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Date:      Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:39:19 -0700
From:      Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To:        Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Newbie Experience
Message-ID:  <9B73D1B3-5D50-4E56-A62B-70A3A07E6B34@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <8a0028260609111215y6c3cdd82tda51f1e1d333ddd3@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <000001c6d520$292f6700$0c01a8c0@DELL8400> <a25afc300609111014g767be5e7s37eaf2be923d64d6@mail.gmail.com> <8a0028260609111215y6c3cdd82tda51f1e1d333ddd3@mail.gmail.com>

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On Sep 11, 2006, at 12:15 PM, Jeff Rollin wrote:
> Discussions like these leave me lost for words...

Perhaps, although it seems you recovered quickly.  :-)

> Which is to say, apart from the occasional bug I really don't see  
> what the
> problem is with sysinstall.

Credits: It's highly functional.  It can configure a lot of things  
about a FreeBSD system, either during or after the installation of  
the system.  It's CLI/remote-serial-console friendly.

Debits: It's oriented towards technical people.  People who don't  
understand computers well in general, and the details of disk layouts  
in particular, tend to get hopelessly confused.  Not only do they  
usually not know how to access the help inside sysinstall, many times  
the help text is not available, or is not comprehensible unless you  
have the already-mentioned technical background.

Fortunately, the outstanding docs available for FreeBSD do a lot to  
walk people through the process, even novices.  Unfortunately, people  
want to use computers without having to read the docs.  Just ask your  
mom/grandparents/etc.  :-)

> To me it's the best thing this side of YaST for
> getting (certain areas of) system administration done. (Yeah, I  
> know a lot
> of you probably hate YaST in particular or Linux in general...

Why would you think that?  I'd imagine that most of the people using  
FreeBSD end up having a Linux box or two around for one reason or  
another.

As for YaST, well, whatever gets the job done.  It reminds me a bit  
too much of SMIT from AIX, or perhaps cPanel or Webmin, but other  
people seem to prefer such interfaces to a CLI prompt.

-- 
-Chuck




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