Re: Is FreeBSD just a sandbox for hackers?

[Database Administrator]

Ranter wrote:
> The build stopped again (hour 47) to let me do more
> configuration, this time of the Ghostscript drivers. The
> instructions are that I shouldn't be too stingy, because some
> other port *might* fail unless it can find a certain driver, and
> that I should have fun with this new configuration style.
>
> For my inconvenience, nearly all the more than 200 (I lost count)
> entries were pre-checked. I had no idea that other FBSD
> installations were so well-supplied with printers; I feel
> positively deprived in only having one for my whole lan.
>
> Or perhaps the fun he urges me to have lies in going through and
> un-checking all those > 200 selections?

If you want handholding instead of a flexible operating system with a friendly
licensed kernel, perhaps you should take a look at one of the many Linux
distributions packed with "userfriendly" goo.

I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared to put in a bit more effort if you want
to use FreeBSD.

- Philip

--
Philip Paeps Please don't email any replies
philip@paeps.cx I follow the newsgroup.

When you consider there are 24 hours in a day, it's
sad to know that only one is called the happy hour.

[Database Administrator]

In article <1c4hg4ddcskjg2c6t5la8n1tf5mkfnndbl@4ax.com>,
Ranter writes:
> On 29 Oct 2008 15:22:16 GMT,
> Philip Paeps wrote:
>
>>Ranter wrote:
>>> The build stopped again (hour 47) to let me do more
>>> configuration, this time of the Ghostscript drivers. The
>>> instructions are that I shouldn't be too stingy, because some
>>> other port *might* fail unless it can find a certain driver, and
>>> that I should have fun with this new configuration style.
>>>
>>> For my inconvenience, nearly all the more than 200 (I lost count)
>>> entries were pre-checked. I had no idea that other FBSD
>>> installations were so well-supplied with printers; I feel
>>> positively deprived in only having one for my whole lan.
>>>
>>> Or perhaps the fun he urges me to have lies in going through and
>>> un-checking all those > 200 selections?
>>
>>If you want handholding instead of a flexible operating system with a friendly
>>licensed kernel, perhaps you should take a look at one of the many Linux
>>distributions packed with "userfriendly" goo.
>>
>>I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared to put in a bit more effort if you want
>>to use FreeBSD.
>
> To what combination of factors do YOU attribute Linux's success
> compared to FBSD, Philip?

I have asked this question of a lot of people. The answer is really
simple. Marketing. The people pushing Linux are willing to push
and push very hard. The people using (and behind) BSD aren't interested.
They are happy to play with it and really don't care if it ever becomes
the commercial success that Linux is. Sad really, when you consider that
BSD has provavble technical superiority and a much more commercial
friendly license than Linux.

>
> And are you comfortable with the prospect of a future in which
> FBSD is of no more importance than, say, Minix?

I would pfrefer somethign better, but I see no way it is going to
change. Like many real commercial legacy products, the future of
BSD is in the hands of people who don't care and afre not likely
to change the status quo.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include

[Database Administrator]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:39:48 GMT, Ranter wrote:
>On 29 Oct 2008 15:22:16 GMT, Philip Paeps wrote:
>>Ranter wrote:
>>> The build stopped again (hour 47) to let me do more configuration,
>>> this time of the Ghostscript drivers. The instructions are that I
>>> shouldn't be too stingy, because some other port *might* fail unless
>>> it can find a certain driver, and that I should have fun with this
>>> new configuration style.
>>>
>>> For my inconvenience, nearly all the more than 200 (I lost count)
>>> entries were pre-checked. I had no idea that other FBSD
>>> installations were so well-supplied with printers; I feel positively
>>> deprived in only having one for my whole lan.
>>>
>>> Or perhaps the fun he urges me to have lies in going through and
>>> un-checking all those > 200 selections?
>>
>> If you want handholding instead of a flexible operating system with a
>> friendly licensed kernel, perhaps you should take a look at one of
>> the many Linux distributions packed with "userfriendly" goo.
>>
>> I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared to put in a bit more effort if
>> you want to use FreeBSD.
>
> To what combination of factors do YOU attribute Linux's success
> compared to FBSD, Philip?
>
> And are you comfortable with the prospect of a future in which FBSD is
> of no more importance than, say, Minix?

You are obviously having problems with the installation of some ports.
It looks like the questions are hiding among the large amounts of text
you have already posted.

One of the questions appears to be ``how do I get a framebuffer
console?''. See the previous posts in the thread for an answer to that.

