FreeBSD Installation Horror

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Sebastian
> Reichelt
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 6:56 AM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: FreeBSD Installation Horror
>
>
> Now I got the CD from someone else, and finally the installation went
> well. It would still have been nice if all the things I described had
> just worked. I was able to install Debian without any problems, even
> though I didn't have any Unix experience at all. Compared to that, the
> FreeBSD installation should have been a piece of cake for me now. If I
> have to spend several days on it, I think a normal computer would give
> up without getting very far.
>

FreeBSD isn't written for normal computer users.  It's not deliberately
written to be difficult, but it simply is difficult for normal users,
in the same way that a Formula 1 race car would be rather difficult for
your mother to drive, I'd wager.

If you put the effort and time into it you will learn a lot and get many
benefits.  However most normal computer users don't want to put a lot of
time into a computer, they just want it to "work" meaning work in
whatever
definition of work that they have for a computer.  Many of the Linux
distributions have chosen to make a special effort to cater to these
people, and that is fine for them.  FreeBSD has chosen not to make a
special effort to cater to this group, and that is fine too.  You as
a user need to choose which approach you want to take and use the
appropriate operating system for that approach.

> Anyway, trying to establish a PPP connection still crashes the entire
> system. Actually, it's probably the serial port driver: It
> also crashes
> when I just do:
> echo "Hello" >/dev/cuaa0

What is your dmesg output?  The above should not crash the computer.

Ted