Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 22:36:50 +1000 From: "Doug Young" <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au> To: "Stefan Parvu" <sparvu@cc.hut.fi> Cc: "Kris Kennaway" <kris@obsecurity.org>, "Rahul Siddharthan" <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, "Kathy Quinlan" <katinka@magestower.com>, "Sue Blake" <sue@welearn.com.au>, "N6REJ" <n6rej@tcsn.net>, <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: I'm leaving Message-ID: <016d01c0dba9$62e67400$0300a8c0@oracle> References: <Pine.OSF.4.10.10105131454300.24647-100000@alpha.hut.fi>
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> "default GUI install" is a subject to discuss. In my oppinion is not a > good idea because: > I don't have any experience with XFree because personally I've never found a need for it, however I believe there is a demand (well considered or otherwise) for an explicit HOWTO that assists those who do wish to configure GUI . I have no doubt I could produce documentation infinitely more suited to the non-experts attempting to do this than the "official" documentation folk, however I don't know if its worth the time and trouble. ..... which is what I'll decide over the next day or two based on feedback to this thread > 1. The core OS should be simple and simple to install. No GUI for that. > Make a comparations between Solaris, OpenBSD, Microsoft, Linux RedHat, > Suse. Time it and think again. As well look to the complexity of GUI > Install stuff. > I wish everything in life was as easy as a Solaris / SCO CDE install !! Its obviously "possible" to build a unix GUI installer that works properly so whats wrong with the XFree one anyway that it causes so much trouble for so many people ?? Even if its too much to expect from open source developers its gotta be possible to document the process properly (meaning explicitly) so that non-expert users with the "correct" hardware can get some sort of X running without tearing hair out & with reasonable resolution etc > 2. The text mode is really cool. Is fast and it's simple. No extra effort. > No argument about that .... the command line setup certainly does the job extremely well for those using the operating system purely as a server, but there is a whole bunch of people out there who believe the main purpose of computers is to run stuff like Doom / Quake / whatever or to play MP3s. I wish you the best of British luck in convincing these people to do whatever they want using purely command line. If this was taken to its logical extreme one could ask whats the point of cluttering up the FreeBSD CDs with all the XFree 3.x / XFree 4.x / KDE / Gnome / etc stuff if its not expected that anyone will actually want to use the stuff ?? Maybe someone should suggest that FreeBSD drop all pretensions about having GUI support ?? > 3. No problems with video cards or VESA generic mode. Keep it simple. For > what do you need install GUI ??? Comfort ? Help for new users ??? > Me ?? ..... possibly / probably none, although I have stumbled across the odd application that claimed to have some form of config GUI. I've never been able to investigate those things so it might be worth the effort sometime. One never knows though, I might even use a GUI FreeBSD / Netscape system instead of a Solaris one for browsing if it was possible to configure the thing without having to engage in battle for weeks :) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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