Brilliant and very useful for FreeBSD, IMHO

[Are-Harald Brenne]

On Sun, 6 Apr 2003 19:21:11 -0700
John Martinez <rolnif at mac.com> wrote:
...
> But what 
> about somebody who can't configure X11 if their life depended on it? 
> Right now, the uninitiated shy away and go to Linux for their 
> "alternative" to the big one from Redmond. It's mainly because the GUI > starts up at the beginning.
...
> I'm not saying that FreeBSD doesn't make a good desktop. I'm just 
> saying that certain aspects of it need to be changed in order for it to 
> get broader acceptance.

I think relatively small changes in the intallation procedure could help _a_lot_. Everything is there, it just needs to be easier to install and set up.

I recon one of the main competitive advantages of free operating systems is the (potential) ability to install all programs needed by the user 'out of the box' in half an hour. This is something MS Windows will never do. Currently FreeBSD doesn't take advantage of this.

FreeBSD will not in the foreseeable future compete with Linux-based OS's in terms of hardware compatibility and games/multimedia use. But making FreeBSD easier to adapt for desktop/home use will attract more users.

Cheers,
Are-Harald