE for ; Wed, 1 Dec 2004 16:08:39 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail1.speakeasy.net (mail1.speakeasy.net [216.254.0.201]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E0A343D2D for ; Wed, 1 Dec 2004 16:08:39 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Received: (qmail 24174 invoked from network); 1 Dec 2004 16:08:39 -0000 Received: from dsl027-160-063.atl1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO server.baldwin.cx) ([216.27.160.63]) (envelope-sender ) encrypted SMTP for ; 1 Dec 2004 16:08:38 -0000 Received: from qa4379.itdev.weather.com (gw1.twc.weather.com [216.133.140.1]) (authenticated bits=0) by server.baldwin.cx (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iB1G8Sb5096665; Wed, 1 Dec 2004 11:08:34 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 10:50:43 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 References: <20041129024602.GA23324@turingmachine.mentalsiege.net> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <200412011050.43955.jhb@FreeBSD.org> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on server.baldwin.cx cc: Dag-Erling =?iso-8859-1?q?Sm=F8rgrav?= cc: "Jason C. Wells" Subject: Re: The beastie boot menu. X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:08:39 -0000 On Tuesday 30 November 2004 08:09 pm, Jason C. Wells wrote: > --On Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:28 AM +0100 Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav > > wrote: > > "Jason C. Wells" writes: > >> The beastie menu is just another level of complexity. It has very > >> little to do with anything. I had to learn about Forth in order to > >> figure out how to turn it off. > > > > You can't have learned much if you think > > > ># echo 'beastie_disable=3D"YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf > > > > has anything to do with Forth. > > The point was that the boot menu doesn't add anything to the usability and > that in at least one case, it was an unwelcome distraction. The deletion > of the menu is of little significance to regular users. I didn't even kn= ow > such a thing existed until I recently did my first work on the console in > several years. In fact, I haven't even looked to see if my remaining 4X > boxes have this menu. If I would have done my upgrade to 5X yesterday > rather than a month ago, I would never have known that the darned thing > ever appeared in the system. > > It's just not important, not even to regular users. The claim that FreeB= SD > is not suitable to regular users because the beastie menu is gone is sill= y. You must not have any systems where ACPI or the APIC support is broken. Fo= r=20 people with those issues and those of us who work with them to debug those= =20 issues, the menu was a large step forward in usability. For my personal te= st=20 machines I simply added 'beastie_disable=3DYES' to /boot/loader.conf. Not = a=20 major deal to turn it off if you don't want it. =2D-=20 John Baldwin <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve" =3D http://www.FreeBSD.org