Things that make me go "GRrrrrrr" installing FreeBSD 13.1

drhowarddrfine said:
People who want to install FreeBSD know what to do.
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This is gatekeeping 101.
drhowarddrfine said:
And if one cannot install due to hardware problems then one is using the wrong hardware or downloading the wrong iso.
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Not really, FreeBSD doesn't have the best hardware support but it's not that bad if you have firmware you need. I am a 100% free software advocate but having an optional iso with firmware loaded does nothing but help more people install FreeBSD. Maybe even include an option to remove all the firmware they don't need from the system in the installer.
drhowarddrfine said:
How does one download the iso but then complain they can't install from the internet?
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Have a desktop computer where they get it but try installing FreeBSD onto a laptop or other computer with hardware that is not covered by the default installer.
 
1) needed kernel driver not shipped with the install medium
No difference to my Linux experiences. If your were different you just had luck.

3) colors for console programs
I don't use mutt, but as a starting point: Colors in terminal programs depends on the terminal as well as the used shell. Try xterm & bash - does it work with that combination again?

4) missing hint in the handbook
You're right - it explains how to set up four different drivers, but not how to get the Nvidia driver up; IMO it should be replaced to explain this step by just one example, or Nvidia should be added, too.

5) packages from source
Therefore there are ports ;)
But if you want to install third party software (so in your example), you will always have to deal with the need of knowledge (or ask the developer), have to tune code etc. (same as #1 - no difference to my Linux experiences). In case of Tcl/Tk: It isn't recommended to execute "tclsh" directly, because it is known to be a) found in different paths, and b) named f.e. tclsh, tclsh86, tclsh8.6 etc. - so the code you're trying to execute should be improved ("bug report to the developer"). To go on without a bugfix: I expect you're having /usr/local/bin/tclsh8.6 (8.7 ist still alpha and not for daily work), so your code has to be changed to match that (or the package "lang/tcl-wrapper" might solve this - but I've never used it; or you could set up a symlink, but that's the ugliest solution).
Also for script files generally: Instead of relying on the shebang line you always can use the wanted interpreter directly (f.e. "tclsh8.6 /path/to/your/tclscript").
And no, source isn't to be installed with "./configure && make && make install" - there's a lot of source that works different (so f.e. Tcl code - that's a script, and not a binary that has to be compiled from source). The way to go is to read the developers informations about how to install their code first - always. And if that is not shipped you've got to understand what you got.
 
hunter0one said:
This is gatekeeping 101.
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No. It's requiring one to have some level of knowledge in order to install the system. If one doesn't have the ability or take the time to learn, then one should go elsewhere. And no one here should feel bad about that.


hunter0one said:
Maybe even include an option to remove all the firmware they don't need from the system in the installer.
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You have that option now.
Code: 
pkg delete <package>

hunter0one said:
try installing FreeBSD onto a laptop or other computer with hardware that is not covered by the default installer.
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Again, how did one get FreeBSD to install in the first place? Your statement makes no sense.
 
jmos said:
not how to get the Nvidia driver up
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It used to! Where did it go? I've installed it for nearly 20 years and my initial learning came from the Handbook. Perhaps it was moved during the update?

There is a section that talks about nvidia configuration but not in proper detail.
 
I agree with the OP, these are annoying issues. But, FreeBSD is industry-grade OS, so it might be advisable to do things like the industry folks do them. This means:
If you do an installation for a new platform (hardware+software), in the first step you install from the public installation media, you see to get to a running OS, then you check your requirements (supported hardware+software): can it work? what is required? how to proceed to it?
In this phase one can experiment, one can change things in any way.
At some point there will be enough data to come to a go/no-go decision.

Then everything is removed again, and installation is started anew, this time with a plan.

#1 a suitable driver would have been prepared in phase1 and a bootable media created
#2 a workaround would have been decided in phase1 (or this considered a show-stopper for now)
#3 no idea, but sounds like a minor issue. (I am using mutt, but don't know "dracula-color" - anyway, the mutt config is plaintext and should be fixable)
#4 this would be figured out in phase1
#5 sounds like a normal prereq. With individual installations (outside of the ports tree) it is not avoidable to read the Installation/Readme docs provided with the software, and check/install the requirements.

