The case for FreeBSD

[Antony T Curtis]

On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 21:48 -0600, 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!

<snip>

In my opinion, I like FreeBSD's installer. So simple, no distracting
graphics, or hard-to-read text, no need for a mouse. If I was to develop
an installer for an operating system, it would be pretty similar to
sysinstall.

Perhaps the only thing that could be made better is a much simpler
step-by-step install for newbies - reduce the number of options
available and cater for the common install senerios so that the install
can be done on a clean drive with half a dozen keystrokes - but I would
definitely keep the current sysinstall for the admin who knows what s/he
wants!

-- 
Antony T Curtis, BSc.                   UNIX, Linux, *BSD, Networking
antony.t.curtis at ntlworld.com            C++, J2EE, Perl, MySQL, Apache
                                        IT Consultancy.