Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 14:11:08 -0500 From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon@widomaker.com> To: Bob Martin <bob@inu.net> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: About introducing newbies to FreeBSD Message-ID: <20001103141107.B3708@widomaker.com> In-Reply-To: <3A009637.9491FE09@inu.net>; from bob@inu.net on Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 04:16:23PM -0600 References: <XFMail.001101090426.mj@isy.liu.se> <3A009637.9491FE09@inu.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 04:16:23PM -0600, Bob Martin wrote: > Since most of our new users come to us from either Windows or Linux, we > need an installation program that is a lot more like the ones that > they've used in the past. I've often wondered how many users we loose > while they are trying to load the OS. What I would really like to see is > a FreeBSD installer on par with the UnixWare 7 or Tru64 5.0 installers. > (A clone of SCO Admin would be nice too!) Failing that, we probably need > something that looks more like a Linux installer, or a really good > rosetta stone. The ironic thing here is that ideas like "slices", which are so foreign to Linux users, are actually easier to me than the "normal" DOS partitioning scheme. Yes, the first systems I partitioned were UNIX, but I still have problems with DOS style partitioning even after 10 years of doing it. The problems I have with slices are really simple: * it's not PC hardware's "native" method * lot's of setup programs don't automatically calculate starts and offsets when you divide up a slice The first is merely annoying, the second means I have to get out a calculator and sometimes guess about starts (i.e. which sector is on the next boundary, etc). Most of this is fixed now, but it's still harder than the fully automated partitioning in an OS like Linux or BeOS. Somewhere else I read about the mail archives. They are good, but sometimes too much to read for simple answers. You might have to follow many and large threads to get the pieces of your answer. Ultimately, the FAQ is just a better place. Lot's of questions are not answered there. Of course part of the problem is the tremendous amount of work required to scan list archives and condense them into FAQ entries. Finally, I think a home network document would be really good. I know there are some out there, but they are either incomplete or just one person's solution. There really isn't anything official about this. I think a lot of people spend tremendous amounts of time on this, and probably a lot of them are not really well done (their setups I mean). It would be nice to find in one place: * how to choose network addresses * sendmail configuration for dynamic IPs so you can - have a gateway to the world - send mail to your "internal" machines - handle your queue sensibly - handle drop-boxes and MX records for your machine at an ISP - allow email to <user>@<a local machine> - local delivery - smart use of your smarthost * routing/networking - setting up a single machine or many with a single gateway - how to choose and use a local domain name, but still make sendmail happy and... all that stuff * bind setup for local domain and cache for the world * a nice default IPF setup that gives some basic protections * a set of template configs for NAT - cable modem - DSL - PPP via modem - whatever else there is That's all I can remember right now, and I can't find my journal on my local setup either. All of this can be found, but only after a lot of searching, and lot's of recommended setups in one area conflict with others you find. Right now I have things working, but I've never been able to really make sendmail happy, not completely. There are so many little issues that are so frustrating to nail down, many people just end up ignoring them. My machine has an MX record with my ISP, and delivers its mail via a drop box (username at ISP, same as machine name). It's little differences from the norm like this that are not well covered. It's frustrating to me because I can set this up for a permanently connected system without much problem. Everything pretty well works like you expect it to. But when you start dealing with a local private network connected via a dynamic network connection, a lot of UNIX software is more difficult to set up. After all, it's primarily designed with a permanent connection in mind. -- UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza__________________________________shannon@widomaker.com 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?20001103141107.B3708>