Then, yes, it might be possible to make the OS behave more plug&play so that these issues would not appear. But
1. who should do that?
2. it would bloat the OS a lot, and I would not want to carry that bloat along. This means: the additional pseudo-AI that makes basic installations run smoothly, will soon get between your legs and make you stumble when you try to implement and integrate more elaborate things.

hunter0one said:
gatekeeping 101.
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This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible technical quality.
 
PMc said:
This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible technical quality.
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I'm stitting rereading this, laughing and thinking "I should ask PMc permission to use this as a sig line for all my work email".

Firmware for hardware.
Lots of people forget about Licensing. Sometimes "forgetting" can cost you (think GPL/LGPL), sometimes just money sometimes more.
Why is Licensing important? The majority of hardware manufacturers want someone to sign a legally binding NDA in order to even write something for the hardware, lots of times there are legal clauses that restrict the redistribution of said firmware; a single user may be able download and use it for their home use, but a business cannot legally provide that firmware in a distribution. FreeBSD Foundation is a "business" or at least a legally responsible entity for distribution of FreeBSD and in theory maybe could be in legal trouble for distribution.
 
mer said:
I'm stitting rereading this, laughing and thinking "I should ask PMc permission to use this as a sig line for all my work email".
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Granted. But I must correct myself: if that comment concerns the discussion quality in this thread, rather than the design of the OS, then I might agree - some comments were not very understanding and helpful.
 
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PMc said:
Granted. But I must correct myself: if that comment concerns the discussion quality in this thread, rather than the design of the OS, then I might agree - some comments were not very understanding and helpful.
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For a work sig, I'd drop the "This is crap" part of course. The rest of it stands regardless of what is being designed by engineering. At least it does in my opinion.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
No. It's requiring one to have some level of knowledge in order to install the system. If one doesn't have the ability or take the time to learn, then one should go elsewhere. And no one here should feel bad about that.
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You are assuming everyone who uses FreeBSD is experienced with it and knows exactly what to do to get their system working... In a very around-the-world way at that. You are also assuming they have the hardware that supports FreeBSD without any firmware (which is rare).

drhowarddrfine said:
You have that option now.
Code: 
pkg delete <package>
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Oh so you dont object to installing the firmware and then removing it later? That works too.

drhowarddrfine said:
Again, how did one get FreeBSD to install in the first place? Your statement makes no sense.
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Who said they installed it? Yours doesn't either.


kpedersen said:
Unfortunately, not having a graphical installer is also considered gatekeeping. If this means keeping the operating system reasonably "correct", so be it.
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I wouldn't say that since FreeBSD's installer is rather good, much better than something like OpenBSD's. Gatekeeping would be objecting more options to help beginners just because FreeBSD already works for the veteran.

Sorry but if you come at me with something as ridiculous as "You want to turn FreeBSD into Linux" I can see why OP does not use FreeBSD and do not blame them.
 
PMc said:
This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible tech
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No, its gatekeeping alright, and there's plenty of FreeBSD zealots/gatekeepers about. There is nothing "crap" about having an optional (KEY WORD one last time everybody!) image with firmware. This is what completes thousands Debian installs through their unofficial non-free iso.

There's no point in even arguing, OP has ran away.
 
hunter0one said:
This is what completes thousands Debian installs through their unofficial non-free iso.
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"unofficial non-free iso".
Is it maintained/distributed by Debian project proper or are there simply links to non Debian projects?
I'm asking because there is a big difference between "The Debian project creating/maintaining an ISO with this stuff on it" and "An ISO, based on Debian, that has added stuff on it".
There are no issues with "someone not FreeBSD project" creating an ISO "based on FreeBSD with extra stuff on it" (this is exactly what GhostBSD is in my opinion), but asking the project to maintain yet another set of install images (effectively one for every release, for every supported version) with stuff that a small percentage may use becomes unrealistic.
Heck in the past I've installed a Windows system that I needed to use the motherboard manufacturer supplied CD for ethernet drivers. Note: it came with the hardware, not the OS.
Could someone create an extra image containing some ported hardware drivers? Absolutely, but what should it contain? Every version of every related package? Heck that's seven packages along for all the nvidia drivers.

But, bottom line, in my opinion, take it for what you've paid me for it ;), it's not the responsibility of the FreeBSD project to do this. Maybe it would be the responsibility of the project to have a clearly defined set of "instructions" somewhere (like off the website, in the readme or notes for each release) but I think there may be legal ramifications if they started directly providing the raw packages/firmware/driver.
 
mer said:
Maybe it would be the responsibility of the project to have a clearly defined set of "instructions" somewhere (like off the website, in the readme or notes for each release) but I think there may be legal ramifications if they started directly providing the raw packages/firmware/driver.
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I mean have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project, with the firmware and maybe have a section to point people towards it. This is what Debian does for theirs and avoids any legal trouble.
 
