Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 01:00:14 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> Cc: ben@rosengart.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 2.2.6 CD-ROM : Package dependencies up the creek ? Message-ID: <19980617010014.18299@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <v0401171ab1abd9139e5b@[128.113.24.47]>; from Garance A Drosihn on Tue, Jun 16, 1998 at 04:20:51AM -0400 References: <19980616095005.64408@welearn.com.au> <Pine.GSO.3.96.980616013132.2930A-100000@echonyc.com> <v0401171ab1abd9139e5b@[128.113.24.47]>
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On Tue, Jun 16, 1998 at 04:20:51AM -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> At 1:38 AM -0400 6/16/98, Snob Art Genre wrote:
> >On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, Sue Blake wrote:
> >
> >> I also took objection to the idea that packages should not be available
> >> during installation. That would cut out freebsd's accessibility to a lot
> >> of newbies. My one concern was that it sounded like that didn't matter to
> >> anyone.
> >
> > I don't understand why you think "newbies" can't install packages except
> > in sysinstall. Why not put a pointer to pkg_manage in the default
> > /etc/motd, or something like that? Pkg_manage even *looks* like
> > sysinstall.
>
> Some packages are useful to have right away. I've done nearly a dozen
> reinstalls in the past few days. The first time I installed every
> package which looked remotely interesting, and in hindsight thought
> that was stupid. However, in a later install I installed *none* of
> the packages, and immediately regretted that decision too. I wanted
> to create initial accounts with a bash shell, for instance, but that
> doesn't work great if you didn't install bash. And the first thing
> after rebooting I ftp a tar-file of various scripts I'm used to using,
> but some of them don't work because I don't have perl5 installed yet.
Yes, many of us have tried and regretted those two extremes. I'd like
to see bash pushed hard during installation. It's only small and makes
everything a lot easier for those from a microsoft or Linux background.
Whether these are problems or improvements, and whether they are best
dealt with by changing the installation or by adding documentation, are
open to debate, I suppose.
> I think it's good to have a short list of "highly desirable" packages
> in a list right at install time, but leave the full list for after
> the user gets past that first reboot. And by having an initial short
> list, we could perhaps make sure that all packages on that short list
> are on the first CD-ROM (the CD a user boots off to do an install).
Either we're copying ideas here or we have the same conclusions from
humble experience.
> Just my thoughts, after my first-ever installs of FreeBSD...
That's the most valuable set of thoughts, IMHO. They should be expressed
more often but we have little access to them. It's those thoughts that
can encourage people to do the installation that second time and get it
right instead of being shamed into giving up :-)
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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