Things that make me go "GRrrrrrr" installing FreeBSD 13.1

I admire the simplicity of the Openbsd installer. It boils down installation to its essence:
  1. Download some compressed archives from the Internet
  2. Uncompress and unarchive the files from step 1
  3. Edit some text files
  4. Execute some command(s)
That's all installation ever is, for anything. Yet we wind up with abominable wizards and registry "hives" and whatnot in an effort to make it simpler somehow by hiding these simple details from people who can't be bothered.

But I am a dinosaur. I learned how to partition disks from MS-DOS in the '80s, mainly so I could play games with my friends. It somehow turned into a career.
 
Who said they aren't catered to on FreeBSD? If anyone or myself was to make a non-free ISO, it would not affect any zealots.
Wait, are we talking about zealots or veterans?
They could keep using what they normally use.
So you agree then that the current curses-style iso image should never change so that veterans can continue to be able to use what they normally use?

Because newbies often want to break default installers in the name of "false user-friendlyness".


And the text-gui is not friendly.
This is the part that seems odd. If someone can't read text or if they think text is unfriendly, then they must really hate computers. In that case, no need to break them for "veterans" or people who do like text. Luckily, the OpenBSD guys will strongly push back against such ideas. I am hoping the FreeBSD project will too (or at least not replace it entirely with a GUI installer aka Microsoft Windows).
 
1. Kernel driver for Realtek PCIe Ethernet Controllers not included in the install medium
Having an ASUS P8P67 motherboard I need realtek-re-kmod-v196.4 which is not in the install medium. Which means that after the installation I have to boot into the system, mount a usb-stick with the files on it, install it manually and make entries in the config files.
I know that Arch had the dame issues when these chipsets came out about 2 years ago, but c'mon.
Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228 😲 , even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages. In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.
 
Wait, are we talking about zealots or veterans?
The "veterans" ITT are really just zealots with the "works for me" mentality, barring everybody else off and scaring them away. Might not like to admit it but that's the truth.

So you agree then that the current curses-style iso image should never change so that veterans can continue to be able to use what they normally use?
I never said the default ISO should change, I only said there should be an optional non-free ISO similar to how Debian has an unofficial one but they point to it for new users who might need it. I feel like newbies would not trust some random torrent with the non-free firmware or even find it, but if it pleases the zealots then it's better than nothing.
 
The "veterans" ITT are really just zealots with the "works for me" mentality, barring everybody else off and scaring them away.
That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.

You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.
 
That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.

You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.
Skilled, yeah, but lack of adaptability will come back later to bite everyone when nobody understands what's been done, or how to troubleshoot the problems.
 
That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.
You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.
I don't disagree with this, but I'm trying to convey in relation to the original post how it could be avoided with things like a firmware installer. If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road and I don't want that, I don't think anyone here does.
 
Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228 😲 , even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages. In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.
Oh, I have to correct myself. I named the board of my previous computer. I currently have the Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, hence the issue with the Realtek driver.

Ok guys, thanks for all your replies. (Even though the discussion got a little off track I think). This weekend I'll have a new attempt at making FreeBSD my main OS. (because dual-booting is for p.....s ;-)
I can live with having to install the network driver from a USB after installing FreeBSD. And I found a fix for the color scheme issue (at least partially...mutt is still a mess). And can live with vim instead of neovim. With everything else, I'll take some time to learn about ports and I'm sure I'll get the latest release of the scid chess database programm in no time.
The fact that you can't install certain programs on FreeBSD (one removes the other) is still a little bewildering to me, but I'm sure there'll be a solution for that, too.
I'll keep you updated...have a nice weekend!
 
Skilled, yeah, but lack of adaptability will come back later to bite everyone when nobody understands what's been done, or how to troubleshoot the problems.
In theory, perhaps but in practice; well, I feel FreeBSD is good evidence that keeping some more traditional ideas alive does age well compared to Linux. There is a thin line between adaptability and volatility.

I don't disagree with this, but I'm trying to convey in relation to the original post how it could be avoided with things like a firmware installer. If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road and I don't want that, I don't think anyone here does.
I suppose I jump the gun a little bit but from experience, I do see that this has the potential to lead up to some of the mistakes as seen in Linux (or other user-friendly platforms). Ultimately I even feel a mere passion project would end up a more useful bit of software than Linux has become. I say, let the veterans keep their passion project, for those who don't like it; Linux is there for the more wild west style bucket of ideas and friendliness.
 
About every other *BSD has a great ncurses installer but OpenBSD. The partition editor in OpenBSD is especially confusing compared to every other one I've encountered, and when it asks you how you want to get the base system it doesn't really explain anything at all. I believe I tried getting the installation media from the USB but it wouldn't let me.
That's indeed difficult. When I tried to install OpenBSD, it could not read the installation medium - it didn't have device nodes for it. So it was impossible to read the distribution packages. I started FreeBSD, created another partition on the target disk and copied the archives there. But it wouldn't install from there either, because that was outside the OpenBSD slice. Finally I copied them into the intended /home filesystem, and then it worked. Luckily the ufs filesystems are still somehow compatible.
Later I figured that OpenBSD seems to still use the old non-filesystem /dev with a MAKEDEV command - so one could have created the devices - if one knew the major+minor numbers...