If we can hold the ranting horses for a while, and you really want the
remaining questions answered, maybe now it is a good time to write those
questions instead of ranting about how wonderful some other OS is. It's
not like everyone will happily jump around and say ``me, me, *I* am
going to help this one'' if you make a bad start by offending all the
people who develop FreeBSD and support FreeBSD users in this group by
answering their questions.

So, can we rewind a bit, and get to the *real* stuff?

[Database Administrator]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:12:12 +0000, Ranter wrote:

> If this trend continues, FBSD will eventually join Minix in the dustbin
> of history. I think that would be a *terrible* thing to happen. And a
> pretty stupid one, too, considering I believe that fate to be highly
> preventable.

You've seen the "BSD is dying" meme on slashdot?

BTW, perhaps in some of the 50-ish hours that you've been building GNOME,
you might have noticed that both FreeBSD *and* all of the GNOME ports are
available, pre-built as packages? Just like those linux distributions
that you keep going on about. Sure, lots of BSD folk build from source.
I know that I do. But the main reason that I do is so that the source is
available for me to debug whatever it is, if I feel like it. I don't
imagine that many people feel that particular need.

Do the owners of the three-wheelers that you hanker to join feel that
their vehicles are "dying", even though they are a much smaller group
than the owners of, say, Toyotas?

--
Andrew

[Database Administrator]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <1c4hg4ddcskjg2c6t5la8n1tf5mkfnndbl@4ax.com>,
> Ranter writes:
>> On 29 Oct 2008 15:22:16 GMT,
>> Philip Paeps wrote:
>>
>>>Ranter wrote:
>>>> The build stopped again (hour 47) to let me do more
>>>> configuration, this time of the Ghostscript drivers. The
>>>> instructions are that I shouldn't be too stingy, because some
>>>> other port *might* fail unless it can find a certain driver, and
>>>> that I should have fun with this new configuration style.
>>>>
>>>> For my inconvenience, nearly all the more than 200 (I lost count)
>>>> entries were pre-checked. I had no idea that other FBSD
>>>> installations were so well-supplied with printers; I feel
>>>> positively deprived in only having one for my whole lan.
>>>>
>>>> Or perhaps the fun he urges me to have lies in going through and
>>>> un-checking all those > 200 selections?
>>>
>>>If you want handholding instead of a flexible operating system with a friendly
>>>licensed kernel, perhaps you should take a look at one of the many Linux
>>>distributions packed with "userfriendly" goo.
>>>
>>>I'm afraid you'll have to be prepared to put in a bit more effort if you want
>>>to use FreeBSD.
>>
>> To what combination of factors do YOU attribute Linux's success
>> compared to FBSD, Philip?
>
> I have asked this question of a lot of people. The answer is really
> simple. Marketing. The people pushing Linux are willing to push
> and push very hard. The people using (and behind) BSD aren't interested.
> They are happy to play with it and really don't care if it ever becomes
> the commercial success that Linux is. Sad really, when you consider that
> BSD has provavble technical superiority and a much more commercial
> friendly license than Linux.

You would be amazed to learn about the commercial success BSD has but which
you don't hear about because the friendly licence doesn't require it. There
is BSD code in untold millions of embedded devices being used by untold
millions of people all the time.

I don't think anyone in the BSD community is particularly worried about the
"BSD is dying" priests like "Ranter". I for one am not going to bother
spending more energy on him. I prefer to try to help people who are prepared
to read documentation and learn about what they're doing rather than blindly
typing "make install clean" and hoping it goes well (and waiting 47 hours just
to complain about it not doing so).

- Philip

--
Philip Paeps Please don't email any replies
philip@paeps.cx I follow the newsgroup.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it is called 'present'.

[Database Administrator]

On 10/30/2008 04:13 AM, Andrew Reilly wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:12:12 +0000, Ranter wrote:
>
>> If this trend continues, FBSD will eventually join Minix in the dustbin
>> of history. I think that would be a *terrible* thing to happen. And a
>> pretty stupid one, too, considering I believe that fate to be highly
>> preventable.
>
> You've seen the "BSD is dying" meme on slashdot?
>
> BTW, perhaps in some of the 50-ish hours that you've been building GNOME,
> you might have noticed that both FreeBSD *and* all of the GNOME ports are
> available, pre-built as packages? Just like those linux distributions
> that you keep going on about. Sure, lots of BSD folk build from source.
> I know that I do. But the main reason that I do is so that the source is
> available for me to debug whatever it is, if I feel like it. I don't
> imagine that many people feel that particular need.

