From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 4 20:23:25 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31D3C1065677 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2012 20:23:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from newmail.codefab.com (rrcs-24-103-228-244.nyc.biz.rr.com [24.103.228.244]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF0228FC21 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2012 20:23:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by newmail.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7474811ECA853; Sun, 4 Mar 2012 15:06:12 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at codefab.com Received: from newmail.codefab.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (staging.codefab.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id PEHptC8Npv7q; Sun, 4 Mar 2012 15:06:11 -0500 (EST) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-71-190-66-124.nycmny.east.verizon.net [71.190.66.124]) by newmail.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DB39E11ECA83D; Sun, 4 Mar 2012 15:06:06 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <4F53CB2A.4070901@mac.com> Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:06:02 -0500 From: Chuck Swiger User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/10.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: jb , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: PC-BSD on top of FreeBSD - does it matter ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:23:25 -0000 On 3/4/2012 3:27 AM, jb wrote: > But ..., the charm disappeared when I (intentionally ?) pulled ethernet plug > and started update manager ... The system went into some twilight zone, making > the desktop unresponsive, from which I could not recover, even by trying to > kill offending processes I had no clue about as a first time user. Unusable. Well, if all you wanted to do was browse the web, and you disable your network connection, then yeah, that's unusable for the purpose. If you couldn't do other things local to the system aside from this update manager, that's a different issue. [ ... ] > A few days ago I read this, from a good, minimum-functional-tests-must-pass, > some wit but no-nonsense reviewer: > http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pc-bsd-9.html > Well, "Radioactive", "The shortest experience ever!". > > Does it matter to FreeBSD ? That's a very good question. There are lots of people who are looking for turnkey / "no docs needed" systems, with "give me simplified choices" but "handle obvious errors with a nice dialog window or fix-it 'wizard'", instead of requiring CLI sysadmin experience, reading error logs, and running diagnostic commands to fix things. The usability testing done by you and this dedoimedo reviewer would seem to be best addressed by a wireless-oriented device (maybe with a GNU/Linuxish userland providing bash and screen) such as an Android fondleslab. I suspect that the folks who define usability by such criteria are not using FreeBSD (or PC-BSD) at all, or they quickly evaluate it and then move on at the first major showstopper they come across. Regards, -- -Chuck