Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:38:06 +0100 From: "Liam J. Foy" <liamfoy@sepulcrum.org> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Explaining FreeBSD features Message-ID: <20050621173806.GA667@anarion> In-Reply-To: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNAEMDFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> References: <20050620195539.1B3E54C35B@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNAEMDFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
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> Fafa, I've seen these kinds of efforts before and they are all > generally doomed to failure. > > You see, the problem is that FreeBSD is not a general computer > operating system product. It is a very specific product in fact. > > Now, the USES that FreeBSD can be put to are VERY general. BUT, > do NOT make the mistake of confusing the fact that just because > FreeBSD can be put to general use, that somehow it is a general > product. It is not. > > FreeBSD is targeted at 2 main groups of people: > > 1) Very knowledgeable people who are using it for personal, or > in-house corporate projects. > > 2) Very knowledgeable people who are using it to construct > turnkey systems for customers who couldn't care less what is > under the hood. > > By contrast, Windows and Linux are in fact, general computer > operating system products. They are targeted at groups #1 and > #2, but they are also targeted at group #3 which are: > > 3) People who barely know how to push a button who have a problem > they need to fix with a computer operating system, and they > really don't care if they understand how the fix works as long > as it works. My 11 year old sister uses KDE and OpenOffice fine on FreeBSD. I think the problem arrives when setting these things up. Once these are setup, it's almost the same as Windows in my personal opinion. I once seen an Internet Cafe using FreeBSD on about 40+ machines with KDE. Am sure these users hardly noticed the difference. We should be promoting that what can be done on Linux(in terms of desktop usage) can be done on FreeBSD. > > > This gives rise to a rather serious Catch-22 with FreeBSD: > > You need to really understand intimately how FreeBSD works > and how computer software that runs on it works in order to > get it to work well enough for you to learn intimately how it > works. I disagree. By 'intimately' do you mean the internals? > > Windows and Linux solved this Catch-22 by dumbing-down the > interface to their operating systems. Thus, an ignoramus > can get up and running with both of these systems, and that > person can remain fat, dumb, and happy, completely ignorant > of what he is doing, and those systems will still work enough > to get the job done. It may be a half-assed fix, but it is > better than nothing. > > FreeBSD by contrast, long ago decided not to do this. For > starters, if you dumbed-down the FreeBSD interface, then to > most people FreeBSD wouldn't be any different than Linux > or Windows, so why mess with it? But, most importantly, a > dumbed-down interface gets in the way of a knowledgeable person, > and over time becomes a tremendous liability. > > With FreeBSD, the only way that a newbie can break the Catch-22 is > old-fashioned mental elbow grease. In short, by learning a bit > at a time, expanding on that, and repeating the process. It is a > long slow way to get to know anything, but once you get there, you > really do know everything in intimate detail. > > This isn't a popular thing to tell newbies. > > Ted > -- - Liam J. Foy liamfoy@sepulcrum.org
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