IMHO, even if pre-compiled binary packages are available, but updating
and upgrading a free machine is still a time consuming job compared to
Fedora, Debian and Arch; all these Linux distributions use their own
package management systems and none stops you compiling and, or fine
tuning any package.

BTW, compiling, analyzing, fine-tuning and, or debugging a package is
not everyone's cup of tea; why force such absurd policies on to newcomers.

Why force a full ports collection update, fetchindex and, or portsnap of
all the 19000+ packages and, or patches when someone is using only
around 700 of these? The *FreeBSD ports collection* and, or package
management system in its current incarnation *SUCKS*.

> Do the owners of the three-wheelers that you hanker to join feel that
> their vehicles are "dying", even though they are a much smaller group
> than the owners of, say, Toyotas?

What apples has to with oranges? What if, someone (or FreeBSD
developers) does have a sense of feeling and, or does not even know what
the hell that feeling phenomena is? That one's is not dying, but dead.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

[Database Administrator]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:40:01 +0530, Balwinder S Dheeman wrote:
> BTW, compiling, analyzing, fine-tuning and, or debugging a package is
> not everyone's cup of tea; why force such absurd policies on to
> newcomers.

What a strange thing to say. No one is forcing any policy on newcomers.
There are many ways to solve any problem under Unix. Famous Unix saying:
"provide mechanism, not policy."

> Why force a full ports collection update, fetchindex and, or portsnap of
> all the 19000+ packages and, or patches when someone is using only
> around 700 of these?

There is no forcing. The ports collection is not part of the FreeBSD
base. You're welcome to install applications however you like. The
ports collection is just one way. Pre-built packages are another way
that is closely related. There are others.

You make it sound as though updating the ports collection of 19000+
packages is more of a chore than some particular 700. That is plainly
silly: the whole collection is best thought of as a single "database of
where to find and how to install third-party stuff". Whenever you do an
update, with csup or cvsup or cvs or rdiff or svn, you only perform one
operation, and the data transferred over the network is only that part of
the database that changed since the last time you updated it: usually a
very small amount of data.

> The *FreeBSD ports collection* and, or package
> management system in its current incarnation *SUCKS*.

You're clearly welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. I've used
several package management systems, on several Unix-like platforms. None
are perfect, all have their strengths and weaknesses. I happen to like
the tradeoffs that the FreeBSD ports system has made. I particularly
like the easy visibility of what is going on that comes from storing both
the database of available packages and the database of installed files as
simple trees of regular text files.

Just out of interest, what don't you like about it, besides requiring the
database (the ports tree) to reside locally on your computer?

> What apples has to with oranges? What if, someone (or FreeBSD
> developers) does have a sense of feeling and, or does not even know what
> the hell that feeling phenomena is? That one's is not dying, but dead.

I'm afraid you're not making any sense at all here. Could you have a go
at re-phrasing the question?

Cheers,

--
Andrew

[Database Administrator]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:38:55 +0000, Ranter wrote:

> But maybe your computer is only an anti-boredom hobby for you,

Well, I won't deny that I enjoy using it, but no, I use the FreeBSD
systems that I look after for work, at work. They look after themselves
and "just work". Just ask Yahoo and all of the other big users. Having
servers that just do what you ask of them is a big advantage.

--
Andrew

[Database Administrator]

On 2008-10-30, Andrew Reilly was urged to write the following:

>> The *FreeBSD ports collection* and, or package
>> management system in its current incarnation *SUCKS*.
>
> You're clearly welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. I've used
> several package management systems, on several Unix-like platforms. None
> are perfect, all have their strengths and weaknesses. I happen to like
> the tradeoffs that the FreeBSD ports system has made. I particularly
> like the easy visibility of what is going on that comes from storing both
> the database of available packages and the database of installed files as
> simple trees of regular text files.

Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as
I understand they have a similar approach to installing software.

--
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

[Database Administrator]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:52:51 GMT, TomB wrote:
> On 2008-10-30, Andrew Reilly was urged to write the following:
>>> The *FreeBSD ports collection* and, or package
>>> management system in its current incarnation *SUCKS*.
>>
>> You're clearly welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. I've
>> used several package management systems, on several Unix-like
>> platforms. None are perfect, all have their strengths and
>> weaknesses. I happen to like the tradeoffs that the FreeBSD ports
>> system has made. I particularly like the easy visibility of what is
>> going on that comes from storing both the database of available
>> packages and the database of installed files as simple trees of
>> regular text files.
>
> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as
> I understand they have a similar approach to installing software.

Why not ``the real thing'', aka FreeBSD?

/me ducks and runs...