FreeBSD 7.1 Content

[Dan Allen]

On 4 Sep 2008, at 12:20 AM, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:

> I haven't finished reading the thread yet, but your assumption is
> ignorant.  Why do you think FreeBSD is intended solely for desktop
> usage?  It's not.
>
> I, for one, **only want a command prompt** out of the box.  I **do  
> not**
> want Xorg or any X-related garbage on my servers.

Jeremy - read the whole thread first.  My assumption is NOT ignorant.

I know that most people want just a command prompt.  I myself live in  
command prompt mode on FreeBSD most of the time as well.  I completely  
agree with you that there are many times when I do not want X.org  
anywhere around.  I get that many people consider FreeBSD a server  
OS.  I often tell people about how Yahoo and other big sites run on it.

You may be interested to know, however, that some people ALSO use it  
as a desktop system. ;-)

This is not trying to force anyone to have Firefox or Xorg.  This is  
about options in the FreeBSD installer that USED to allow the OPTION  
of having X setup for you.  This is about OPTIONS to install the  
single most widely used kind of software (a web browser) on the system  
in a simple, straightforward way.

In the Standard Install there should be an option that says "Install  
Firefox & Xorg".  It should be an OPTIONAL CHECK BOX, not a mandatory  
one, but it should allow a desktop scenario to be setup easily.

If the disks are near full, or need to be uniform across processors,  
or whatever, then I am okay with not having all of X and Firefox on  
disc1 IF there was a simple set of "pkg_add -r" commands that could  
hidden behind a script or dialog which could fetch the necessary  
software over the internet and set it up (along with .conf files so X  
starts up reasonably well) so that a non-command line user could have  
a good first time experience.

It was using Ubuntu that caused me to realize how far behind FreeBSD  
is on the desktop side, and how, with a SMALL AMOUNT of work and  
changes, it could make a big jump forward by this proposed simple  
addition.  Heck, if nothing else the installer could simply say in a  
help screen, "if you want a web browser on your system, type 'pkg_add - 
r firefox' on your system and edit blah blah .conf blah".  As it  
stands right now, however, there is very little in the install process  
which helps a user get X up and going with a browser.

Thanks to everyone else for their comments.

Dan