Future of FreeBSD 7.0 and up

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On Feb 28, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Dwight Smith wrote:

> I guess my question is that will the ease of building or installing  
> software for FreeBSD ever streamline to where you do not have to do  
> as many steps and text config file entries?

I've recently moved back to BSD from more than a decade of linux.   
What I found most frustrating about the Linux distributions I've used  
is the multiple layers of configuration tools.  There never seemed to  
be a single layer at which I could do everything, and these layers of  
admin tools would step on other layers.

So for me, editing text config files is a great relief.  But tastes  
differ.

While it took me a few days to get my head round the system, I find  
software installation though ports more pleasant on FreeBSD then I  
ever did with Linux RPMs.

So, I can only speak for myself and without much new experience with  
FreeBSD (I had used NetBSD back in 1996), but I find the software  
installation and configuration steps easier under FreeBSD.

But maybe I and most other FreeBSD users are unusual.  I've used  
apache from back when it was NCSA; so for me the apache configuration  
file is something I'm comfortable with (though it has changed a great  
deal over the years).  Likewise for a large number of other things I  
may wish to run.

Maybe today's sysadms aren't familiar with all of these sorts of  
configuration files, and so being presented with configuring them  
directly is daunting.  And so maybe for them higher level  
administration tools are useful.

So these people should start off with

  cd /usr/ports/sysutils/webmin

  make install

It really isn't hard.


> I only ask this question as I would like to see FreeBSD get the  
> same recognition as Linux as FreeBSD is a powerful OS that should  
> not be overshadowed.

Well, you could talk to some venture capitalists and create a Red Hat  
equivalent for FreeBSD.  I guess it should be called "Red Devil" if  
that doesn't step on too many trademarks.

I don't think that FreeBSD people should be too upset that Linux  
happens to be the free Unix-like system that is in the limelight.   
It's just the way things turned out.

Cheers,

-j