Re: Sysinstall is still inadequate after all of these years

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:16:27 -0700
Curtis Penner <curtis.penner2_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> BSD has a better overall core OS then the other UNIX flavors.

I disagree, but that's another debate. BSD is still my desktop OS of
choice.

> 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.

Huh? The ports collection has nearly 19 thousand entries in it. Is
there another OS with *anything* like that? The blastwave folks were
recently bragging that they were going to hit 1800!

Yeah, if you want *proprietary* tools, you lose. As far as I can tell,
that kills you on three issues: Flash, high-end graphics performance,
and virtualization tools. For pretty much everything else I've run
into, we seem to do ok.

> 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.

I find this to be the case on *every* system. I've never managed to
find a system that provided *everything* I needed in an install. So I
inevitably wind up wading through a see of repositories and
dependencies to get what I need. For GNU/Linux, that usually means
installing the tools I need to *build* what I actually
need. Tedious and unnecessary would be a step *up*.

> 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.
  
Ok, I don't do Java (because I like OO programming and want to keep it
that way!), but I found three of the four things in the ports tree
(assuming that Sturts is actually Struts, anyway). Which means the
packages should be there as well.

> 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'm not sure the best out of the box is Apple, but I haven't installed
new Sun hardware in a *long* time. But Apple boxes come out of the box
installed - that's hard to beat.

As for GNU/Linux, the only install that comes close to installing a
usable system is Gentoo. The other all seem to want to compete with
windows, and treat their users like idiots who need every choice made
for them.

> 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.

Hmm. Which Solaris did you use? SXCE b89 looks an awful lot like a
FreeBSD install, except they do it under X with a GUI (so you need
3/4ths of a gig just to run the installer) - including progress
messages to an xterm - instead of the console. 2008.05 looks amazingly
like a GNU/Linux install - all pointy/clicky, no choices about what
you want, you get 3 gig of lawn ornaments which I personally had no
use for on the server in question (which is how I came to learn what
an SXCE install looks like). Not to mention that after being
installed, it's slower than Vista even when it's got more than twice
the horsepower underneath it.

> 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 believe we already have a bigger, better application repository than
any other current Unix or Unix-like system. However, I can't find hard
numbers for rpm or deb-based distributions repositories. But "rpms" or
"debs" found scattered around the net aren't a "repository"; they
won't work except against what they were build against, and trying to
get them to is a *real* recipe for frustration.

> 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).

Is it really that simple? If we had an installer that looked as pretty
as a van gogh, and all you had to do was enter your country and postal
code and it then installed the base system, you wouldn't be happy (I
certainly wouldn't mind such a thing)?

I suspect that what you *really* want - and what the GNU/Linux
distros, and Solaris 2008.05, and OSX try to provide - is a system
with everything you want pre-installed, without you having to figure
it out how to use a package system or anything else that looks the
least bit like work.

Personally, no single system can do that for me. What I want on my
desktop is different from what pretty much anyone else wants on their
desktop is different from what I want on a router is different from
what I want on a mail server is different from what I want on a web
server is different from what I want on try-python.mired.org. Things
that I can't do without on some are things that ask to be pwn'ed on
others, and in some cases I want the same functionality from different
tools on different systems.

I don't care how familiar you are with a system, it's *far* easier to
add the things you know you want to a solid base than it is to remove
crap that will cause you headaches later from a distro whose design
criteria was maximizing installations, hence checking off as many
features on a checklist as possible. On a desktop box, unneeded tools
are just a waste of space; on a server, they can be an open invitation
to pwn your server.

That said - yeah, our installer is old and primitive. But it'll run on
almost nothing (3/4ths of a GIG just to run the
INSTALLER!?!?!?). There are people working on improving it, but
frankly, the needed improvements are largely cosmetic, not
conceptual. Any replacement for the installer should require less work
but not less smarts. It needs to ask questions, because the correct
answer to every general question about what to install is "it depends
on what you want it for."

For people who just want to muck about with a desktop, there are a
couple of FreeBSD distributions with live CD's and a plethora of
applications installed, etc. That's the right way to go about
attracting an audience from the desktop.

FreeBSD is the easiest system I know of to tailor to my needs. So long
as that remains true, it will remain my OS of choice.

   <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm_at_mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.

O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org