FreeBSD for the common man(or woman)

[Manolis Kiagias]

Al Plant wrote:
> Bernt Hansson wrote:
>> Matthew Seaman skrev:
>>> Mark Stapper wrote:
>>>
>>>  
>>>> In light of this, I would really enjoy seeing a "Ubuntu" like movement
>>>> in the FreeBSD corner.
>>>> What I mean is that it would be nice for my mother to install and use
>>>> FreeBSD.
>>>
>>> It's called PC-BSD.
>>
>> Have a look at Manolis Kiagias work at
>> http://freebsd-custom.wikidot.com/downloads-page
>>
>> Haven't tried it my self, but it seems I'm going to.
>>
> Aloha,
>
> Manolis download worked for me. I used it to install a 7.2 FreeBSD on
> a Sandisk Flash stick. And I can bring it up from the USB port on my
> netbook. Works fine except for printing on network. Have to work on
> setting up the printcap properly.
>

Thanks for the mention ;)

I should however note that although this work takes out most of the
compiling steps (and I plan to expand the range of pre-built  packages
soon), it is still not "a common man's OS", as all the configuration
steps are manual. I am also developing some shell scripts that will
automate a considerable part of post-setup configuration, but these will
need to be tweaked accordingly.
It will never become a CD you can give to your dad to install, but will
certainly reduce the time an intermediate / seasoned FreeBSDer will need
to install a new desktop.

There are more than a few things that prevent FreeBSD from becoming
friendly to a non-expert, non-willing-to-study-docs user. PC-BSD deals
with many of them (preinstalled NVidia, flash support, PBI system) and
it gets better all the time.  Although if the point is getting a simple
user to move away from Windows, most any desktop oriented linux distro
will probably do the job. Such a user won't need to have all the choices
and absolute control that FreeBSD provides to all of us.