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Date:      Mon, 14 Apr 1997 16:31:07 +0800 (WST)
From:      Adrian Chadd <adrian@obiwan.aceonline.com.au>
To:        Alex Belits <abelits@phobos.illtel.denver.co.us>
Cc:        jbryant@tfs.net, dennis <dennis@etinc.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Commercial vendors registry (well, kind of...)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970414161257.1289B-100000@obiwan.aceonline.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970413203337.6395A-100000@phobos.illtel.denver.co.us>

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> > Case in point...  Lin[s]ux...  Ten-Twenty different versions, bad
> > networking, even worse VM...  Vendors love it!!  Why?  Hmmmm...
>

Why has Linux grown so quickly? :)

Because ..

(IMHO everywhere here :)

Firstly, Linux was very VERY alpha when Linus released it, and it was very
hackable. Lots of people loved it. In fact, its still like that. The thing
with Linux is there is just tons and tons of "unofficial" patches that do
all kinds of nasty things.

Secondly - its everywhere now. Developers want their product pushed out to
as many people as possible. Linux is far more popular for the "average"
user than FreeBSD is.

Why?

Cause linux (again, remember its all IMHO) is a lot more "user-friendly".

Look at it from a non-technical point of view.

In the distributions of Linux I've seen, there are a lot of friendly
scripts to reconfigure your networking, your mail setup, hell even an X
configuration tool to build your kernel! 

Serious users would whisper "bloat".

Novice users would whisper "easy".

Again, yes I have used both Linux *and* FreeBSD. I use both right now, on
quite large multi-multi-user-servers.

In fact, I was a total Linux head and didn't like the look of FreeBSD
until I was more clueful about programming, networking, stuff like that.

Trouble is, that isn't what your "typical" user wants.

Suggestion - in the "novice" setup in sysinstall, how about having like a
select set of packages and whatnot to make a 'user-friendly' system?

Eg when you install X, it doesn't install twm (come on, most users look at
that and barf), instead say fvwm2 with a slightly customized fvwmrc file
to make it more 'friendly' ? Then other nice tools like xv, xpaint, maybe
a couple of small games, and they are all in the fvwm menu.

Next - making "bash" the default user shell. Before you bite my head off,
think about it :) It is a lot more friendly than csh, has command line
completion, history, and to be honest, linux comes with it too. People
switching wouldn't be too confused (I know I was).

I'll drop the colour-ls plug as well :)


I'll stop now cause you are all probably ready to lart me with great
enthusiasm, but just put yourself in newbie-shoes and think what its like
to install FreeBSD, and then configure it. Then "change" its
configuration. Then build a kernel. Sure, you'll say "read the docs", but
then how many people *READ* the manual before installing something? (Count
the emails on the lists of people who do, see what I mean..)

FYI one of the things I dislike about installing Linux is it installs a
lot of "bloat" that I don't need (like the friendly config stuff :) I like
FreeBSD cause it doesn't have it, and it would be better IMHO if FreeBSD
had both options.

Cya

Adrian





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