Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:07:02 -0400 From: Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <m.e.sanliturk@gmail.com> To: Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists@tx.rr.com> Cc: Jason Hsu <jhsu802701@jasonhsu.com>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Best way to switch from Linux to BSD Message-ID: <AANLkTimd1wjrq=agcMzyRzx_G7sFFU7TxNkEFWCi3cai@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <BBACD46824C753B5B2F3BD83@utd71538.local> References: <20110329013223.ddca7453.jhsu802701@jasonhsu.com> <BBACD46824C753B5B2F3BD83@utd71538.local>
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On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists@tx.rr.com>wr=
ote:
> --On March 29, 2011 1:32:23 AM -0400 Jason Hsu <jhsu802701@jasonhsu.com>
> wrote:
>
>
...
>
>> 4. What are the Linux Mint and Puppy Linux of the BSD universe? I
>> consider these two distros to set the standard in the Linux universe,
>> because they're so user-friendly. These are the distros I've set out to
>> compete against in developing Swift Linux.
>>
>
> FreeBSD is first and foremost a server OS. Desktop support is lacking wh=
en
> compared to the other major OSes (Windows, Mac and Linux). You can make =
it
> work, if you want to, but that's not what its primary function is.
>
> If you want a user friendly desktop OS, FreeBSD is probably not your best
> choice.
>
> --
> Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
> As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
> are my own and not those of my employer.
>
Business of an operating system is to manage the resources of the computer
hardware and execute suitably written user programs whatever the subjects o=
f
those programs are .
Therefore distinguishing between =C2=A8Server Operating System=C2=A8 and =
=C2=A8Desktop
Operating System=C2=A8 is an artificial discrimination which these may be
attributed to configuration parameters .
If a so-called =C2=A8operating system=C2=A8 lacks any capability to manage =
either of
these parts ( hardware and software ) , it is my opinion that =C2=A8operati=
ng
system=C2=A8 is not a proper name for it .
When we consider the FreeBSD from point of view of operating systems , it i=
s
a wonderful operating system .
Then what is the trouble which is not widely adopted for desktop usage and
actually by super computers ?
In my opinion , it is the default installation configuration .
The attitude for default configuration seems to make it restrictive against
easy use as much as possible .
The wrong point is ( that design decision ) that make it unusable by the
inexperienced or first time users .
During its design of user interface the above fact is not taken into
consideration very much ( with respect to my opinion ) .
Please do NOT take my ideas against the FreeBSD developers . These ideas ar=
e
expressed just to illuminate difficulties and discuss possible remedies .
When a point is difficult for a computer engineer with more than forty year=
s
of computing experience , please think its level of difficulty .
During install , it is possible to ask whether that computer will be used b=
y
multiple users or a single user which this fact is asked explicitly BUT not
utilized sufficiently :
Questions and answers by the installer :
Will be NSF server ? NO .
Will be NSF client ? NO .
Will be FTP server ? NO .
Will be GATEWAY ? NO .
etc.
All the information about whether the computer will be used as a server or =
a
desktop computer is given by the above answers . Therefore , it is VERY EAS=
Y
to select installed configuration files with respect to the answers to the
above questions :
For the server : Very restrictive settings , because server administrators
need high level of security ,
For the single user : Very permissive settings for the user land , because
single users need easy usage ,
but very restrictive settings for the root
related parts to prevent malicious software
invasion .
The point is very clear :
The computer is belong to me :
I can crash it ,
I can destroy it ,
I can throw it to fire , and
the worst case , I can insert another operating system installer and
completely erase FreeBSD on it ,
BUT I can NOT auto mount a USB stick ( which is possible to do it since
1998 in Windows ) ,
I can NOT auto mount a DVD/CD ( which is possible , perhaps it
started with first Windows in 1995 ) ,
although such operations are also possible in FreeBSD always .
Then , it is not possible to understand why FreeBSD is isolating itself fro=
m
society .
