Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 10:49:34 -0800 From: Brian Raynes <brian_raynes@dnr.state.ak.us> To: Jeremiah Gowdy <jeremiah@sherline.com>, freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: time to step up to the SMP plate? Message-ID: <3B70383E.E34C7D7@dnr.state.ak.us> References: <002601c11f36$4b0b2080$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <005001c11f4c$2409eb90$aa240018@cx443070b>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> > To: "j mckitrick" <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org>; "Terry Lambert" > <tlambert2@mindspring.com> > Cc: "Wes Peters" <wes@softweyr.com>; <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> > Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 4:44 AM > Subject: RE: time to step up to the SMP plate? > > > This gives rise to some interesting permutations in the software. > > For example, everyone criticizes sysinstall and would love a GUI > > installer - but nobody can possibly justify the effort of throwing > > out a program that you basically use ONCE then toss aside. > > To isolate a single point, how can people be critical of sysinstall ? > Certainly from a text base 'GUI' standpoint, some things could be improved, > but jeez, look at OpenBSD and to a point NetBSD. At least NetBSD has some > nice little dialog boxes. OpenBSD's installer is a complete joke. A joke > that isn't funny. I've always wished they'd realize what the BSD license is > and just _take_ sysinstall and use it for their installer. The same with > the FreeBSD boot loader (ever try multi-booting OpenBSD ?). I agree about sysinstall. From a newbie, strictly user perspective, it's plenty easy to use. Adding fancy graphics will not make understanding network setup or package selection any easier than it currently is. Even Windows requires you to know these things for TCP/IP networking - there is no avoiding _some_ know-how for networking. You really don't have to come up with true GUI to make a graphical disk formatting/ disklabel setup. That's the only thing I've noticed that might be made easier for a newbie install with a more graphical, intuitive approach. But as you said, that's a tweak more than a complete overhaul (at least from an interface point of view, I've read Jordan's comments about what hell the code is, and I will have to take his word for it - but that's really a separate issue). Regarding OpenBSD, it was the first BSD installer that I actually completed a successful install with. It is a bit sparse, but OpenBSD aims for a very minimum initial install, with most of the other chores done afterwards using guidance from the FAQ and man pages. That's not wholly newbie friendly and may be a bit time consuming even if you know how, but when I got done, it did exactly what I wanted it to do, and nothing more or less. I really appreciated that, actually. I know it's because of my lack of experience, but FreeBSD installs always seem to do a little more for me than I expected, causing error messages that I don't yet know how to fix or am not quite ready to deal with yet. It's ok, though, since the system still generally works and I will eventually get things like NFS setup the rest of the way. But I thought that statement about the OpenBSD installer needed an alternative point of view. In the end, I actually did better working through OpenBSD's more manual approach, because I knew as I went, exactly what everything was doing and why. I wouldn't be bothered at all if both FreeBSD and OpenBSD made both of their methods of install an option. Your comment about their bootloader might on target (if I ever get around to learning programming in C, I'll jump right on it:) ). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3B70383E.E34C7D7>