I can practically install FreeBSD blindfolded on the current one, but only
because I've done it so many times. The first few attempts were extremely
frustrating; the menu flow in the current installer makes little sense --
especially if something goes wrong. Please keep that in mind, everyone on
this list knows the installer like the back of their hand, but do you
remember the first time(s) you used it? Know a fairly seasoned linux user
that has never used FreeBSD? Sit them down at a machine and watch them try
to install it.
First impressions are important! I won't go into the gui vs non-gui
installer debate, but making the install process as slick as possible is
definitely a good thing.
My first install of FreebSD, 5x, years ago, went smoothly, even with
that not-so-smooth default install script, because I had first carefully
read the handbook section on installing and hence had enough
understanding about what I was trying to do that I was able to happily
muddle through. I do recall that getting X up and running was not easy
and may have taken an hour or so, but likewise, the FreeBSD handbook and
a man page or two got me by. I was also very motivated, since my own
migration to FreeBSD was not a happenstance whim, but researched and
planned.
Last week I did a fresh install of FreeBSD 8. It was more or less a snap
(aside from some wee glitches, stuff like two WM dockapps I'd brought
forward from an earlier desktop setup working, but literally throwing
off millions of IO errors), either way, I found it rather easy only
because I'd done it a few times before and knew how to deal with what
might come up (and again, read the documentation when I didn't).
From what I've seen, almost all users (even "advanced" ones coming from
Linux) who try and fail to install FreeBSD indeed haven't read the
handbook and aren't very willing to do so. The installation dialog does
have some odd steps which, while no big thing for someone who's heeding
the docs, will likely be seen as utter failures for someone who's not.
Hence I see a FreeBSD installation as a "cultural" shift which doesn't
work for most users, who (understandably, I guess) want an easy
point-and-click installation. Likewise, most of the so very helpful and
slick things about running a FreeBSD desktop, along with all those
wonderful ports, come through at least some willingness to keep reading
man pages, beginning with running the wholly automated compile scripts
from a command line as root, never mind little tricks like typing
"rehash" when the installation's done.
A smooth graphical install program would very likely draw many new users
to FreeBSD and may be the only way to do so. Moreover, with what looks
to me like the almost wholly automated hardware detection now in Xorg
7.4, even X could be configured by scripts on the fly most of the time,
with the installation optionally offering to end with a wide choice of
windowed GUIs such as Gnome, KDE, FluxBox, WindowMaker and so on. Hey,
with a few hundred thousand more desktop users, browser-embedded, native
Flash might even show up!
I did have to configure my Swiss keyboard manually though, which was
slightly daunting (which is to say, took me about 15 minutes rather than
1 or 2) because the config terms for this kind of KB weren't
straightforwardly defined.
I'll end with this little tale, only to stir up thoughts: When I got the
new versions of mplayer and vlc installed on FBSD8, I couldn't play most
of my store-bought DVDs. Since I knew there had to be an easy fix, five
minutes of searching on the Internet brought the easy fix (FreeBSD is so
stable and reliable, once configured, I'd wholly forgotten about the
CD/DVD device permissions), but how many so-called "mainstream" desktop
users would get through that kind of glitch? Not many, however much
someone like me, who's already quite delighted with FreeBSD, might wish
otherwise.
Heidi
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