Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:48:09 -0500 From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: Robert Watson <ratson@FreeBSD.org> Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/boot/i386/loader Makefile loader.rc Message-ID: <200411291648.10387.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1041129101602.94120F-100000@fledge.watson.org> References: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1041129101602.94120F-100000@fledge.watson.org>
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On Monday 29 November 2004 05:25 am, Robert Watson wrote: > On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Scott Long wrote: > > Disable the beastie menu. It offends some and annoys everyone else, > > and I'm frankly tired of the controversy. When people ask me why FreeBSD > > isn't user- friendly, I'll tell them that I tried. RIP. > > I thought that most of the objections I heard were to the Beastie, not the > menu, but perhaps I misunderstood... The only technical objection I've > had to the menu is that the clear screen it issues before rendering causes > some terminal emulators to loose some scroll back, suggesting we might > want to generate a CR, 25 LF's, then pick up with the menu to push the > console contents present previously outside the area cleared. I've seen > one or two bug reports where panic messages have been obscured as a result > of the clear screen but that's easy to work around. > > FWIW, I think the menu is a very good idea, as it provides users wth an > easy option to disable ACPI and try variations on hardware probing on > i386, which sadly, is highly necessary. Especially with the 2-4 year old > generation of machine that is typically available to "experiment with" and > suffers from the worst ACPI quirkiness. I personally don't use the menu on my machines as I have 'set blah' and 'boot blah -x' hardcoded into my brain/hands, but I do think the menu is very useful for users doing installs, esp. the disable ACPI and safe mode options. I even explicitly made sure it was there on the newer splitfs-based boot floppies. I know that I've said I didn't personally use the menu in the past, but I probably didn't mention in the same breath that it does make it easier for non-eccentric users (i.e., people who aren't weird like me) to use and install FreeBSD, and I'm sorry I didn't mention that earlier. As far as the Beastie image is concerned: I wear BSD T-shirts all the time. As far as what I believe and know about Christianity, Beastie artwork, ASCII and otherwise, has basically zero impact on things like eternal fate of my soul, etc. -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve" = http://www.FreeBSD.org
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