On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_li...@tx.rr.com>wrote:
> --On March 29, 2011 1:32:23 AM -0400 Jason Hsu <jhsu802...@jasonhsu.com> > wrote: > > ... > >> 4. What are the Linux Mint and Puppy Linux of the BSD universe? I >> consider these two distros to set the standard in the Linux universe, >> because they're so user-friendly. These are the distros I've set out to >> compete against in developing Swift Linux. >> > > FreeBSD is first and foremost a server OS. Desktop support is lacking when > compared to the other major OSes (Windows, Mac and Linux). You can make it > work, if you want to, but that's not what its primary function is. > > If you want a user friendly desktop OS, FreeBSD is probably not your best > choice. > > -- > Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst > As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions > are my own and not those of my employer. > Business of an operating system is to manage the resources of the computer hardware and execute suitably written user programs whatever the subjects of those programs are . Therefore distinguishing between ¨Server Operating System¨ and ¨Desktop Operating System¨ is an artificial discrimination which these may be attributed to configuration parameters . If a so-called ¨operating system¨ lacks any capability to manage either of these parts ( hardware and software ) , it is my opinion that ¨operating system¨ is not a proper name for it . When we consider the FreeBSD from point of view of operating systems , it is a wonderful operating system . Then what is the trouble which is not widely adopted for desktop usage and actually by super computers ? In my opinion , it is the default installation configuration . The attitude for default configuration seems to make it restrictive against easy use as much as possible . The wrong point is ( that design decision ) that make it unusable by the inexperienced or first time users . During its design of user interface the above fact is not taken into consideration very much ( with respect to my opinion ) . Please do NOT take my ideas against the FreeBSD developers . These ideas are expressed just to illuminate difficulties and discuss possible remedies . When a point is difficult for a computer engineer with more than forty years of computing experience , please think its level of difficulty . During install , it is possible to ask whether that computer will be used by multiple users or a single user which this fact is asked explicitly BUT not utilized sufficiently : Questions and answers by the installer : Will be NSF server ? NO . Will be NSF client ? NO . Will be FTP server ? NO . Will be GATEWAY ? NO . etc. All the information about whether the computer will be used as a server or a desktop computer is given by the above answers . Therefore , it is VERY EASY to select installed configuration files with respect to the answers to the above questions : For the server : Very restrictive settings , because server administrators need high level of security , For the single user : Very permissive settings for the user land , because single users need easy usage , but very restrictive settings for the root related parts to prevent malicious software invasion . The point is very clear : The computer is belong to me : I can crash it , I can destroy it , I can throw it to fire , and the worst case , I can insert another operating system installer and completely erase FreeBSD on it , BUT I can NOT auto mount a USB stick ( which is possible to do it since 1998 in Windows ) , I can NOT auto mount a DVD/CD ( which is possible , perhaps it started with first Windows in 1995 ) , although such operations are also possible in FreeBSD always . Then , it is not possible to understand why FreeBSD is isolating itself from society . To see the amount of adoption , please consider the following web site ( in my opinion even it is not necessary to look elsewhere for level of adoption because from Central Limit Theorem of Statistics , we can conclude that a sample size of 500 is a complete representative of whole universe ) : http://www.top500.org/ At the right top of its page , there is a Statistics part . >From its ( Statistics Type ) part select ( Operating System Family ) and click Generate : http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/osf<http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/osfam> For 11/2011 among top 500 super computers : Linux 459 Windows 5 Unix 19 BSD based 1 : OpenSolaris Mixed 16 . >From its ( Statistics Type ) part select ( Processor Family ) and click Generate : http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/procfam Power 40 Nec 1 Sparc 1 Intel IA-64 5 : Itanium Intel EMT64T 392 : amd64 in FreeBSD AMD x86_64 57 : amd64 in FreeBSD Intel Core 1 : i386 or amd64 in FreeBSD Others 2 I am NOT against Linux or any other operating system , but my concern is when a very high technology is available in FreeBSD , why it is NOT used extensively which it is sure that it is useful for society . Then , what may be the solutions : Instead of pursuing a solid rock Handbook , please include a facility on each page to get opinions , questions of users about information given in that page , and link these responses to TODO pages , to track problems . These opinions or questions will be more informal with respect to problem reports . When the SVN is inspected , in some directories there are man pages along with the corresponding programs . My impression is that each program of the operating system does not have such pairs . For the missing pairs , move man pages into the respective directories and always update man pages when the respective programs are updated to keep man pages as synchronized . Some man pages are really very cryptic which is not possible to understand them . In the ( man page ) display pages of the FreeBSD web site , allow user opinions and questions to be entered and link these to man page TODO lists . In the same way , distribute all of the respective Handbook pages into program directories , and update them with the programs along with man pages . Some Handbook pages may be directly generated form man pages by combining the Handbook page and the man page . This will reduce maintenance requirements . The quality of the Handbook is very high ( and very good ) . This makes it difficult to maintain . Allow simple tutorial pages to be linked and included into Handbook to supply application case studies , etc. At present , these pages are scattered all over the internet and many of them are related to older versions which they are useful for users of these older versions , but new versions do not have respective tutorials . A new user will obviously start from the latest release without having sufficiently available tutorials . The Handbook is NOT a sufficiently detailed tutorial book which its purpose is NOT to be such a detailed tutorial book . It is necessary to enrich it by supplying tutorial page links to its pages which these pages should be stored into FreeBSD servers to protect them from frequent disappearing or modification cases of web sites . Allow people to submit plain text files for possible inclusion into Handbook to be used by other ( developers or committers ) to utilize as starting parts as to be formatted . Every possible contributor may not know SGML sufficiently well . During installation distinguish between server related settings and single user related settings , and select installed configuration files with respect to this structure . It is very obvious that any solution attempt requires human time and monetary allocations . There is a problem : egg from chicken , chicken from egg . A few months ago , www.wikipedia.org collected more than 15 million dollars by a contribution help campaign with participants reaching to approximately 2 million ( if I remember correctly ) persons with average contribution level around 10 dollars . Last year , their need was around 7 million dollars . If it is possible , such campaigns may be arranged yearly by the FreeBSD Foundation to cover development costs . I believe in that FreeBSD is used mainly in servers and owners of these servers will participate such campaigns because outcome will be directly usable by them . The single user persons need a very easily usable highly secure operating systems , therefore they also wish to support the FreeBSD development because their contributions will return to themselves as more high quality operating system . Thank you very much with my best wishes for FreeBSD developers and its users ( with the rest of humanity ) . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"