*BSDThis forum is for the discussion of all BSD variants.
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.
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The biggest hurdle that most newcomers to BSD run into when trying OpenBSD is getting help with problems. OpenBSD has the best man pages on the planet because they're considered part of the code (i.e. the coding isn't finished until the man pages **correctly** explain the program in explicit detail), and because of that the mailing lists are very, very hostile towards people who do not use the man pages first.
This is a very valid point - in my (very) long experience with BSD, it has always been a bit of a hurdle for new users. BSD people aren't windows people by and large, and have never been interested in 'taking over the desktop', or 'playing games'. They tend to show those people over to the Linux/Wine forums. BSD people tend to be Unix admins in the suspenders and beard tradition.
This is perception, of course, and they're actually really nice people (and Wine does work fine on most BSD systems ) - but the fact is that I have personally seen a real issue with communication when it comes to dealing with people from a different mindset. Ubuntu groups tend to be much more 'Newbie Friendly', as that's the goal of the distro.
Last edited by MBybee; 01-21-2010 at 09:16 AM.
Reason: grammar
This is a very valid point - in my (very) long experience with BSD, it has always been a bit of a hurdle for new users. BSD people aren't windows people by and large, and have never been interested in 'taking over the desktop', or 'playing games'. They tend to show those people over to the Linux/Wine forums. BSD people tend to be Unix admins in the suspenders and beard tradition.
This is perception, of course, and they're actually really nice people (and Wine does work fine on most BSD systems ) - but the fact is that I have personally seen a real issue with communication when it comes to dealing with people from a different mindset. Ubuntu groups tend to be much more 'Newbie Friendly', as that's the goal of the distro.
Very true. The OpenBSD developers are developing OpenBSD for their own use. There are some problems they will assist with, but there are other problems that they will not assist with, because they don't care about the problem and they are not invested in more people using OpenBSD.
Case in point would be a graphical installer: they think their installation process is better, period, and are fine with people who want a GUI-oriented installer really, really bad using another OS.
Case in point would be a graphical installer: they think their installation process is better, period, and are fine with people who want a GUI-oriented installer really, really bad using another OS.
I was just in a debate about this on the FreeBSD advocacy list
Sysinstall is excellent. Period. There was a small push to build yet another GUI installer, but the recommendation was to just use the PC-BSD one (that will do FreeBSD or PC-BSD - ie plain vanilla or with the extra stuff).
Not sure if OpenBSD has ever bothered to do one. It is rather a pain.
Not sure if OpenBSD has ever bothered to do one. It is rather a pain.
I like the OpenBSD installer. It's simple, concise, and easy to use...and every time they add a new "feature" to it, I wonder how I lived without that feature before. They don't add stuff just to "be cool" like a lot of other vendors seem to do...they add actual useful features that make the installation process very pleasant (as long as you don't mind using the CLI, of course).
And nothing beats using bsd.rd for upgrades. That's idiotic simplicity at it's finest. Just download a new bsd.rd and boot from it, perform an upgrade or fresh install over the network, and reboot to an upgraded system. Doesn't get much easier than that.
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