Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years

From: Rob Lytle <jan6146_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 17:11:47 -0700
Thanks for responding Curtis,

I've used FreeBSD for a long time.  In fact, when the Athlon first came out,
FreeBSD would run with it, and SUSE would not.  I thought that was a good
sign that FreeBSD was top notch.  Plus it booted faster than any computer
and/or OS I had ever used.  And the memory management was incredible.  I
hardly ever page out to swap, even running a number of apps at once.
Nothing even slows down.

But after I got this new laptop I never reinstalled it.  Laptops are all
made so crappy in China that every year or two something breaks, I get
pissed, and I buy a new one.  My old Dell had to have the motherboard
replaced 5 times, 4 of those because the ethernet connector came loose and
they had no choice but to put a new board in.  All that for a $0.10 part.

But I have problems just transferring hard drives because of SATA vs. IDE.
I'm not sure how to get the data from one to another without a tape drive,
which it seems is expensive.

I dirched Ununtu as I found out my priority bug report was never acted on
and is still there from a year a go, numbered up in the 20,000's.  When you
manually configure your Wifi, upon the next reboot it just goes out and
randomly connects to any open access point- not my WAP encrypted one here.
Even Vista can be set not to do that!

Sincerely,  Rob

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:03 PM, Antoine BRUNEL <antoinebrunel_at_yahoo.fr>
wrote:

> I complete what Curtis wrote...
>
> How many times do you have to install a BSD system ??? even in case of
> hell, you can still remove every ports/ package, juste leaving the CSH and
> kernel layer, then install what you need again... try to remove the "glibc"
> package from Linux (an Howto exists), and enjoy....
>
> Compared to Windows / Linux (RedHat or Suse distributions), BSD still
> offers a way to finely tune your system depending on your needs, instead of
> putting gigabyte software in place, "just in case of", with tons of windows
> managers, productivity tools, etc...
>
> BSD are still "harder" systems compared to other, but with more control on
> what happens....
>
> In conclusion, I can agree you in that the "sysinstall" soft is a bit
> out-dated, but it respond on a need of a BSD philosophy: just installing a
> working operating system. All the later tasks have to be done by "hands".
> But that's exactly what I wanted when I replaced Windows / Debian  to
> FreeBSD: having a full control on my system.
>
> So, just another useless contribution.....
>
>
> Curtis Penner a écrit :
>
>> Let us take this further.
>>
>> Let's compare BSD to the Linux install solutions.  Well, lets not, Linux
>> is so far ahead of BSD.  Linux understands the user.
>>
>> BSD has a better overall core OS then the other UNIX flavors.  The size to
>> capability is outstanding. Once you have the core OS on the system it is
>> rock steady and only getting better.  The documentation is outstanding. It
>> is what others should look to.
>>
>> So what is wrong?
>>
>> It doesn't have the native 3rd party applications. Why? Not enough users.
>> Why? Because it is hard to get what you want unless you are tech savvy.
>>
>> When you do a system install it is like jumping back to the 80's.  The
>> front-end is like something from the DOS days.  You have to be tech savvy to
>> know what you want to do.  You have to search out all the variations of the
>> applications (tedious and unnecessary) to get a full package -- Examples:
>> Postgres, PHP, etc.  To add wireless (very common these day), you better set
>> aside as much time or more as doing the initial install.
>>
>> Given that the system is rock solid, you think more people would develop
>> on it, at least secondarily.  But no.  Java - go fish.  All the development
>> environments and features that go with it (Eclipse, NetBean, Hibernation,
>> Sturts, and so forth) are painful to get.  You feel like a rabbit jumping
>> around, and then it most likely doesn't work.  That is such a turn off.
>>
>> As for the installs, to get an idea of how to package an install, look at
>> the current install packages that are from the Linux side. You don't have to
>> copy, but emulate.  (Oh, the best out-of-the-box is Apple.)
>>
>> I have installed Linux, MacOS, HPUX, Solaris, Window (NT, XP, Vista), and
>> the BSDs, and I have found the BSDs to be so yesterday that there is little
>> in common with the rest.
>>
>> Porting, so that applications that matter go native, we need more installs
>> and more people on the systems.  That means more installs to laptops. The
>> installs have to be seamless and complete.  That mean getting more Open
>> Source people and companies to compile and distribute BSD.
>>
>> I am looking forward to a time when installing BSD is point and click with
>> not much understanding of what is going on (unless I want to go advance and
>> do special custom work).
>>
>>
>> -Curtis
>>
>>
>> Rob Lytle wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> My depressing analysis- YMMV. I've used FreeBSD since 1998.
>>>
>>> 1..Installing the packages off of the menu on the 3 CDROMs is an
>>> incredibly
>>> tedious miserable process.  I had to switch out the CD's around 40 times.
>>> If you don't believe me, just mark a whole bunch of random packages after
>>> obtaining the 7.0 release CD's, ad then install.  Its frustrating and
>>> almost
>>> like Windows, except its a bit faster as replacing CD's is faster than
>>> reboots.
>>>
>>> 2.  When installing any given package, if a dependency is already there ,
>>> the  package aborts and then goes though some loop where you have to
>>> press
>>> OK half a dozen times.  Thats insane.
>>>
>>> I think the CD switching problem would be to install all the packages at
>>> once from CD1, then CD2, then CD3.  As for the second case, I don't know
>>> enough about the infrastructure to suggest any thing except to perhaps
>>> comment that code in its entirety or put in  switch to bypass already
>>> installed dependencies.
>>>
>>> I wish I knew more about  your infrastructure to fix this myself.  Is it
>>> written in Python?  Thats the only language I'm not so rusty at.  I've
>>> programmed in 5 languages, but that was long ago.  I'm old.  But someone
>>> who
>>> knows the system could probably fix it fast.  I think this is such an
>>> inherent infrastructure problem that has existed so long that a bug
>>> report
>>> would be futile.
>>>
>>> Food for thought.  Thanks,
>>>
>>> Rob
>>>
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
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>>
>>


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Received on Wed Jul 02 2008 - 22:11:48 UTC

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