From owner-freebsd-arch Wed Jul 10 15:40:13 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCDF037B401 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 2002 15:40:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from postfix1-2.free.fr (postfix1-2.free.fr [213.228.0.130]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5ACE143E5E for ; Wed, 10 Jul 2002 15:40:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsidd@lpt.ens.fr) Received: from bluerondo.a.la.turk (nas-cbv-11-62-147-118-15.dial.proxad.net [62.147.118.15]) by postfix1-2.free.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB07AB2A5 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:40:02 +0200 (CEST) Received: (qmail 1381 invoked by uid 1001); 10 Jul 2002 22:40:00 -0000 Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:40:00 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Rajappa Iyer Cc: Thierry Herbelot , arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Listening to users [was Re: Package system wishlist] Message-ID: <20020710224000.GA1331@lpt.ens.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200207102204.g6AM4UD11370@panix1.panix.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 4.6-PRERELEASE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Maybe this isn't terribly on-topic, but anyway: Rajappa Iyer wrote: > > ; > > Note that almost all of his frustration was due to the multiple > distributions problem in Linux No - he notes that but didn't have a problem with that. His problem was that *none* of the distributions were suitable. But almost all of them would have been friendlier than FreeBSD. > In other words, I have to say that the complaint above does not in any > way support your contention that FreeBSD is hard to install and use. Well, let's go through the major points of that article again: XFree86 -- FreeBSD uses it too, but the linuxen have better configurators, and possibly better default font setups, these days. So FreeBSD is actually worse off. Drivers -- FreeBSD hardware support is, if anything, worse than Linux (eg, cardbus; a lot of multimedia hardware; winmodems; etc). And I haven't encountered so many third-party binary device drivers for FreeBSD, much less drivers that work across different kernel versions (as he wants for linux). Software distribution -- well, that's what this whole thread has been about, hasn't it? I like FreeBSD ports, but I've met enough people who think rpm is "easier" that I'm not going to argue with them. If you read what he's asking for, you'll see that FreeBSD doesn't provide it. Support -- Well, linux does have some commercial distributors who'll support you for a fee. FreeBSD doesn't. The FreeBSD mailing lists are great, but his complaint of RTFM-type "elitism" is equally true of FreeBSD. In short, everything he says, and more, applies to FreeBSD. Pretending otherwise won't help anyone. And generalizing your own experience (you find it easy, so everyone must find it easy) is exactly the elitism he doesn't like. - Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message