Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 20:51:31 +0000 () From: Brian Tao <taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw> To: FREEBSD-HACKERS-L <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Plug-n-Play Internet acccess (was Re: httpd as part of the Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.91.950328202127.3062Y-100000@aries.ibms.sinica.edu.tw> In-Reply-To: <3090.796386804@palmer.demon.co.uk>
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I should mention that I've somehow fallen into the role of Mr.
Make-Things-Easy-For-Unix-Newbies at my ISP, io.org. I try to make
everything foolproof, but obviously this is just a pipe dream. I've
covered a lot of ground over the past year and it looks like we have
some goals in common. Some of these points have already been
discussed, but I'll re-iterate them here:
* SLIP/PPP over dialup: The user should be able to run a
configuration utility (using either dialog or lynx as the front
end) that asks them for the ISP's name, phone number, connection
rate, host IP address, gateway IP and nameserver IP. It would be
great if we could somehow have an autolearn script that watches how
a user initiates a session, but this might be infeasible. With
this minimal set of information, the user should be able to connect
their FreeBSD box and do simple things like ping, telnet or ftp to
some other host on the Internet. Both static and dynamic IP
addresses should be supported.
* Mail reader: The default is Pine 3.91 and the integrated Pico
editor. This combination is dead simple to use. It has a constant
prompt line and command menu at the bottom of the screen and a nice
full-screen interface. All you need is a VT-100 display and you're
set. If a future version supports xterm's mouse, even better.
* News reader: The user can choose between tin or strn. Tin is also
very easy to use, full-screen interface, supports VT-100 and
xterm's mouse, but it's a dog over a 14.4k SLIP line. It is also a
memory hog, for some reason. Strn is nice with its point-and-click
menu interface wrapped over trn. It takes little longer to learn,
but it starts up quickly and it isn't too bad with system
resources. If you install a good set of newsgroup categories,
users can really zip around their 100-group .newsrc without feeling
bogged down. I find regular trn and nn too intimidating for the
novice user.
* FTP client: NcFTP. Pretty much says it all. Automatic anonymous
login and auto binary mode save a *lot* of questions to the support
mailbox.
* Text editor: Pico and joe seem to be the favourites here. What do
we have in terms of X11-based editors? I have aXe, GNUemacs,
xcoral, xedit, xemacs and xvile. Only aXe comes close to being a
user-friendly, system-friendly editor. Any other choices?
* File manager: Utree. Again, I haven't found anything that runs
quite as nicely and does as much as this nifty little program. It
looks like a clone of XTree for DOS: split screen with directory
tree on top and file list on the bottom. It has lots of online
help, a persistent command bar at the top, sensible prompts and a
really nice full-screen interface. Tends to run a little slow over
a 14.4k line though, with all the video attribute codes it likes to
use (but you can turn those off). You can compile xterm mouse
support into utree, and it can interact with external shell scripts
(e.g., to archive files, download them, print out a list of users
online, check your mailbox status, etc.)
* Text vs. GUI: Naturally, people prefer a pretty graphical
interface to a boring text one. We should provide both wherever
possible. I don't want a 386/33 user with 4 megs of RAM feeling
left out because he can't run X to use exmh or xrn or moxftp.
I'm being long-winded again. I'll stop now. :)
--
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao
taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw <-- work ........ play --> taob@io.org
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