BSD Installation: An Outdated Mess That Nobody Wants to Fix

L

LostNebula

I’ve tried installing a lot of different operating systems, but I have honestly never seen installation processes as difficult, outdated, unnecessarily complicated, painfully long, and frustrating as those of the BSD operating systems.

I’m genuinely asking out of curiosity: is this ridiculous installation process just some ancient legacy that nobody has bothered to modernize and make understandable, or are you simply too lazy to fix it? Or perhaps you just don’t know how?

Look around. Everything evolves. Everything gets redesigned, simplified, and made more accessible. Yet the BSD installation process is still in this absolutely awful state.

Installing BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers. But I guess that isn’t really a problem for you old-timers, is it? Apparently, in order to use BSD, everyone is supposed to know more than general operating system fundamentals, right? People are also apparently expected to learn a bunch of obscure, unnecessary knowledge that is relevant to only a handful of operating systems and will be completely useless anywhere else, right?

I’m just here to applaud all this nonsense.

And before someone says “if you don’t like it, don’t use it”: this is criticism. If you can’t handle criticism, then go settle on another planet where no new people are ever born and nothing ever changes, and take your precious BSD operating system
1000012532.png
Is it really that difficult to do this for BSD?
 
Crivens said:
Be gentle, folks. Maybe he really wants to learn. And maybe he wants to troll, and maybe he wants to insult. But we will see, yes?
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It is a good initiative.

I ain't sure it will suffice as the post is damning and without concession. It's really hard. I don't see this as someone who have difficulties with FreeBSD but advocates against.

The fact he/she uses BSD instead of FreeBSD is more troubling yet.

This is typically a post I don't answer.
 
I don't understand, use UFS if you don't want the difficult part of installing the systems alongside other os.
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 2. Installing FreeBSD

Guide about how to install FreeBSD, the minimum hardware requirements and supported architectures, how to create the installation media, etc
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

There is the Partition option

As for ZFS on root, yeah there is no option in the installer, but I guess maybe someday one would implement such feature.
 
LostNebula said:
nstalling BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers.
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Newcomers or new to installing OS?

If one is trying to actually install multiple OSes on a single device, by definition one must have some above average level of understanding on how OSes work.

LostNebula said:
I’m just here to applaud all this nonsense.
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This leads one to think "Hey troll, find another bridge".
 
LostNebula said:
I’ve tried installing a lot of different operating systems, but I have honestly never seen installation processes as difficult, outdated, unnecessarily complicated, painfully long, and frustrating as those of the BSD operating systems.
Click to expand...

On the off chance that you really want to install FreeBSD -- Welcome !

Sorry that you find the installation process difficult. This has a lot to do with FreeBSD being used on many "servers" in the field, so when you boot up for the first time you will be presented with the "traditional Unix experience" -- that dates well... all the way back to the 1960s/1970s :cool: . The *BSD Unix operating systems are all based on the original AT&T Unix releases from AT&T / AT&T Bell Laboratories that were created back in the 1960s/1970s. This means you will see "login/password" and you will login and get a bourne shell prompt.

LINUX is not UNIX -- it's a close copy of UNIX. The *BSD operating systems "are true UNIX operating systems". This is an important distinction and might help explain why you think UNIX is complicated. LINUX is a much younger operating system (by decades) than both *BSD Unix and AT&T Unix.

If you want to install a desktop to your FreeBSD (I am using X11 with XFCE right now on FreeBSD -- and FreeBSD IS my daily driver operating system) -- you can use the pkg(8) command to install the packages you desire to your FreeBSD.

That said... FreeBSD / UNIX might not be for you ! If you are happier with LINUX, Windows, Mac/OS, etc -- go with it !

I personally run both FreeBSD and Linux side-by-side -- and they both play very well with each other. I find FreeBSD to be MUCH faster than Linux for the things I do - in particular the "thread", file system performance and maintenance of FreeBSD is outstanding.

If you are interested in FreeBSD UNIX then all the information you need to proceed forward should be found in the FreeBSD Handbook - which is located here: (Link FreeBSD.org): FreeBSD Handbook

Is it going to be "EASY" to install FreeBSD on your hardware, and just pick up and go? I don't know what you already know... so I don't know.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do next !
 
