On Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:47:08 +1100 (EST), Ian Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 287, Issue 16, Message: 8 > On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:39:08 +0200 Manolis Kiagias <[email protected]> wrote: > > Removing X from the distributions is a right step IMO, these are just > > 3rd party packages and it seems confusing if they get installed along > > with the base system. > > I think this is taking base-system-only installation purity to excess.
Imagine the following situation: A user wants to run Linux applications on FreeBSD. He selects the Linux ABI service for startup via sysinstall. The corresponding _enable setting will be added to rc.conf, and - surprise! - a package will be installed. The same thing happens when a user installs X. Of course, X is not part of the base system, but in the same way that sysinstall (down)loads and installs packages when a specific service is selected, it should act the same way for X. I know that X has become a problematic and very complex thing, not just a few packages (as it was in the past with XFree86). X should be installabe in a manner made easy, just like the Linux ABI. > In the case of X, > you and I, developers and most people here know to hunt for the Xorg > meta-port. The average user intending to run a desktop system won't be happy with compiling stuff... > But the naive or new installer knows of no such thing, and > could beat around in the huge lists of X software for ages, wondering > what's required and what's not to get a desktop going. Therefore, I always liked the choice for X in sysinstall: It basically installed all the components to get X up and running. No big trouble getting the correct xorg-driver-* packages, installing and removing them, the xorg-input-* packages with the same story... -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[email protected]"
