From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 8 15:58:34 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 81FAF16A4CE for ; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 15:58:34 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de (mail.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE [130.149.4.15]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7044543D1F for ; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 15:58:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from Peter.Ross@alumni.tu-berlin.de) Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=mail.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE) by mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de with esmtp (exim-4.43) id 1CyXl2-0000Z6-JS; Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:58:32 +0100 Received: from mail.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE ([130.149.4.15]) by mail.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (MailMonitor for SMTP v1.2.2 ) ; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:58:31 +0100 (CET) Received: from mailbox.tu-berlin.de ([130.149.4.18]) by mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de with esmtp (exim-4.43) id 1CyXl1-0000Yr-Lb; Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:58:31 +0100 Received: from apache by mailbox.tu-berlin.de with local (exim-4.43) id 1CyXl1-0007dO-K1; Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:58:31 +0100 Received: from 203.51.156.53 (SquirrelMail authenticated user rossicbb) by mailbox.TU-Berlin.DE with HTTP; Wed, 9 Feb 2005 02:58:31 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <11935.203.51.156.53.1107878311.squirrel@mailbox.TU-Berlin.DE> Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 02:58:31 +1100 (EST) From: "Peter Ross" To: In-Reply-To: <20050208145219.491D143D39@mx1.FreeBSD.org> References: <20050208145219.491D143D39@mx1.FreeBSD.org> X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal X-Mailer: SquirrelMail (version 1.2.8) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Virus-Scanned: Sophos MailMonitor on mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de; Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:58:31 +0100 cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The case for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 15:58:34 -0000 > I know of someone, a "general user", who specifically gave up on FreeBSD > because of the Installer, and jumped over to one of the Linuxes which was > "much easier to install". I have had to help a couple of others through > the Installer because they had "gotten lost". It would be good to know why. IMHO using sysinstall and choosing the standard installation is more or less straight forward. It never happened that I've got lost.. (BTW: I also liked the Debian way to show a linear list of the next steps where you can skip one or going back again if you like) Anyway, a good installer is not a matter of fancy graphics in a first place, it is the menu structure. A text based installer may look old-fashioned but it can provide the same functionality. It should not be too hard to use the same menu structure for text and GUI installer. For several years now I am using FreeBSD servers but only recently I tried to install a well-configured desktop system. A well-defined metaport to get a typical office/home user desktop (e.g. including OpenOffice, maybe asking for alternatives during the installation) would be nice, and integration of new installed ports into a limited number of desktop environments (e.g. that they appear in the desktop menus and folders). Maybe for KDE, Gnome and something a little bit more lightwight (to me it seems xfce is the most popular one) So it may be helpful to give (at the end of the base system installation before browsing through the packages) a short list of typical desktop application sets using these metaports. Regards Peter