To see the amount of adoption , please consider the following web site
( in my opinion even it is not necessary to look elsewhere for level of
adoption because from Central Limit Theorem of Statistics , we can conclude
that a sample size of 500 is a complete representative of whole universe
) :
http://www.top500.org/
At the right top of its page , there is a Statistics part .
>From its ( Statistics Type ) part select ( Operating System Family ) and
click Generate :
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/osf<http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36=
/osfam>
For 11/2011 among top 500 super computers :
Linux 459
Windows 5
Unix 19
BSD based 1 : OpenSolaris
Mixed 16 .
>From its ( Statistics Type ) part select ( Processor Family ) and click
Generate :
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/procfam
Power 40
Nec 1
Sparc 1
Intel IA-64 5 : Itanium
Intel EMT64T 392 : amd64 in FreeBSD
AMD x86_64 57 : amd64 in FreeBSD
Intel Core 1 : i386 or amd64 in FreeBSD
Others 2
I am NOT against Linux or any other operating system , but my concern is
when a very high technology is available in FreeBSD , why it is NOT used
extensively which it is sure that it is useful for society .
Then , what may be the solutions :
Instead of pursuing a solid rock Handbook , please include a facility on
each page to get opinions , questions of users about information given in
that page , and link these responses to TODO pages , to track problems .
These opinions or questions will be more informal with respect to problem
reports .
When the SVN is inspected , in some directories there are man pages along
with the corresponding programs .
My impression is that each program of the operating system does not have
such pairs . For the missing pairs , move man pages into the respective
directories and always update man pages when the respective programs are
updated to keep man pages as synchronized .
Some man pages are really very cryptic which is not possible to understand
them . In the ( man page ) display pages of the FreeBSD web site , allow
user opinions and questions to be entered and link these to man page TODO
lists .
In the same way , distribute all of the respective Handbook pages into
program directories , and update them with the programs along with man page=
s
. Some Handbook pages may be directly generated form man pages by combining
the Handbook page and the man page . This will reduce maintenance
requirements .
The quality of the Handbook is very high ( and very good ) . This makes it
difficult to maintain .
Allow simple tutorial pages to be linked and included into Handbook to
supply application case studies , etc.
At present , these pages are scattered all over the internet and many of
them are related to older versions which they are useful for users of these
older versions , but new versions do not have respective tutorials . A new
user will obviously start from the latest release without having
sufficiently available tutorials .
The Handbook is NOT a sufficiently detailed tutorial book which its purpos=
e
is NOT to be such a detailed tutorial book . It is necessary to enrich it b=
y
supplying tutorial page links to its pages which these pages should be
stored into FreeBSD servers to protect them from frequent disappearing or
modification cases of web sites .
Allow people to submit plain text files for possible inclusion into Handboo=
k
to be used by other ( developers or committers ) to utilize as starting
parts as to be formatted . Every possible contributor may not know SGML
sufficiently well .
During installation distinguish between server related settings and single
user related settings , and select installed configuration files with
respect to this structure .
It is very obvious that any solution attempt requires human time and
monetary allocations .
There is a problem : egg from chicken ,
chicken from egg .
A few months ago , www.wikipedia.org collected more than 15 million dollars
by a contribution help campaign with participants reaching to approximately
2 million ( if I remember correctly ) persons with average contribution
level around 10 dollars . Last year , their need was around 7 million
dollars .
If it is possible , such campaigns may be arranged yearly by the FreeBSD
Foundation to cover development costs . I believe in that FreeBSD is used
mainly in servers and owners of these servers will participate such
campaigns because outcome will be directly usable by them . The single user
persons need a very easily usable highly secure operating systems ,
therefore they also wish to support the FreeBSD development because their
contributions will return to themselves as more high quality operating
system .
Thank you very much with my best wishes for FreeBSD developers and its user=
s
( with the rest of humanity ) .
Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
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