Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:30:07 -0600 (MDT) From: Atipa <freebsd@atipa.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: Peter Korsten <peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Conclusion to "NT vs. Unix" debate Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970901185834.4198B-100000@dot.ishiboo.com> In-Reply-To: <5354.873063267@time.cdrom.com>
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> I also noted this MANY times in the various mailing lists and cast my > nets far and wide for some better GUI development environment that > didn't depend on X (which you can't really do if you're writing an > installer for someone who might be installing a rack-mounted PC using > a serial line and a VT100 terminal). Until I finally stumbled onto > Turbovision 5 months ago, there was nothing, zilch, nada, and all the > Windows advocates yelling for better GUIs were absolutely no help at > all - all talk and no code from them. I do not see an X option being entirely evil. I certainly agree that X should not be a requirement, but it may not be a bad idea for a CD-ROM release. It appears entrirely feasible to have a (bootable? :)) CD-ROM with a minimal X release read-only on the media. I am not aware of any cards that do not support the XFree86 vga16 driver. Conceivably, the bootable CD-ROM could be its own OS, designed to format, copy, and configure. It could be a modular environment that would only need to be designed once. The down side would be the space required. I don't see a good way to have an X-based install without either a CD filesystem or root on NFS. I would suggest this a an ammendment, and not a replacement for sysinstall. For various reasons, sysinstall still has its place. The menus take a bit of getting used to, but they work, and they work fast. I personally like a slim install utility and would continue to use sysinstall. But I also see the need for a consistent, homogenous, and "retail boxed" front end to an exteremly valuable piece of work. There needs to be a balance between the internals and externals. The internals are what ultimately influence performance, capability, and reliability. The externals are required for marketing, user-friendliness, and sex appeal. If I had to choose between an internally focused OS (eg FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.) and an externally focused OS (eg Win95, MacOS), I would obviously take the former. But who says you can't have both? I see the key as being a CHOICE. Have the internals solid, and let the individual decide what type of externals to apply. Neither FreeBSD or MS does a good job at this; BSD does not provide lots of GUIs, and MS has no way around it! Kevin
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