constant MASSIVE data/files losses on HDD!

[cynical]

Arch Linux user here just wanting to chime in (I take an interest in the BSDs every now and then). After reading some of the comments here I googled sysinstall to see what the UI was like and I was completely unprepared... it is pretty much exactly what we use and we love it. A fully loaded desktop environment like Windows/Ubuntu/PCBSD use for installation is entirely unnecessary. Not to mention the with the amount of choice in our world, what DE do you choose? (cue flamewars) I would definitely agree with randi that those distributions/OS's that choose to focus on glitz and ease of use for beginners should continue to do so, (often building upon very stable but less glamorous relatives, much like debian/ubuntu or freebsd/pcbsd) while those that are more focused on the underlying system should continue improving that.

 

[randi@]

you misunderstood me, its not what I want, its what datacentre staff want.

Actually, I've worked in a datacentre before. I started out as a system administrator, not a developer. I've been an admin for 10 years. It's my background in system administration that made me interested in working on sysinstall.

It is sad the tone of your reply, I guess freebsd development is not after a higher takeup. If that is the case then fair enough.

I don't know what that means. Takeup? The tone of my reply is that I'm tired of people posting when they didn't bother researching what they are talking about.

1 - lack of point and click on installer, apperently redhat based os's have this hence them been so popular.

Actually, what makes redhat so popular is mostly the corporate support contracts. Management likes knowing they can call someone if things break. FreeBSD admins are hard to find, and because of this, usually more expensive as well. Anyone that does "point and click on installer" in a datacentre is a moron. Datacentre installs should be PXE boot/scripted.

2 - lack of working on network unattended installs, if freebsd does support this then I can pass this info on.

Do you ever both reading documentation before posting? Unattended/scripted installs are documented in both the handbook and the sysinstall man page. There are many how-tos that are easily found with google.

3 - various hardware hanging on bootloader, using external drives for media is very common, although I think this improved with freebsd 7 and I guess freebsd8.

I've never had this problem. It's entirely possible to use external drives for media. Do you mean boot media like booting off USB drives? Are you just talking out of your butt? Could you be a bit more descriptive? Seriously.

 

[chrcol]

randi please be polite, there is no need to be so rude. I get the impression you dont like negative feedback, when really you should be welcoming it as we all want freebsd to be better.

For external drives yes I do mean usb. But like I said I think this has been resolved in freebsd7 as the complaints have stopped coming in since that got released.