Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 12:38:38 -0400 (EDT) From: FreeBSD Bob <fbsdbob@weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "easy installation"!!!!! yeah right Message-ID: <199910271638.MAA11217@weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> In-Reply-To: <199910271410.JAA27809@iaces.com> from "Paul T. Root" at "Oct 27, 1999 09:10:07 am"
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> > >> You people are so far into this stuff that you don't know what > > >> "easy" means anymore. I tried to install FreeBSD 3.3 last night. > > > > FWIW, my first UNIX installation (about 9 years ago) took a week. The > > release was Interactive UNIX/386 version 2.2, a port of System V.3.2. > > I only had the manufacturer's documentation to help me, and it was > > painful. I wasn't exactly an inexperienced newbie at the time, but > > somehow I wasn't surprised. Times have changed; CKimmerl was > > obviously out for instant gratification, and when he didn't get it, it > > was obviously our fault. > > My first Unix install would have been back in '86 on a Sun 160C with > SunOS 3.5. You had to pre-partition the disk (/ and swap), dd the OS > from tape into the swap area and boot from it. > > At the time I was a DOS "power user" and had taken 1 2 day class in unix > (using cat, ls and vi, etc). And you know, I didn't think that it was > too hard. I messed up and only used one disk. But figured out how to > add the second disk as user space and move stuff around. Likewise, about 11 years back on AIX 1.1, via floppy install. Only a 3 foot stack of IBM manuals to consult, but I was bound and determined to get that silly thing up as a 300 port email server. Then 386BSD came around, and we thought we was up wid da big boyz. And the rest is history..... I guess new folks tend to get frustrated when things don't go as anticipated, and the great and magick Login: meets the eye. That's OK. *nix is a complex system and requires some dedication. There may not be a perfect solution, but, for the sake of developmental discussion, what about the possibility of a training-wheels apprentice snapshot version of FBSD, say that runs out of a windoz shell from an exe file, or a minimal default bin/manpages/doc version that installs over a set of several floppies assuming that only a printer and a tty monitor is present on an IDE drive (typical starting box). PicoBSD almost fills that bill, but I am thinking of a system a little more fleshed out, with docs for training. Minix can do that, from a 50M binary file that plops into a dos file system out of a zip file. Although that is probably not the best method of presenting the system, it might allow newbies to get their feet wet a little, and not have to worry so much. A no-brainer CD might be set up that could be booted from dos or directly, with temps on a tmp file or tree on dos (crude, but possible). That way, some hands-on training could be gotten before committing to the almighty newfs. IMHO, anyone starting at the beginning, ought to expect to have several crashes before the machine is actually up and running. It makes you think a little about what you are doing. Once you go through the procedure several times, it goes like clockwork. That is part of the normal learning curve of *nix, unless you are an apprentice to a master that walks you through the thing. IMHO, anyone seriously considering running *nix ought to have hardware dedicated to that purpose, and not confuse his windoz box, with *nix. Machines are cheap enough these days, at garage sales, fleamarkets, recycle shops, surplus houses, etc., that a newbie needs a separate training machine that he can afford to crash and play with. That is how you learn. It is great fun to grapple up a 5 buck ``it won't run windoz anymore'' 486 box with 16M ram and an ide drive of several hundred megs, and make it play fine training *nix, or test out the latest kernel or whatever. A little knowledge on such castoffs, can make for a fine web server for lowend use, or a fine singleuser workstation. It is also good training. Once you get the hang of it, then nuke the windoz and install on the biggie machine, and pass the training wheels box on to someone else. To all the newbies, hang in there..... that is part of the trial by fire of this thing *nix. You will be better off for it in the end. It may take a little time, ``the old fashioned way'' over the course of a few weeks or months, but, you can do it. If I was able to do it, and also 99.9% of the others here, so can you..... Bob > _ > <_) > o ______ /|__ | > __\___....---~ /| ~~\| > | ____/_|_ _|> > |~~/~~~---....__/ / |/~~~ | > |_/ --===OOOOOO= | > YeeeeeeHaaaaaaaa! Now that's a cool one, if you are into big sigs.....(:+}}... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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