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Date:      Wed, 1 Dec 1999 19:45:22 +0100
From:      Szilveszter Adam <sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>
To:        freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Some Observations
Message-ID:  <19991201194522.A5515@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>
In-Reply-To: <384557D8.ECEF0BDD@math.udel.edu>; from schwenk@math.udel.edu on Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 12:16:08PM -0500
References:  <384557D8.ECEF0BDD@math.udel.edu>

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Hi!

Just some personal opinion on this...
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 12:16:08PM -0500, Peter Schwenk wrote:
> I've recently switched back to FreeBSD 3.3 on my home computer (P5/233,
> 64MB, 9GB UWSCSI HD, Symbios Logic 875 host adapter, SoundBlaster 64AWE,
> IDE CDROM and Zip drives) after using RedHat Linux 6.x for several
> months.  As a little background on myself, I'm a system administrator by
> trade that's familiar with Solaris, which is Sys V-style UNIX.  I've
> been using both FreeBSD and Linux (Slackware, then RedHat) at home and
> work for roughly five years.  I still consider myself a newbie.  I also
> consider myself to be a software consumer, not a hacker.  I'm a Walnut
> Creek FreeBSD subscriber since mid-2.2.x.

Well, I have been a PC user since I went to High School, which is less than
10 years ago. (Earlier there were virtually no PCs available in Hungary)
Before that I used the legendary Commodore 64. My background is not
computer-related and not even scientific: I am a law student. (*grin*)
I have used various Windows variants from the 3.x and 9.x branch and also NT
and had some (user) experience with Red Hat and Debian Linux. So my
experince is nothing compared to yours. 

> Right now, it seems that the assumption is the software will be used on
> a server without a GUI.  I think this alienates a bunch of new users.
> For example, xdm is turned off by default.  Most people coming from
> other OSs expect a graphical login and a GUI to be immediately
> available.

When I first installed FreeBSD, (3.1, BTW) I was surprised to see how easy
the process was. My friends here at the dorm were amazed when I told them
that after only 2 hours the whole system including X was up and running. (I
did an ftp install, that's why it took this much) I very much appreciated
the hand-holding I received during the setup process. It was much better
than, say the Debian install program, which is sometimes very hard to figure
out. As for graphical logins, well that is gainig acceptance, although I do
not know what happens when the autodetection of the video card fails (it is
getting more and more rare, admittedly) and therefore the X server cannot be
configured correctly. What does the install do then? (I do not know) When I
installed RH way back, it did not recognize my S3 Virge GX2 card and
therefore started asking all sorts of questions that a newbie for sure will
not be able to answer like "What is your RAMDAC type?" etc. I think it is
much better to do system setup first and fiddle with X afterwards because
that way if something goes wrong you already have a running system from
where you can send email to a mailing list or read a HOWTO. 

Also I do not
find it to be a good idea if a user gets the idea that a GUI is part of
the OS. IMHO It is not (although I saw the differing opinions on /.
recently) and it never was until M$ put their WM in kernel mode "for
performance reasons". Here in Hungary almost everybody started off using DOS
and Win 3.x so they do not have this disbelief and are much less offended by
the command line. In fact Norton Commander and its DOS clones are the
favorite File Managers even on Win98 systems today here. So while having a
GUI is nice to start with, it is not essential. If you are prepared what to
expect than you will not find this a problem. I did grow to like CLI so much
that I do not leave it whole day long but only to see picture files or to
start up the Real Player which does not have CL mode:-(


> 
> When compared with RedHat Linux 6.x, FreeBSD makes it much more
> difficult for newbie users to use removeable media.  I tried both the
[SNIP] You suggest this might be a Gnome or KDE issue.

No, it is not. It is a matter of having "users" in the /etc/fstab entries
for floppy drives etc by default. the icons can be installed later:-) I know 
that this
might be strange to someone who came from Windows, but you can get used to
this as well. If the SA feels he/she can trust the local users to use their
floppies etc then the entry can be added to fstab. But it is best left to
the SA to decide. Otherwise we would slowly but surely end up where WinNT
did, being rather useable out of the box, but as a member of CdC put it, you
have to do those 450 minor modifications to your default install just to
make it reasonably secure. I have not seen any place where all of them 
would have
been done on every box running NT. (This does not pertain to faulty
software which is a differnt story, this is just configuration and 
lax defaults.) Also I am aware that eg Caldera OpenLinux goes even further
by automatically mounting and unmounting these media as they are inserted
and ejected. Good idea but I cannot wait to see the first message of the
type: "The system needs the floppy No 5644646456, please put it into the
drive and press OK" They were so much of a nuisance under Win...but again
this is just me, maybe me only...

> I'm going to keep FreeBSD on my home system for a while longer, just to
> see if I can work out some of the ease-of-use issues.  This system is
> used by my wife and I, and I found I needed to do less explaining on how
> to do things when I had RedHat Linux on it.  This being a home system
> and my being a software consumer not prone to tinkering, RedHat Linux is
> looking like a better option.  This is a downer because a lot of the
[SNIP]
Well, my most frequent observation in this area is this:

If someone buys a new TV set they will at least hastily read the Manual, at
least the first pages. If someone wants to use an OS, they expect it to be
useable without learning. Strange, eh? Most have never read a book about
Windows either but that is OK because many are forced to use PCs at work etc
when they do not want to so they do not learn it. But nobody forces you to
choose Linux or *BSD... so I think what people should do is do a little more
perusal of the excellent docs that both Linux and the *BSD projects provide,
including FAQs, websites etc that you can use even without installing the
system first. This is often a problem with English-speaking people, what should
others say who may not have the OS and docs translated into their mother tongue
while Windows usually *IS* available...without trying to understand how
things work, it will not lead very far... I am not saying you have to be
expert on this (I could not use a PC then:-) but you can and therefore
should go further than just
"I-click-that-huge-button-just-to-see-what-it-does"...

I think the FreeBSD project and esp Jordan who is taking care of the
installer went to great lenghts to make things easy for newbies and
enjoyable to experienced users alike. I would like to say thanks to him and
everybody who at any point has worked on this wonderful product. I myself
would like to donate some docs to the project but right now we have exam
sessions giong on so this is not a good time to do it, but I always get sad
when I see that people do not read them and ask the most basic "How do I
trun on the PC" type questions on (often wrong) mailing lists...

> 
> I would be interested to see what you folks in this mailing-list think
> of my opinions.
Well, here it is... Sorry if I had been very long...and sorry for offending
anyone, it was not my intent...

Cheers:

Szilveszter ADAM

-- 
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* Szilveszter ADAM * JATE Szeged * email: sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu *
* Homepage : none * alternate email: cc@flanker.itl.net.ua *
* Finger sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu for PGP key. *
* I prefer using the door instead of Windows(tm)... *            


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