Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 15:58:35 +0200 From: Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org> To: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unstable Ports (a rant) Message-ID: <20000414155835.A4420@mithrandr.moria.org> In-Reply-To: <38F6788E.5A87AB3C@acuson.com>; from djohnson@acuson.com on Thu, Apr 13, 2000 at 06:46:54PM -0700 References: <38F6788E.5A87AB3C@acuson.com>
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On Thu 2000-04-13 (18:46), David Johnson wrote: > I have no problems with the core stuff. I think it's number one. But the > quality of the ports is annoying me. I'll keep FreeBSD around for > portability development for my own applications, but it's hard to say > whether it will be my primary OS. I don't have multiple systems. I have > only one system and it will have to work whether or not I happen to have > my hacker hat on at the moment. Stange as it may sound, there are times > that I DO NOT want to hack the code to get something to work. I have one system at home. It runs FreeBSD. I hate it when it doesn't work. I only hate it rarely. My SO uses FreeBSD to write and print Philosophy lecture courses. Not a single piece of software on that system isn't from ports. > I have none of these problems with Linux using the exact same > applications. Somehow I get the impression that a successful compile is > all the port maintainers require. I've always found that ports have been high quality. > I could go on, but I'll stop now. Have you submitted problem reports? Why keep it all to yourself, if you can unload and help the ports team make things better? If you have, I applaud you, and hope your problems have been fixed. If they haven't, rather complain about them one at a time. > I'm certain that a lot of these problems can be attributed to > "linuxisms" and linux-only developers. But that's not really an excuse. > If there's something wrong with a port, let me know about it beforehand. > It shouldn't be my job to figure out why kppp was hanging my system. If there's something wrong with a port, it's generally because people don't know about it. It's your job to tell us it isn't work. Telling us usually involves problem reports. > My feeling is that the FreeBSD team spends very little time on the > ports. I disagree. I'm sincerely impressed with how well it works. I've only done 5 or so ports, but some of them are insanely tricky, and probably aren't meant to be portable. The people who do ports seem tireless and under appreciated. It doesn't always work, but they don't attack you if you submit a problem report. Personally, three cheers to the porters! > It's almost as if they were tacked on at the last minute. That's hardly true. Almost everyone I've talked to have found ports possibly the singular thing that might convert them to FreeBSD. > This is all well and good if the system is only going to be a gateway > or a development box. But it won't cut it if they want FreeBSD to be > considered as a potential desktop OS. Or am I way off base in > expecting FreeBSD to work for my desktop box? I use FreeBSD as a desktop box. Many others do. It works about as well as a desktop as any other Unix system out there, give or take an extra advantage or disadvantage in some places. Of course, I'm hardly a recently-converted Windows user, but then it really isn't our core focus to introduce these people to FreeBSD and expecting them to immediately attain enlightenment without them going through a little self-education by reading the documentation and education through the mailing lists and other support structures. Basically, what I'm saying is - report bugs, and they'll be fixed. If you can fix a bug, report that you can fix it. Both contributions are highly appreciated. If you don't know how to report bugs, there's a section in the FreeBSD handbook. If that doesn't help, try questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. If your bug reports are totally ignored, pester individual port maintainers and/or developers with polite, direct, unemotional, and to-the-point problems and fixes. Don't report bugs, and get pissed off, and convert to another operating system, and you're not helping anyone. It's a waste of time to suffer in silence with a massive team of people fighting each other to get to help you. Neil -- Neil Blakey-Milner Alpha Geek, Sunesi Clinical Systems nbm@mithrandr.moria.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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