So I wanted to apologize for sending such an angry email to this list,
especially without giving more detail as was mentioned in the Milo Hyson
email response. I had spent some time not being able to use FreeBSD as a
stable workstation because of hardware compatibility issues on a Gateway
machine. During that time I had been forced to run Windows or Linux as my
desktop which sucks. I bought a new Dell E521 machine with a pretty vanilla
hardware spec, and didnt before I bought it check to see if FreeBSD would
support it. This is my fault, but in my defense at this stage in the game
youd think FreeBSD would support things like USB, SATA drives, CD-ROMS, etc
especially when I'm running 5.x and 6.x on my servers at work.
When my machine came in I was very excited to start installing FreeBSD so I
could once again have a real workstation. I tried installing 6.1 amd64 and
it crashed before it even finished loading. It crashed because of USB
issues. I unplugged the keyboard and then it hung on the SATA drive. I had
problems with amd and non-amd branches ranging from 5.x and 6.x. So I
burned a 7.0 install disc and it still crashed if the USB keyboard was
plugged in, but at least didnt hang on the SATA drive. Go to install and
the CD-ROM is not recognized (though Im sitting in sysinstall because I
booted from disc). So I ended up FTPing 6.2-Beta2 and actually made it
through the install. Yay!
But now I cant reboot my machine with the mouse or keyboard plugged into
it, I cant use my cd-rom, the sound doesnt work and my mouse freezes all
the time making this another desktop that I cant run FreeBSD on. Im not
new to this OS and I have spent more time than I care to recall hacking
through these issues, rewriting code and so on. And during the 4.x years
and even 5.x I accepted this and moved on. But at this stage in the game I
figured that the OS would be at a point where it could handle a vanilla
specd Dell. Im willing to blame Gateway, Im willing to blame Dell, if it
werent for the fact that I can install several versions of Linux and
Windows with no issues. It's hard convincing people to switch from Windows
or Linux when you can't even install the OS on a generic PC.
I dont want to run Windows, I dont want to run Linux, I just wanted a
freakin BSD box again. So yeah, I was really pissed and yes I acted like a
troll. I apologize for that, but I still stand behind the fact that at this
stage in the game, after all these years these types of fundamental issues
should not be happening and while its lame to flame the mailing list
because of my frustration its even more lame I dont get to run FreeBSD.
And what really sucks is finally getting new people to check out this OS I
have been pushing only to find they can't use if if they want a keyboard, or
a mouse or a cd-rom or a sound card installed.
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