Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 20:08:17 +0100 From: Jon Mercer <jon.mercer@achean.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sorry. Message-ID: <3F68B121.5020103@achean.com> In-Reply-To: <200309171132.04405.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> References: <4BA256918ACE7449BD7896E65711C88B4A7F4C@1UPMC-MSX8.isdip.upmc.edu> <20030917124011.55273d20.kitbsdlist2@HotPOP.com> <200309171132.04405.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com>
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OK, bear with me, I'm not a regular poster to @advocacy but following this discussion I'm drawn to want to put my tuppence worth in. Like loads of people here I've been using FreeBSD as a server and desktop OS for yonks, with very few problems, and very little that I find I can't do. There are two things that strike that just seem contrary to enterprise computing that have been going round in this list: 1. Desktop computing is hardly the area where massive efficiency is going to be all the rage in the future. Windows can hardly be described as the paragon of fast computing on the desktop. I'd far sooner run FBSD on the desktop than Linux because it is so much easier to configure and administer in an enterprise environment. In such an environment having an OS that makes the most of the available resources of the hardware platform just isn't as important as ease of administration. (And M$ Windows hardly scores there.) 2. On the server side, having an OS that is as efficient as possible is important because these servers often need to be more scalable than on the desktop to handle the increasing loads of growing businesses. It just strikes me that Linux, with more effort being placed into threading, etc. is better placed as a server OS than FBSD. PLEASE, someone update me on how we do vs. Linux in terms of threading, handling processes, et al. My interest here is not just academic, after many years working in enterprise environments in many capacities, I set up Achean to make headway in the deployment of OSS in the enterprise environment. Please feel free to check out http://www.achean.com/ and make some comments if you wish. All replies, flames, trolls, gratefully receives as part of the learning process! Cheers, Jon Johnson David wrote: > On Wednesday 17 September 2003 10:40 am, Vulpes Velox wrote: > > >>If any one else is interested in this, I would really be interested >>in getting together to discuss it and seeing what can be done about >>it. >> >>I personally would love to work on creating a desktop version of >>FreeBSD which uses a bit of scripting to install some default >>packages or whatever... > > > I've been thinking on this for several years now. I've come to the > conclusion that only a few things are needed. One is a new installer. I > love text mode installers, but I hear that some ex-Linux people get all > freaked out when they don't see a GUI. But beyond the GUI, the current > installer has some definite workflow problems and sharp edges. For a > while I thought the libh project would be taking care of this, but I > think it's time to admit that it's finally dead. > > Another thing that needs doing is splitting apart the installer and the > main configuration tool. But the installer should still use the config > tool, so you don't have to learn two ways of doing things. > > A good auditing of the ports to make sure they set sensible defaults on > installation would be useful. It's a pain in the butt having to > reconfigure a new program to use /dev/acd0 instead of /dev/dvd or > /dev/cdrom. That's just one example. This is something anyone can do > anytime. It doesn't take a lot of programming experience, only some > knowledge of the ports system and lots of communication with various > port maintainers. > > Once you get KDE, Gnome or a good window manager installed and correctly > configured, the FreeBSD desktop is all set to go. As long as one > doesn't have to admin the underlying system, even my mom can handle > KDE. OSX isn't easy to use because it has a slick look with lots of > eyecandy, it's easy to use because they got the installation, > configuration and administation all figured out. > > I am more than willing to help out in any of the above areas, or other > related projects. I have experience in Qt/KDE, ports and shell > scripting. And I've always wanted to learn Ruby. I am confident that > FreeBSD can show the Linux world that you can have an easy to use > system without dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. > > David > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-advocacy-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | ___ ___ | | / | | / | | / /| | / / | | / / | | _____ / / ____ ____ ___ | | / /__| | / ___ \ / /__ / __ \ / _ | | /__ | | / ____ | / / /_/ / ___ \ / /_/ / / / | | / ___ \ | | / / | | / / __ / / \ \ | ___/__ / / / / / / \ \ | | / / | | | |__/ / / / / / | \__/ / | |_| | / / / / | | /__\ /___\ \_____/ /__| /__| \_____/ \__/|_| /__| /__| | | | | www.achean.com | | ============== | | Jon Mercer jon.mercer@achean.com | | | | Mobile 07973 256496 | | | | Tel. 0117 9561211 | | | | Fax 0117 9565637 | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
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