Please Let Me Know When You Have A Live CD With GUI

[dteske at FreeBSD.org]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mel Thompson [mailto:melvinbrand at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 7, 2014 9:17 PM
> To: questions at FreeBSD.org
> Subject: Please Let Me Know When You Have A Live CD With GUI
> 
> Dear FreeBSD:
> 
> I'm a decades-long Mac user who is eternally grateful for your providing
the
> basic world-structure for my favorite OS. Of course, I'd rather just go
around
> MAC and use FreeBSD most of the time. I started doing computer jobs,
> computer testing, and computer experimentation, part-time, way back since
> Fortran punch cards and BASIC and Database III, in the 1980s. Heck, I even
> remember using a Wang Terminal with timeshare systems.
> 
> I was a distro-freak who would wipe my hard drive clean ten times a night
> and try ten different distros, going to bed at dawn, loving all those
> experiments, everything from Damn Small Linux to massively-bloated
> versions of Debian. And, although I vowed not to, I spent years fiddling
with
> line-commands in virtual terminals. Sometimes, at jobs, there were
literally
> rows of printers, CPUs and monitors. I was one of the first beta testers
of
> Windows 95, having survived strange years on the bizarre Windows 3.1
> system. And, it goes without saying, I was a clerical worker who did DOS-
> based Word Perfect and even Word Star, (if any living soul could remember
> such a thing).
> 
> During this time I got a BA in Philosophy with special training in
Philosophy of
> Science and Scientific and Linguistic Methodology. I worked as a "tutor"
and
> "companion" to various artificial intelligence programs meant to mimic
> human conversation or human speech, correcting their grammar, and so on,
> even once working as a "test patient" with a massive computer that had
"the
> mind of Carl Rogers" in it. I was a pioneer in Desktop Publishing and my
> Desktop Publishing work. While not attaining the literary fame I had hoped
I
> would, I did, as a technical matter, interest the press, because, at that
time,
> the poetry world was very backward, and almost no one was doing almost
> full-time desktop-graphics-publishing of poetry books. In this way,
although I
> never attained enough computer proficiency to become a "real"
> programmer, one could hardly think of a humanities person whose life was
> more infused with technology.
> 
> I mention all this just to give you some perspective on the main issue I
want
> to bring up to you: If a person of my background still can't get any
version of
> FreeBSD installed on what are, admittedly, the old and outdated computers
I
> can afford to maintain, it seems then that, in spite of many errors I am
sure I
> am making, that the process of installing FreeBSD is still somehow not
user
> friendly. For that matter, forget installing: I've never been able to get
a Live
> CD, which should require not installing, and should be complete on its
own,
> to boot into a Graphical User Interface. A kind of terminal-line-command-
> prompt is the best I ever got.
> 

When you were trying all those different disros before bed 'til dawn,
didn't you come across a distro that didn't come with a GUI? You
mentioned Damn Small Linux -- of which I've never run -- but I assume
it would be one of the ones not providing a GUI from its LiveCD interface.

Maybe PC-BSD has what you're looking for? or Midnight BSD?


> While I'll admit to many weaknesses in my understanding of technology, and
> will admit to still having many devices that are unacceptably-outdated due
to
> my low income, which stands stubbornly at $1,139 per month, (in spite of
my
> occasionally being able to game the travel-points systems to win a trip or
two
> per year), still, I am hoping one day that one of my computers will boot
into a
> graphical desktop environment of FreeBSD, since I regard it as a "Father
OS"
> to Mac, which, as you might guess, changed my world in many ways.
> 

Well, you have to get it installed first. The handbook is a good place to
start.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall-partiti
oning.html


> Let me know if such a product is ever developed, as I should eagerly await
it's
> arrival. Too, part of the fault is mine because I have quirky machines
like
> Aopen mini-computers and Mac Minis which are quirky anyway. But, in spite
> of all the weakness of these machines and the huge gaps in my technical
> knowledge, I notice that I've gotten probably dozens of distros of Linux
to
> work, even on weird drives where they aren't supposed to work, and even
> on old, ugly machines with the wrong specs. So I appreciated the
flexibility of
> those distros to accommodate both my flaws and the flaws of my rather
> haggard equipment.
> 

Have all those Linux distros had GUIs?
-- 
Devin

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