From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sun May 13 5:11: 6 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net [24.69.46.74]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2F8037B446; Sun, 13 May 2001 05:10:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@tenzo.com) Received: from h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (localhost.gv.shawcable.net [127.0.0.1]) by h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id f4DCCIL01371; Sun, 13 May 2001 05:12:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@tenzo.com) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: "Michael O'Henly" Reply-To: michael@tenzo.com To: "Doug Young" , "Kris Kennaway" , "Rahul Siddharthan" Subject: Re: I'm leaving Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 05:12:18 -0700 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] Cc: "Kathy Quinlan" , "Sue Blake" , "N6REJ" , , References: <002b01c0db54$e0febaa0$5599ca3f@disappointment> <20010513033434.A54250@xor.obsecurity.org> <003101c0dba1$181a7aa0$0300a8c0@oracle> In-Reply-To: <003101c0dba1$181a7aa0$0300a8c0@oracle> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <01051305121800.01335@h24-69-46-74.gv.shawcable.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I'm new to FreeBSD myself. I have some experience with Linux but I'm not very expert technically so I can understand N6REJ's frustration. However... I can't think of any question I've posted on freebsd.questions that hasn't been answered once it was clear that I've made some initial efforts to figure it out myself. A lot of problems that confront newbies seem enormous and unmanageable because they haven't yet started the process of chunking them down into solveable bits. Making that effort strikes me as being "the price of admission". Rather than putting valuable effort into a "default GUI install", I think Doug's suggestion of extending the documentation in this area makes a lot of sense. For instance, a gentle overview of cvsup would be really useful. I was able to figure it out from the Handbook but only because I'd read an article describing the wonder of FreeBSD makefiles. A simple conceptual overview of how packages are installed would have helped me a lot. M. On Sunday 13 May 2001 04:37, Doug Young wrote: > I've been thinking of doing something akin to the Pedantic FreeBSD > style HOWTO > on X ... some sort of really explict documentation with ALL the > information needed to get a functional GUI, however I'd need to start > from scratch as every FreeBSD system I've had anything to do with has > been straight command line. From questions I've been seeing in the > questions list, it appears that hardware support is the main issue > that creates the bulk of the problems. Who would be the best to advise > on some readily available & reasonably priced videocards / chipsets > that ALWAYS work without problems ?? eg I've generally stuck with AGP > versions of those 8Mb ATI Rage Pro things for both W2K & Solaris > systems because I've never had a hint of trouble getting things to > work / they give 16 bit 1024x768 easily they are affordable in OZ .... > maybe they aren't the best for XFree but surely someone must know a > couple of videocards that suit. (and please everyone don't say Matrox > because the price in OZ is extortionate !!) > > > Would it be a good idea to have a "default GUI install" as one of > > the > > > install options, which sets up either KDE or GNOME, and a web > > browser, > > > and desktop icons for the HTML-ised version of the FreeBSD handbook? > > Jordan and others have tried many times to get people to submit good, > newbie-friendly "default GUI environments", with close to zero > community response. Yes, it would be a good idea, SOMEONE PLEASE DO > THE WORK! :-) > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message -- Michael O'Henly To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message