Just came across this one... I'm a huge fan of ZFS, started using it when it had just become a thing with the (commercial) Solaris 10 release (in the good ole days when Sun was still Sun) and well, I have to disagree here.
None of my ZFS powered servers use
beadm. In fact, none of those even used the default installer because I seriously dislike the way ZFS gets applied onto a new system. In my opinion it's more common for someone to boot using a rescue CD in order to fix something than it is for someone to actively use
beadm.
The reason I mention this is because the default installer seriously hinders the import of its ZFS pool due to the specific
canmount setting which is only set to cater to
beadm.
Even when not being used. In other words: the very moment someone uses a rescue CD and then tries
# zpool import -aR /mnt then they won't get to access their root filesystem right away because it didn't automatically mount. Which I think is pretty stupid. Surely
beadm should be able to handle these settings whenever someone actually wants to change their boot environment? Instead the installer simply assumes that everyone uses
beadm and plenty of users ran into problems when trying to access their ZFS root system because of it.
That's the first reason I'm not in favor of adding
beadm to the base, I can't help feel it's much too intrusive already. If people who don't use a tool still get negatively affected because of it then it's too intrusive in my opinion. Of course context matters here.
Anyway... second reason I don't agree is because I don't think the base should become too bloated. I mean, following this reasoning we should also add
ports-mgmt/portmaster,
ports-mgmt/poudiere and
ports-mgmt/synth because that's some of the first things people install.
# make -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portmaster install clean is pretty much the very first command I use on a new server.
Of course there's a very thin line here and much will be based on personal opinion as to what is bloat and what is a real necessity but yeah.
If any I think the game of Nethack (
games/nethack) should be added to the base system first. First because everyone plays games every once in a while, second because it's a classic which can even help you learn the
vi movement keys and third because it hardly ever changes. Last time it lasted... 10 or so years before the next update, so very low risk that the base needs updating because of Nethack
