Hello all: I'm recently new to FreeBSD (former Linux user) and I would like to share my thoughts in the matter.
(1) I love *BSD, especially FreeBSD because of the way it is. I read the handbook before installing it and my first impressions with the installation process was fine. My biggest problem was understanding the whole concept of slices, partitions and the ports but once I got around that, everything was fine. I have to admit that the installer is a little bit confusing at first but once you have done it 2 or 3 times it is very easy to use and the handbook helps a lot. Also the FreeBSD mailing lists is full of very nice and helpful people so that really helped my move from Linux. Note that my installation was very straight forward so maybe I did not encounter enough situations to really provide an accurate opinion on the matter. (2) I AGREE that FreeBSD needs to make it easier for new people to FreeBSD. The reason why I believe that is because the more people you have using FreeBSD the more feedback the project would get. At the same time I don't think this effort should come from the core developers. I think the core developers should concentrate on building a base system that is stable, secure etc. and then have something on top of that done by someone else. In other words, provide the possibility for different type of installers to be built that target different audience. (3) I have a couple of questions so I could better understand the the whole installer business. --- How difficult it is to add a couple extra options to the menu that you are offered when first installing FreeBSD so that you can choose a particular installer? --- Assuming this installers where done, how difficult would it be to make it part of the installation medias (CD, USB, DVD etc). --- How difficult it is to test an installer? (VirtualBox or some other virtualization software comes to mind for testing). --- What kind of knowledge is required/recommended to take on this task? --- What kind of resources are there available to help with this task? Feel free to ignore points 1 and 2 since I'm new to FreeBSD and I probably should be getting involved in this sort of discussions but any input on point 3 would be highly appreciated. -r _______________________________________________ freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-advocacy-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
