RE: [Fwd: BSDCon 2003 - Call for Papers]

<snip>
> 
> > I'll ask you this: How many of you ever ask a Linux person if they
> > have tried *BSD, and you got a response like:
> > "It's too hard to install, it didn't work right out of the box"
> > "*BSD, that's a dying OS"
> > "*BSD?  What the heck is that?"
> 
> On ease of installation, I found Slackware (Linux) easy 
> enough, it's text mode,
> not GUI.  Debian (2.2.3?) was also easy enough to install, 
> but messed up when I
> accepted the suggestion to install a preselected set of 
> packages, and there were
> lots of error messages about conflicts between the packages.  
> NetBSD 1.5.2 was
> easy enough to install, but bugged out when I typed anything  
> in response to the
> login prompt, and wouldn't get through the boot in 
> single-user mode with the
> generic kernel (OK with installation kernel, otherwise I 
> wouldn't have been able
> to install).  I was able to DOSBOOT the NetBSD 1.6 generic 
> kernel in single-user
> mode but haven't yet ordered CDs, plan to wait for 1.6.1 
> since that is nearing
> release.  NetBSD sysinstall seemed to automatically newfs all 
> subpartitions of
> the NetBSD slice, OK when I was installing 1.5.2 and will 
> install 1.6.1, but not
> good if I would want to track -current or upgrade without 
> wiping out the old
> version (sometimes an upgrade can break things, this is not 
> limited to BSD).
> 

Yes, the *BSD's can be difficult on some systems...  Were you
able to report the problems you had to the respective *BSD
teams so that they could look into it?  I think that one of
the main reasons why Linux is so "easy" and "friendly" to
install is because of the vast amounts of users (not to
mention the numerous companies who all sell a different
distribution of it).  

> I tried booting the FreeBSD installation diskettes as a test, 
> but it hung when
> probing hardware devices.  OpenBSD has the flaw of not being 
> able to boot on
> modern big hard drives when installed above 8 GB, even with 
> modern BIOS; this 
> creates problems when one wants to run another OS on the same 
> hard disk.  NetBSD
> is balky when booting on some computers where Linux has no 
> problem getting 
> through the boot.  Linux also seems to support more hardware 
> devices including
> the Fujitsu DynaMO drive and disks with sector size 2048 
> bytes; I think NetBSD
> does not read or write these disks.
> 

Hmmm... The "out of the box" *BSD's will support a lot of
devices, but you ususally have to recompile the kernel to
get certain devices to work -- something that a lot of
people: 1. Have no clue how to do, 2. Aren't equipped to
do, or 3. Feel they shouldn't have to do.  I think #3
is mainly a by product of people being used to the 
Windows Plug and Play (and Linux Plug and Play) detection
that detects and sets everything up during the install
phase so they don't (nomally) have to mess with it later.

> I am interested in NetBSD so as to compare the NetBSD and 
> Linux with similar
> applications, and to see the differences between two 
> (quasi-)Unixes but am not 
> ready to ditch Linux, believe very few disktop computer users 
> would have BSD 
> and no other OS.

Hmmm. It depends on what exactly you are trying to do.  I know
of some people who swear by their *BSD system as a desktop and
the thought of using anything else is appaling to them.

IMHO, if any of the *BSD's want to become more popular, then
this is something that needs to be addressed.  Progress is
being made, but it is slow.

Since I'm a FreeBSD person, 5.0 looks like it would be a 
very good version to try this with, once the -STABLE branch
is spawned in the source tree.

-Stacy