Date: Sat, 30 Dec 95 00:17 WET From: uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org (Frank Durda IV) To: hackers@freebsd.org Cc: uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org Subject: X for install (was: Re: syscons driver) Message-ID: <m0tVubI-000CnFC@nemesis.lonestar.org>
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[27]Come on guys, why is it that you dont get it that there are LOADS of [27]users out there that either don't have the HW or simply dont want to [27]run X for various reasons (I'm not one of them I use X :) :) ) I agree. If the installation requires X, you can also kiss goodbye to all those people with 5Meg and 4Meg systems who are able to install now. They'll just pop over to Linux or SCO or whatever that doesn't have those memory requirements, and will come up in the simple hardware they have. I've got two laptops that simply cannot have more memory (the designers didn't allow for PCMCIA RAM and the maker has since gone out of business so you can't get the proprietary RAM expansion modules), so X is out. Always has been out because the trackball isn't PS/2 compatible, so you have to use the nice DOS TSR to get mouse support. In fact one of these laptops can't run 2.1 but can run 1.1.5.1 because it has 3.999Meg of memory, and that isn't enough! The other has 4.6 Meg (I can't explain that size), and it will work, but not if we add X to the formula. I've got FreeBSD machines in various facilities, two or three in a rack doing networking, news and mail. None of these systems has a mouse, they don't need one. Must I also buy a mouse and make space to use one for all these machines that I only log-into to shutdown or make a dump, and run X during the install but at no other time? I don't get it. Oh, and these machines just happen to have Mach 64 video in them (it was on the MLB), but the cheapest SVGA monitors are attached. Only the most basic video modes the Mach 64 can generate will work with these monitors. How many additional questions must we add to the installation to convey this information? All the questions currently asked in the X install? No thanks. Someone also said we don't have to worry about getting X into the boot floppy because we will have a CD-ROM there and can load it as soon as the kernel is up. What if you installing via a network connection or serial port? You have to answer an awful lot of questions in the install process BEFORE the network link is even established. Then you are proposing to download X so that you can run it and then do the install? Uh, and what did all that just buy us? "Eyes" in the corner while the binaries are downloading? We've already had to answer all the key questions of how the install is to be done, and even if you rearranged them so that module selection follows media selection, we are only talking about a few screens of listboxes of which modules you can select, hardly GUI material. Sorry, but "I don't see any Incredible Advantage here." - Zork Frank Durda IV uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org
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