Ways to promote FreeBSD?

[Freddie Cash]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
<m.e.sanliturk at gmail.com> wrote:
> My opinion is that most important obstacle in front of FreeBSD is its
> installation structure :
>
> It is NOT possible to install and use a FreeBSD distribution directly as it
> is .
>
> In Linux distributions , when a distribution is installed , the user , NOT
> root , can use its facilities WITHOUT setting a ( large ) number of parameters
> which it is approximately ZERO .
>
> Contrary to this , when a FreeBSD is installed , an ordinary user can NOT
> use USB , CD/DVD , etc. , and even key board / mouse in X without setting
> MANY parameters in MANY files ( loder.conf , rc.conf , etc. ) .
>
> This point is a very important difficulty for the beginners and a really
> very tiring for experienced users .

And that's a good thing.  :)  It forces people to learn.  And it
allows people to create the system *they* need, instead of being
forced to use the system "the project" thinks everyone needs.

We spend a good 2-3 hours customising Ubuntu Server and Debian Linux
installs to make them work they way *we* want them to, with the
software *we* want, and the configurations *we* need.  Most of that
time is spent undoing all the "helpful" abstractions that
Ubuntu/Debian devs think make life simpler (and they do, *IF* you use
a GUI to manage things, but CLI users are left in the cold).  Just
look at the horrible mess that is GRUB2 configuration on
Ubuntu/Debina, with shell script snippets spread through 4 different
directories.  Great for GUI tools to parse and update, but a royal
pain for CLI users.

Compared to FreeBSD where you get a nice, barebones system where we
spend some time *building up* the system we want, instead of tearing
down/removing excess crud.

The beauty of FreeBSD as well, is that there are other projects that
build on FreeBSD to create
super-simple-easy-to-use-ready-from-the-word-go setups, like PC-BSD.
:)

> With a more than FORTY years of computing experience , my idea about PC-BSD
> is that it is "complete failure" and mentioning it in front of FreeBSD is
> only to create another obstacle for it .

Everything you rant about is covered by PC-BSD ... yet, you don't want
PC-BSD.  :)

> Trouble for PC-BSD is that , for me , it is an untested ( as even as a
> simple installation on a bare hardware ) distribution .

Considering how long it's been used by various people around the
world, I would hardly call PC-BSD "untested".  Maybe it's time to fire
up a VM and try it?  You may be pleasantly surprised that everything
you are complaining about is there, ready and waiting for you to click
on it.


> Thank you very much .
>
> Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
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-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash at gmail.com