I dual-boot freebsd-gentoo. Gentoo is a really flexible distro. I use it with openrc which is not very different from freebsd rc.
 
hunter0one said:
No, its gatekeeping alright, and there's plenty of FreeBSD zealots/gatekeepers about. There is nothing "crap" about having an optional (KEY WORD one last time everybody!) image with firmware.
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Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.
hunter0one said:
I mean have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project, with the firmware and maybe have a section to point people towards it.
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You know what my boss said when I came up with what I thought might be a good idea? "You're welcome, do it."
 
1) net/realtek-re-kmod is a port/package, not part of the base OS. The install media doesn't contain any packages, at all. The DVD images only have a selection of packages, you simply cannot cram all packages on the DVD, it just won't fit.
2) With 56450 ports there's bound to be some conflicts. It happens. Maintainers try to avoid them but that's not always possible.
3) don't have a clue.
4) Yes, the handbook could be improved; FreeBSD Documentation Project
5) learn what ports are.
 
hunter0one said:
Gatekeeping would be objecting more options to help beginners just because FreeBSD already works for the veteran.
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Whilst helping beginners is possibly important to some; I believe we would be at risk of breaking what we know is very successful in a vein attempt of achieving an impossible goal. Windows and macOS will always win. And targeting "semi-beginners" is a niche that Ubuntu has mopped up. Plus things like helloSystem.

Can you point out an OS that is targeted exclusively towards a veteran? Why shouldn't they be catered for? Especially when they effectively run the industry.

hunter0one said:
I wouldn't say that since FreeBSD's installer is rather good, much better than something like OpenBSD's.
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Discussion about gatekeeping aside, I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better. Have you run through it? What do you find is missing?
 
kpedersen said:
I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better.
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Installers. Some people think that some fancy shiny spinny graphical installer is better than a straight forward curses text installer.

My problem is that I've been using curses based text installers for so long that I get confused/scared/worried when an installer flips to some kind of graphical mode with mouse support.

Heck take the installs themselves: how many variants really are there? Server, text based workstation, graphical based workstation cover say 87% of standard installs. Server/text based workstation we have what different set of packages installed after the base OS? Graphical builds on text based workstation driven by the specific hardware. I still maintain that a default install of "server" with a choice of "workstation" on say "first boot" would satisfy the bulk of users.
No extra "distros", could simply be documentation, but worst case "if user selected graphical workstation during the initial install run desktop-installer on first boot"

But it doesn't matter what I think, I'm one of the old dogs, done the roll your own from source for long enough that frankly the initial install doesn't really matter to me anymore.
 
SirDice said:
2) With 56450 ports there's bound to be some conflicts. It happens. Maintainers try to avoid them but that's not always possible.
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Additionally: Some conflicts can be solved by using ports instead of packages; I needed e.g. Kdenlive, MariaDB and LibreOffice - no idea if this is possible today, but via ports this was solvable years ago (as well as today), while packages insisted on "Kdenlive, MySQL & LibreOffice" - or MariaDB.

But if you're starting with FreeBSD … IMO: Stay with packages.
 
PMc said:
Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.

You know what my boss said when I came up with what I thought might be a good idea? "You're welcome, do it."
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Exactly. Trouble is when ${someone} expects ${someone_else} to "have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project".

Here's ${someone}'s chance to be someone!
 
PMc said:
Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.
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Okay, I will.
kpedersen said:
Can you point out an OS that is targeted exclusively towards a veteran? Why shouldn't they be catered for? Especially when they effectively run the industry.
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Who said they aren't catered to on FreeBSD? If anyone or myself was to make a non-free ISO, it would not affect any zealots. They could keep using what they normally use.
kpedersen said:
Discussion about gatekeeping aside, I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better. Have you run through it? What do you find is missing?
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About every other *BSD has a great ncurses installer but OpenBSD. The partition editor in OpenBSD is especially confusing compared to every other one I've encountered, and when it asks you how you want to get the base system it doesn't really explain anything at all. I believe I tried getting the installation media from the USB but it wouldn't let me.
 
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