BSD Installation: An Outdated Mess That Nobody Wants to Fix

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the highest level an os installer can reach
 
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...
This is by far the worst attempt at trolling i have ever seen.
 
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...
Well, having installed several linux server distros recently (debian server, ubuntu server, alpine, arch, to name a few) the complexity is similar and the process likewise.

Now, if you are asking about desktop oses, maybe try to install GhostBSD?

In any case after installation, feel free to install a DE and use its package manager frontend, you will notice few to no differences.
 
Zare said:
Atom laptop
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It's tablet.
L

Thread 'FreeBSD support for Intel Atom Z3735 and Z8300 tablets – GPU, audio, Wi-Fi and touchscreen compatibility'

Hello everyone,
I have a couple of small Windows tablets based on Intel Atom processors, and I am interested in installing FreeBSD on them. Before attempting the installation, I would like to find out how well FreeBSD currently supports the hardware in these devices.
The two platforms I am particularly interested in are:
Intel Atom Z3735 – tablet with 1 GB RAM
Intel Atom Z8300 (Cherry Trail) – tablet with 2 GB RAM
I would especially like to know about the following hardware components:
GPU / graphics acceleration – Intel HD Graphics support, including DRM/KMS, hardware acceleration and...
 
The OP ragebait aside, I think the main thing that needs improvement is custom partitioning. I've had the ZFS layout not create separate filesystems several times when doing a custom install, and theres no real indication of what it did until after it's all said and done. Then again, no CLI installer is great.
 
Well it's been many years since I first used FreeBSD, after which I used various Linux distributions exclusively, as an OS. But I must say, in my recent installation of FreeBSD-15.1-RELEASE-amd64 I found the installer to be user friendly. However, getting a Mate Desktop up and running with an Nvidia graphics card was just "above my pay-grade".

Arch-Linux: Arch is an involved by hand installation, requiring your complete attention. Gentoo is fun to do, if compiling a ton of tarballs is your thing.
 
hrsetrdr said:
Arch is an involved by hand installation, requiring your complete attention
Click to expand...
I was never able to get Arch installed. The docs for installation jumped around all over the place and made me lose my place too many times.
hrsetrdr said:
Gentoo is fun to do, if compiling a ton of tarballs is your thing.
Click to expand...
I forgot the exact issue but I never got Gentoo installed either. I think I just kept losing the trail or forgetting my place.
In both cases, I just didn't have the desire or the time to fool with it for more than a week. With FreeBSD, when I first started, the problems I had were just entering the wrong information but I was never lost on the trail. The errors made were my own.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
I was never able to get Arch installed. The docs for installation jumped around all over the place and made me lose my place too many times.

I forgot the exact issue but I never got Gentoo installed either. I think I just kept losing the trail or forgetting my place.
In both cases, I just didn't have the desire or the time to fool with it for more than a week. With FreeBSD, when I first started, the problems I had were just entering the wrong information but I was never lost on the trail. The errors made were my own.
Click to expand...
I did both in 2008/2009, what fun it was compiling Gentoo with a single core 32 bit Athlon processor. I had the Arch handbook open on my laptop to follow, with having to switch back and forth from the console to lynx.
I'm in my mid 70s now, and just don't have the ambition or focus of back in the day...
shrug.gif
 
LostNebula said:
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...

The truth is we like it this way because, once you succeed, you become a super warriorress.

SuperFreeBSD.jpg

AI-generated image (yes, she's not my sister).
 
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...
FreeBSD is free software and no one owes you anything. You can either help out if you wish to see improvements or move on to other projects. You can help out by filing problem reports with *specific* details on things you want to see improved, or writing/fixing code or testing or donating money or writing/improving documentation etc.
 
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...
No worries, there is a handy handbook as well.

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
 
Welll.. the OP made one post in this thread.. I believe my reply is #43. I suspect that they're not that interested in the solution, but it gives us all a chance to show how great we are for being able to install FreeBSD. It's the old joke, I think it was about Linux forums. Ask a question, get no answers. Post, Linux is terrible, I can easily do this in Windows, and there will be a bunch of posts about your lack of competence and how easy it is, and among the insults, you'll probably find your answer.
 
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...
If you want a desktop, look at Ghost BSD. Ghost has a gui installer and package manager, and will give you a fully working desktop with either MATE or XFCE out of the box. It has all the same hardware support issues that FreeBSD does, but it's a whole lot quicker to install and use.

ghostbsd.org

A simple, elegant desktop BSD Operating System | GhostBSD

ghostbsd.org ghostbsd.org
 
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...
You might not have seen Debian, openSUSE, or Fedora after 43 :p

I can clean-install FreeBSD almost sooner than the latter two boot (2-4 mins at shutdown uptime mention), and I feel FreeBSD's installer offers the basics of what I really want while also being flexible enough to use workstation and server.
LostNebula said:
Installing BSD alongside multiple other operating systems is unnecessarily frustrating and complicated for newcomers.
Click to expand...
Imo newcomers shouldn't attempt dual-booting (if it goes wrong due to the complex nature of multi-boot, a newcomer has to scramble if unfamiliar with general OS recovery/below)
LostNebula said:
Apparently, in order to use BSD, everyone is supposed to know more than general operating system fundamentals, right?
Click to expand...
To install any operating system as an alternative to the one you've been using: Yes :p
LostNebula said:
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...
I learned the "obscure, unnecessary knowledge" mostly from Linux, which was immensely helpful on FreeBSD :cool: (and spread a bit to Windows; don't knock knowledge :p)
 
That was funny to read...

The FreeBSD is not hard to use, actually I do believe it is pretty straightforward...
The only limit, as already mentioned, is that it doesn't care/check for other OS or partitions, but it is not alone other opensource based OSs do the same: POP!_OS; ChromeOS Flex; SteamOS... Perhaps it might become a polite installer... 🤷‍♂️
 
Maturin said:
What I wonder:
Why the admins allow such OPs.
For what there is a probation period?
Click to expand...
That would be me. Since the OP seems to have abandoned the thread as fast as he abandoned his quest of installing, I tend to say "Troll" now. We will see. It was not clear from the beginning.
 
Maturin said:
What I wonder:
Why the admins allow such OPs.
For what there is a probation period?
Click to expand...
I think these kinds of threads are amusing. The topic is very general, so anyone can opine. Besides, the OP offers himself as a common enemy to discredit, against whom we all can rally.

The laissez-faire temperament of the admins, say Crivens, is appropriate in these cases, I think.
 
I apologize to everyone, but I was very angry when the system crashed.

What actually happened was that I was trying to install FreeBSD alongside Windows and Linux. While partitioning the disk manually by entering commands in the terminal, something went wrong and the entire system crashed. As a result, I had to reinstall the whole system from scratch.

I was extremely frustrated at the time, and out of anger, I wrote a harsh criticism of FreeBSD and its developers, hoping that it might somehow contribute to improving the situation or lead to changes in the future.

Looking back, I realize that I was reacting emotionally. I apologize if my words were unnecessarily harsh or disrespectful.
 
I don't think I did anything wrong; I'm just an enthusiastic, inexperienced newbie who, when things go wrong, complains and asks for help like this.
 
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