Re: boot banner project

Some things that come to mind:

       - graphical installer (with partitioner, dual boot
               stuff, and ports installation ability)
       - GUI-based package manager, with support for
               vendor-provided packages
       - decent Java installation (sorry, but what we have
               now is a joke)
       - up-to-date Flash support
       - video/webcam support
       - improvements to the plug-and-play support for
         printers, scanners and a few other common devices

This is what i am talking about :-) , for me personally, i would
really like to see the Graphical installer happen, only so i can then
remove these silly M$ from the offie wich are needed by 'basic' users,
who wont even try a simple Linux distro (:( ive tried but to no
avail.) The average user, does like to just see a smooth, fast Hi im
PC! How are u today" it seems, sorry for my use of the great technical
wording,its friday ;) and thankyou for adding in this list, its very
much a sore point amongst usergroups I know and people I associate
with, and I would hardly call them illiterate, just under knowledge,as
i was before using a nongui based platform.
Thankyou for anyand all input on tis, im suckin it in,and hoping :)
If all else fails, heck, will just have to help or write my own! :)
Regards,
Drew B.
On 5/6/05, J.R. Oldroyd <fbsd_at_opal.com> wrote:
> On Apr 29, 14:51, John Sconiers wrote:
> > Do you want to get / keep new users, compete wth other operating
> > systems, etc....
> >
> 
> This question touches on why this discussion is so important.
> 
> Let's not forget that FreeBSD tends to be used by folk who are more
> computer literate and for serious computing purposes.  These folk
> want the detail and completeness of what we currently have.
> 
> Let's also not forget that this discussion is taking place in
> freebsd-current, so the folk here are the most dedicated of these
> serious computer people.  It's to be expected that many folk here
> don't want a graphical boot banner, and they view it as bloat.
> 
> But when we talk of attracting new users, and especically new desktop
> users, we need to consider the not-so-savvy computer user who is
> probably better off not seeing things like boot messages at all.
> Consider the millions of M$ users who are happy when the boot
> sequence is just a graphic screen.  For them, the hood is closed
> and they don't see what goes on inside.  If the FreeBSD community
> is interested in making the fruits of all its great development
> work available to the wider world, we need to be able to close the
> hood, too.
> 
> But, as was stated long ago in this thread, that's what splash(4)
> does.  For non-computer-savvy end-users, a system configured with
> splash(4) and a cool image is all that's needed.  At the same time,
> for the more advanced user, things can stay as they are now.
> 
> And, yes there are side benefits to a cool image display.  It's not
> seen only once.  It's seen every time the system is booted.  How
> often have you been in a meeting or sat on a 'plane and seen the
> Windows screen on the next passenger's laptop?  Putting a cool
> FreeBSD logo there for a minute or so during the boot would be a
> great way of advertizing FreeBSD.  I.e., read this comment to suggest
> that we need an installation option for end-users that enables
> splash(4) with a cool FreeBSD logo -- this installation would be
> separate, of course, from the standard installation for computer-savvy
> folk.
> 
> Personally, I am not sure there's a whole lot of benefit to an
> in-between option of semi-verbose or tidier messages.  But if there's
> demand for this and you want to do it, go for it.
> 
> There are, however, some additional gaps in FreeBSD that frustrate
> potential new end-users.  We need to address these in order to offer
> a more complete system that competes with other desktop systems.
> Some things that come to mind:
> 
>         - graphical installer (with partitioner, dual boot
>                 stuff, and ports installation ability)
>         - GUI-based package manager, with support for
>                 vendor-provided packages
>         - decent Java installation (sorry, but what we have
>                 now is a joke)
>         - up-to-date Flash support
>         - video/webcam support
>         - improvements to the plug-and-play support for
>           printers, scanners and a few other common devices
> 
> This list of gaps is not a long list.  While some of these issues
> might need real work to address, we are in sight of a much more
> complete system.  Discussions have taken place on this and other
> freebsd lists about some of these, but it's not clear if work is
> progressing.
> 
> We should discuss packaging a distribution of FreeBSD aimed at
> attracting more new users.  We'll need to add these (and other)
> missing features and we may need to close the hood over things like
> boot messages.  Yes, it's time that we do compete with those other
> operating systems and we should attract more of their users.
> 
>         -jr
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