I don't think the install process is that bad. I can think of other OSes that were more than happy to default to partitioning that immediately broke things in bad ways without any clear basis to expect that.

I'm not aware of any OS that really does a good job of multiple OSes on the same disk, some just do a less terrible job than others, and I personally just use a separate disk for each at this point as most computers have at least some provision for a second. Othwerwise, it's generally a manual process and one that can be rather risky if you're not paying attention.

EDIT: I think that if you want multiple OSes on the same disk, it's worth considering something along the lines of Proxmox. I've never been able to get it to work for me, but I also haven't had a ton of extra time and a spare computer to use in the meantime.
 
I think we need to face reality that the installer is built for installing on a new whole disk. Partition on existing disk installs are not really feasible.

A GUI installer was built and it does nothing to solve the above problem. Partitions and Moving partitions. What Operating Systems allow you to move partitions on installation? Not many if any.
It has always been a separate step for me.
 
Phishfry said:
I think we need to face reality that the installer is built for installing on a new whole disk. Partition on existing disk installs are not really feasible.

A GUI installer was built and it does nothing to solve the above problem. Partitions and Moving partitions. What Operating Systems allow you to move partitions on installation? Not many if any.
It has always been a separate step for me.
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I'm not even sure that you'd want to. There are just so many ways in which things could go bad in doing so. At least as a 2 step process you can boot into the old OS and verify that it can be booted into and check the disk while the rest of the disk is largely untouched and likely recoverable before you overwrite it with a bunch of new OS files.

Similarly, rewriting installers is kind of a hard thing to justify unless it's broken in some sort of serious way or won't work for something important enough to get somebody on board rewriting it. There's just so many ways in which it can go wrong.
 
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My latest installation of FreeBSD 16.0 on my laptop took 30 minutes, and I answered four questions (keyboard, time zone, ZFS, and root password). I find it hard to imagine how it could be any simpler.

Oh, wait, I know, it's because it's not a graphical interface.

At some point in life, you have to make choices, why have 20 operating systems on the same machine? Not to mention virtualization solutions for testing purposes, among other things.
 
I am good with the installer until pkgbase came along.Now I have to manually place my distfiles.

Since ZFS on Root is on the installer wishlist I want to add Gmirror disks from installer would be nice too..
 
LostNebula said:
Look around. Everything evolves. Everything gets redesigned, simplified, and made more accessible.
Click to expand...

Yeah. That sucks, doesn't it? Especially the simplification.

LostNebula said:
Installing BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers. But I guess that isn’t really a problem for you old-timers, is it? Apparently, in order to use BSD, everyone is supposed to know more than general operating system fundamentals, right? People are also apparently expected to learn a bunch of obscure, unnecessary knowledge that is relevant to only a handful of operating systems and will be completely useless anywhere else, right?
Click to expand...

Installing multiple OSes is not beginner material. I hear Windows is not very friendly with that either.

What config exactly did you try to achieve?
 
LostNebula said:
I’m genuinely asking out of curiosity: is this ridiculous installation process just some ancient legacy that nobody has bothered to modernize and make understandable, or are you simply too lazy to fix it? Or perhaps you just don’t know how?
Click to expand...

No, you're not expected to install it if you don't know how.
If you want to try out the OS install it in a VM and use autodefaults.

FreeBSD is a server OS it is mainly used as a sole tenant. People that multiboot BSD should have enough knowledge to install it.
Also, do I see a Ubuntu theme in that GParted? Assuming you tried out that type of OS, they're specifically made to be operable by common users.

I don't see any difference in installing Debian text mode or Arch or FreeBSD - none of those are "easy" hand holding OS.

And no, hit and run users that want to install a 'distro' next to 5 of them and 'try it out' are not our audience.
 
LostNebula said:
I’ve tried installing a lot of different operating systems, but I have honestly never seen installation processes as difficult, outdated, unnecessarily complicated, painfully long, and frustrating as those of the BSD operating systems.

I’m genuinely asking out of curiosity: is this ridiculous installation process just some ancient legacy that nobody has bothered to modernize and make understandable, or are you simply too lazy to fix it? Or perhaps you just don’t know how?

Look around. Everything evolves. Everything gets redesigned, simplified, and made more accessible. Yet the BSD installation process is still in this absolutely awful state.

