robertclemens said:
I guess that just doesn't make any sense to me. Just because it's what you had others should have to go through the same learning process? Imagine if finstall was used from the beginning and someone wanted to change it to text, I'm *quite* confident we'd have the same discussion just in reverse. There is *absolutely* no reason why we can't have both.
No, and thanks for mischaracterizing me. My point was that we have something which works and we have an OS which offers far more opportunity for customization than others do. With the state of the OS being what it is people that can't or won't deal with sysinstall are probably going to be frustrated.
That's definitely not to belittle the efforts put in, FreeBSD is an amazing OS. It's just lacking things that many desktop users need and while that's the case effort probably would be better spent there. It only takes a couple of times through the install process to figure that out, the rest of the time isn't so straightforward for any OS.
I'm just like most people. I've been with FreeBSD for many many years and know the sysinstall very well. It's not hard by nature but it is "harder" to figure out what things are and what is required.
Harder than what? Seriously the things in the install program which are confusing wouldn't be any less confusing if we had a gui. There'd still be swap, partitions and slices, there'd still be the need to know about disk geometry at times. I'm not really seeing anything in the program which hasn't already been simplified which could readily be simplified.
Help forums are OPTIONAL and VOLUNTEER. If we get people started with FreeBSD in one way or another isn't that a good thing? And it's not like sysinstall does what everyone wants it to do by keeping people out of FreeBSD by being something they have to learn. Most of people's responses on here and elsewhere is "man this" "man that". It's not like it would change any of that.
What precisely doesn't it do, besides look pretty? The only things I've ever seen or heard of it not doing are things which can be done via the fixit disc. And starting next release you'll be able to get a DVD with both discs on the same DVD.
Don't you see that people are desiring some change? I could care less but many people do desire change. That's why other projects are making up for some of the lacking they see such as finstall. PC-BSD uses the gui installer.
There's nothing wrong with change, but the installer is really a minor bump for most people compared to other things that desktop users need. And the developers themselves have placed the GUI install programs on the back burner.
We have people talking about how people today are spoiled because TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES? Are you serious? And people say "Thank You" to comments like that because this is some boy's club that we definitely
want to make sure some people are left out of? It's public domain open source stuff. Come on.
Way to mischaracterize me, you're using the term "Technology Advances" pretty loosely there. Sysinstall does far more than any of the other install programs I've used. Granted it's not pretty, but it is flexible and it does work in a consistent manner.
What about FreeBSD developers saying sysinstall is a pain in the ass? And that it lacks functionality? Are the nay-sayers really going to stick with their "it's how I learned and by god it's how other people will learn too" mentality?
They've got other things to work on. Or at least they have things that they prioritize above replacing sysinstall. Nobody is stopping you or anybody else from doing the work.
Someone tell this guy it's not a boy's club. We invite everyone to try FreeBSD and ask questions. We even PROMOTE the asking of questions. If everything was solved by "man this" "handbook that", then the forums, mailing help lists, would be OBSOLETE. Get off the high horse and learn to share.
Sometimes forums really do bring out the flamerness in people.
Erm, you were the one that started it, I'm just saying that it's not really the highest priority task for most people. If it were then it would be done by now. People are still kicking it around, but the developers have limited time and are choosing to use it as they see fit, I don't see the problem.
And that's historically how it was done. Not saying that's right, just pointing out that there's a huge amount of information out there and a lot of friendly people to answer questions. It was hardly the sort of unapproachable "boy's club" you suggest. That sort of thing hasn't been around for at least a decade and probably longer.
EDIT: And it is worth noting that if that's your idea of a good set up, that's already available, very little of the effort is duplicated and one can even choose to install the set up onto FreeBSD if one chooses.
I'm crossing my fingers that finstall is finished in time for FreeBSD 8.0's release, though honestly I have no idea of the activity of the project, or the development status.
