Re: The case for FreeBSD

# supraexpress_at_globaleyes.net / 2005-02-07 21:48:48 -0600:
> FreeBSD's 'DOS-like menu' system is a travisty and IS PROBABLY THE ONE
> THING THAT TURNS OFF MORE PROSPECTIVE FBSD USERS THAN ANYTHING ELSE -
> I know - I have heard!

    Have you also heard that windows (and linux) installers have turned
    (or helped to turn) people away too? No? They have! I'm a walking
    example. :)
 
> I offer the following suggestions for cogitation and realize that some
> of MY choices may not be "the best", but here goes anyhow:
> 
> a) redesign the "installer" as a graphical menu system with pull-down
>    options

    Ouch! I wouldn't touch that!

> b) design an "installation wizard", in line with contemporary systems,
>    that does nothing but install a "canned workstation environment" based on
>    OpenOffice plus Gnome (or KDE) - that's IT - NOTHING ELSE

    Ouch! I wouldn't touch that!

> c) design an "installation wizard" that installs a "server system with NO
>    desktop installation" which provides some "canned" server "types" (such as
>    "mail server", "web server", ...) that choose the newest versions of
>    server applications (such as Apache2 versus Apache1; PHP5 versus PHP4)

    does that mean that it would install apache2 without asking, php5
    without asking? what if I wanted zope? and about that mail server:
    which MTA have *you* decided is best for *my* business?

    granted, there are ways through sysinstall that will get you in a
    dead end street (I think there's one old PR from me about such an
    issue), but even as people who've seen (or perhaps even wrote?)
    the code say it needs replacement, sysinstall is still the best
    installer I've seen. compared to sysinstall, anything else is DOA,
    so please, don't propose crippling our bad installer according
    the others, even more crippled, ones.

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