Installing BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers. But I guess that isn’t really a problem for you old-timers, is it? Apparently, in order to use BSD, everyone is supposed to know more than general operating system fundamentals, right? People are also apparently expected to learn a bunch of obscure, unnecessary knowledge that is relevant to only a handful of operating systems and will be completely useless anywhere else, right?

I’m just here to applaud all this nonsense.

And before someone says “if you don’t like it, don’t use it”: this is criticism. If you can’t handle criticism, then go settle on another planet where no new people are ever born and nothing ever changes, and take your precious BSD operating systemView attachment 27186 Is it really that difficult to do this for BSD?
Click to expand...
What part was not clear to you?

this is criticism
Click to expand...

It read more like a rant. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that I really don't know what you need help with.
 
Knows nothing. Nothing but single user turn-key OS, never heard of servers, embedded, adaptable multiuser systems...
Didn't read the FAQ, let alone the handbook, knows shit, asks no questions, but directly craps into the place.

The OP doesn't even know what criticism is, but claims it for himself.
Criticism ain't not just saying, 'That's crap.' It's explaining why something is crap. For that knowledge and expertise is needed. No expertise, no criticism. What the OP does is just a personal opinion based on unsatisfying experiences caused by avoiding the slightest bit of learning at all. The OP delivers the proof for that himself:
He is presenting a screenshot of GParted (I know that software very well myself, used it a lot many times, always successfully) showing FreeBSD's partitions as unallocated space, claiming that as a proof for all BSD suck.
If the OP would have used his time instead of crapping here to take the slightest glimpse at GParted's homepage, there is not even the need to take the inhuman torture of reading its documentation to find that out, he would have learned within 5 seconds, perhaps 10 if he's a bit slow, that GParted does not support neither of FreeBSD's filesystems, particulary not ZFS.
That's perhaps something one can criticize as a lack of GParted (which does otherwise an exemplary job), but it's for sure no point of quality of FreeBSD if some Linux software ain't compatibel with BSD. Which is also not needed here, since with gpart we have all we need aboard already in "vanilla" installation - if one is capable to use a computer with the enormous amount of buttons a keyboard brings, of course. If one is only capable of using the left mousebutton or fatfingering on a touchdisplays, only, better look for what computers fisherprice offers:
FP.jpg


By the same logic one could say, BDs suck, because the tape recorder cannot play them.
That's not criticism. That's nonsense.

What an [CURSEWORD]!
Pointless to deal with such [curseword].
Directly ignore list.

What I wonder:
Why the admins allow such OPs.
For what there is a probation period?
 
LostNebula said:
Installing BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers.
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Not true.

I have a mini-guide to install FreeBSD, NetBSD & OpenBSD multi-boot here: https://github.com/ricardobranco777/howtos/blob/master/BSD/Multiboot.md

Last weekend I repeated the whole process on a VM so I could screenshot the whole thing to enhance it in a blog post.

I have a mini-PC where I multiboot those with DragonflyBSD & Linux on another SSD. And yet another to multiboot with Illumos.

Linux distros have been dumbing down their installers in such a way that make multibooting difficult. Fedora's partitioner is an example. openSUSE had the best partitioner in YaST but now they're using Agama which is not yet there. And systemd-boot makes it worse because it wants a fatter FAT partition for EFI.
 
All I read is he's trying to install on a system that has other OSs on it and he can't get it to work. Which means this is a problem with his current main OS and not FreeBSD since most of us can do a regular install in 10 minutes.

I then ask the question as to how he is learning to install or is he just winging it on his own with third party unknown help.

Which makes me question competence
 
LostNebula said:
I’m just here to applaud all this nonsense.

And before someone says “if you don’t like it, don’t use it”: this is criticism. If you can’t handle criticism, then go settle on another planet where no new people are ever born and nothing ever changes, and take your precious BSD operating system
Click to expand...
Yes, and I also think that it’s time for us to stop writing in C and finally switch to vibe coding using AI, like all normal modern programmers.😆
 
The installer is trying to boot and work on as much as possible different systems, which rules out real interactive operation and a significant part of user-friendlyness.
Sometimes it goes too far, like sending multiple process outputs to the same console, screwing up cursor control, isn't really necessary. and a good idea to avoid. Kernel messages don't have to mess up the installer screen and the installer should have a screen refresh button anyway.
 
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