The case for FreeBSD
Joshua Tinnin
krinklyfig at spymac.com
Tue Feb 8 04:21:39 GMT 2005
On Monday 07 February 2005 07:48 pm, supraexpress at globaleyes.net wrote:
> One of the main "stumbling blocks" to using FreeBSD is the
> installation process. I have had "lots of fun" (not!) with NetBSD's
> line-mode/shell-script "installer" and confusing companion
> installation instructions, in the past; I only tried OpenBSD once and
> don't remember anything about its installation process, but I seem to
> recall that it was similar to NetBSD's; FreeBSD's 'DOS-like menu'
> system is a travisty and IS PROBABLY THE ONE THING THAT TURNS OFF
> MORE PROSPECTIVE FBSD USERS THAN ANYTHING ELSE - I know - I have
> heard!
Well, this may be true, but I dunno, I had less problems installing
FreeBSD than many Linux distros, and I found the process less
confusing. It has nothing to do with graphics, at least not for me. A
good installation from the end-user perspective doesn't necessarily
need a GUI installer, unless that's your market, and even then, a
text-based installation can be designed in a way that is less confusing
than most GUI installations. UI designers are really dealing with
interfaces, and text is just another interface. It can be made less
cryptic, but, personally, I found it pretty easy to use, at least for
all its reputation. And, really, do UNIX admins want this? You might
risk frustrating them, and AFAIK that's the primary user-base right
now.
I think what would help users is a better way to configure xorg/XFree86,
and a GUI would help in that case, but that's almost an entirely
different issue.
The *one* issue I have with the installation is that creating
user-defined slices during the process is not clear at all. I have
never been successful doing this. I end up going with the defaults and
re-slice later, out of frustration. For some reason my changes never
"take," and I'm stuck watching the installation fail, instead of being
warned that there is nothing to write to - this is actually odd
behavior, as I would expect some major "ARE YOU SURE?" type message if
you don't have any writable slices mounted and you try to install. I am
not a *nix guru, but I've installed many distros of Linux and haven't
had this issue with them (however, many don't have default settings, so
the fact that FreeBSD does is nice).
- jt
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