Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 16:13:16 -0600 From: "Damon M. Conway" <damon@chiba.3jane.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "easy installation"!!!!! yeah right Message-ID: <199911012213.QAA28381@chiba.3jane.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Nov 1999 14:07:09 CST." <199911012007.OAA41384@freeside.fc.net>
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hey jerry. how goes it? Jerry Dunham wrote: > Duke Normandin babbled: > > From: "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net> > > Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 22:22:48 -0800 > > > I'm a 52yr old newbie --- worse I don't know jack-shit about FreeBSD or any > > *nix for that matter. So please take my following observations in that > > context. It is NOT my intention to disparage anyone. > > I'm a 53-year-old sorta-newbie, so I've got you beat by a year. :-) > > > I have wanted to learn Unix all this time. > > But guys, to launch myself in this new caper, "I simply want to know the > > time, NOT how to make a watch" -- if you get my meaning. Personally, being > a > > tinkerer, I'll definitely want to know "how to make that watch" -- but > > later, when I'm comfortable "telling time". When you guys first started > > driving cars, where you all in a position to set the valve timing, the > > ignition timing, etc. Can you guys NOW overhaul your fuel injectors and tun > e > > your high-tech engines. Do you want to know how? Do you care? > > I like this guy. He just wrote what I was about to write, but much better. ain't that always the way? > The problem I'm having with this thread is that it seems to segregate > users into two camps: people like my wife, who has trouble turning on > a Windoze machine, and people like Greg Lehey, who wrote the book on > FreeBSD. Well, we're not all either sysadmins or double-clicking idiots. > Here in the middle are people like Duke, who just wants to learn a bit > about UNIX, and people like me. yep. i'll agree with that. > I'm a (ab)user, not an admin. I primarily want to use my system to get > work done. The more I learn about the valve timing and the ignition along > the way the better, but I'm NOT sitting here because I want to become a > mechanic or admin. Should I therefore be condemned to the instability and > poor performance of Windoze? > > You tell me to RTFM. I really don't mind doing that, but I have two > problems: some of the man pages are NOT written for the uninitiated, and > many times I don't know really where to start looking. If I were wanting > to become an admin that wouldn't really matter; I'd simply start wading > into Greg's book and the archives until something clicked. Mostly I just > don't have time for that, and I think it's unreasonable to expect Joe User > in general to have that much immediately available time. that is exactly the point of view that created the parc project that mac and microsoft stole from. :) > Do you as a group really want to divide users into two camps: FreeBSD > sysadmins, and Windoze lusers? Should those of us who simply want a > nonfragile system to get personal work done all move to Linux? no, and my personal opinion is that *bsd, linux, and *nix in general will have a very difficult time reaching the masses of windoze users. i can barely get my mom to write email and type a letter in word much less login to a worstation, and run a unix system. as much as we all like to think that pretty guis will make it easy for normal users, it won't. freebsd is closest to making that happen because of the unified devel effort that keeps the system clean. freebsd has consistent interfaces and libs which is alot more than i can say for linux. linux has the apps tho, and bsd gets them eventually, but everything new happens on linux so it's the best choice for a desktop because most of the new stuff is for desktops. however, the baggage of unix is still there on both systems, and that will never go away. personally, if it wasn't for the lack of apps, i'd put my money on beos as the next big desktop. personally, i use linux as my desktop and freebsd as my servers. linux is on the cutting edge and delivering me what i want in a desktop, but then again, i'm an admin. until kernels don't need to be recompiled to add features, users don't have to login to get work done (try explaining root to an average windows user some time), standard libs and interfaces for desktop/application programming, and ease of installation of new applications (ports are nice, but try getting my mom to install one) windoze will remain the king of the desktop. the philosophy of unix is just all wrong for an average user. > FWIW, I came to FreeBSD from the Atari ST, by way of Xenix, so I'm another > with no MS-DOS background. I do run WinNT on my notebook, but that's be- > cause my employer requires that I run SOME form of Windoze, and NT is at > least reasonably robust for a single user, even if the performance isn't > anything to write home about. I've used mechanical CAD on HP-UX, SunOS, > and IRIX, but even there I was just a user, with just a driver's license, > not a mechanics' certification. I don't want to race; I just want to > drive to the grocery store, but I'd like to get home again without a > crash. give it time. someday, someone will see that forcing unix onto the desktop is pointless for 99% of the people out there, and come up with something else. beos has the right idea tho. take the unix kernel, strip all the user interfaces out of it, and write your own from scratch. now you have a system that's stable, fast (off to click in 7 secs on my box), and easy to use. however, apps are the key, and the only way to get those today is to open source your os to attract developers to it. this would be my advice to be. damon -- Damon Conway Black Rock City Ranger...Riding the edge of chaos "Ana Ng and I are getting old, but we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence." -- TMBG To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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