Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 14:06:18 -0700 From: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: ExBSD Message-ID: <3B02EBCA.B29A2C4F@acuson.com> References: <002b01c0db54$e0febaa0$5599ca3f@disappointment> <20010513171444.E26123@welearn.com.au> <00f401c0db7e$ff3ca2a0$fe00a8c0@kat.lan> <20010513122623.I97034@lpt.ens.fr> <20010513033434.A54250@xor.obsecurity.org> <3B001679.3172B050@acuson.com> <3B00E4F6.10DC397D@mindspring.com> <3B01767A.1C24A9D7@acuson.com> <3B023FFC.A1EC1F0C@mindspring.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I'm getting too worked sup, so I'm going to summarize my "I'm leaving" feelings... a) Guilty as charged. I haven't using Windows in over two years. Maybe the current Windows XP is the target we should aim FreeBSD at. I don't know since I've never seen it. But I do know that Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT all sucked. I do not want FreeBSD to suck. b) Graphical installs. I done graphical installs for OS/2, Windows 95, Redhat, Corel, Mandrake, Caldera and SuSE. I have done non-graphical installs for DOS, DRDOS, GeoWorks, Debian, Slackware and FreeBSD. The two easiest OS installations I have ever done were Slackware and FreeBSD. You are never going to get a graphical FreeBSD install as easy to use as the OEM's "recovery disk" until you get the cooperation of the OEM. And the people building their own boxes will still be screwed (just like they're already screwed trying to install Windows on their homebuilds). If the user is going to be intimidated by a text-based installer, then maybe, just maybe, FreeBSD is not for them. c) Changing FreeBSD. I may have problems with the certain things in the current implementation of FreeBSD, but I have no problems with the direction in which I see it going. You will NEVER be able to please everyone. But feel free to fork off another version. That's what Mac OS X did. That's what Corel and Storm did with Debian. That's what Mandrake did with Redhat. d) I once was part of a tiny group exploring the possibility of forking off a Newbie-BSD OS. We spent a lot of time arguing over default desktops, graphical installers, etc. But the project faded away and died as we realized that what was really needed was more drivers, better drivers and better hardware detection. I never could get Corel LinuxOS to install on my system. The problem was that it kept trying to probe my video card. But the XFree86 documentation says never to probe my video card. I'm sure that Corel could have qualified as one of my easiest installations. Unfortunately, it made the wrong decision between ease of use and correctness. I hear Corel LinuxOS is all but gone now. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3B02EBCA.B29A2C4F>