This installation seems indeed something for people who already have experience running the OS...

Compared, the FreeBSD installation is pure luxury - but actually I never use it, as my compile-scripts can create readymade images with arbitrary ports preinstalled.
 
Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228 😲 , even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages. In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.
I didn't bother to try and understand that. I'm running these boards. They're indeed good, never had an issue. This one has the same network chip as one of mine, and that did work for years with the re driver in GENERIC.
In fact it's the first time now I notice that there is another one in ports.
 
Oh, I have to correct myself. I named the board of my previous computer. I currently have the Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, hence the issue with the Realtek driver.
This is similar to mine, I use a Gigabyte B550M DS3H (big mistake) with the same Ryzen processor. I have constant popping sound issues on Linux because of the Realtek sound chip this motherboard uses but in FreeBSD with OSS instead of ALSA the audio works flawlessly.
I can live with having to install the network driver from a USB after installing FreeBSD. And I found a fix for the color scheme issue (at least partially...mutt is still a mess). And can live with vim instead of neovim. With everything else, I'll take some time to learn about ports and I'm sure I'll get the latest release of the scid chess database programm in no time.
The fact that you can't install certain programs on FreeBSD (one removes the other) is still a little bewildering to me, but I'm sure there'll be a solution for that, too.
Good luck. ports-mgmt/pkg is extremely basic so there's not really any way to tell it to install something if it conflicts with another package due to the maintainer's build options, so this means as of now you have to go down the line and build whatever port without an option that conflicts with what you're trying to install. You ran into the same luajit vs. luajit-openresty problem as I did, but I had it with Minetest and OBS Studio. I had to go and build Minetest without its luajit-openresty support so that I could install OBS Studio which used the other. Its a real PITA but perhaps one day we'll see a way to tell pkg to blacklist certain packages or prioritize ones in the future.
 
there should be an optional non-free ISO similar to how Debian has an unofficial one but they point to it for new users who might need it.

How bad is Linux/Debian that newbies are told not to run it and to go find some unofficial one somewhere. Can you imagine some newb coming here asking to install FreeBSD and we told him, "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."
 
If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road

Another "FreeBSD is dying!" statement we heard since 1995.

Educated and skilled new users don't have issues installing FreeBSD. Even kids do it right when they follow the Handbook. All this thread is about is people who don't like or can't handle how serious systems work. It's not a new thread. We get one every month or so. You don't get as many posts from people who don't have a lot of issues cause it's not a problem. Same issues they might have elsewhere. It's computer science. Situation normal. Learn how it works and deal with it. If it's not for you, move on.

The best thing about FreeBSD is you can make it whatever you want and you don't have to use what's given to you. So make it what you want. Try that with Linux Mint.
 
How bad is Linux/Debian that newbies are told not to run it and to go find some unofficial one somewhere. Can you imagine some newb coming here asking to install FreeBSD and we told him, "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."
FreeBSD does have spinoffs that the Foundation actually mentions, like DragonflyBSD, MidnightBSD, NomadBSD and the like... So this is really par for the course - everybody does this, so does FreeBSD. It takes some brains to read such comments to mean "You have options", as opposed to "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."
 
Maybe a little of topic, sorry:

The fact that the “trinity” of ./configure, make and make install usually does not work on FreeBSD out-of-the box simply means that the GNU-autotools are not portable.

FreeBSD is a UNIX-like operating system and GNU-autotools-project had been started with the aim of being portable along such kinds of operating systems. Since it does not fulfil this prerequisite, GNU autotools obviously fail. But somehow all folks blame the particular operating system.

As an example of a build-system that does a better job: cmake. All stuff I am compiling has been working fine so far, i.e. there was no need for ports-tree integration!
 
Aah don’t get me started on GNU autotools. It claims to solve a bunch of problems that (for the most part) nobody actually has, and in the process simply creates a load more problems at a more abstract level... and the new problems are significantly harder to debug and fix than the problems that allegedly got solved. :D
 
As many times drhowarddrfine said the same topics starts again and again.
IMO this is the "war of generation". I am not IT educated but I can compare this debate with my work as researcher (genetics). Everything the same. Older you are less you want changes. But time didn't stop and young people with new ideas are coming but we old one never trust them. But it is not our future, it is future of the young generations.
I think drhowarddrfine is close to my ages and he should remember how old people look on us young with long hair, music... Did they stopped us?
 
fernandel The fundamentals have never changed and text will always trump graphics in the sciences. This is not a question of preferences. It's a question of fundamentals. That will never change.
 
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