From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 16973 invoked from network); 6 Jun 2022 01:41:29 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 6 Jun 2022 01:41:29 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BDD940C70; Mon, 6 Jun 2022 11:41:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-oi1-x22e.google.com (mail-oi1-x22e.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::22e]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C3CD440C66 for ; Mon, 6 Jun 2022 11:41:20 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-oi1-x22e.google.com with SMTP id l81so2482359oif.9 for ; Sun, 05 Jun 2022 18:41:20 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=2mmQWBLi4P7PKUDBaqISOSxQ/mFU0Ul3Bh3IfSfxJBk=; b=PIz4JCOAFGgaw8ovGTphHlfVQxZUF7mA6OMUJXGnEresIbuKfbwYfMFQj7LYibLUZf hbPXH85PEsEMR9HoKR7OJWhSSgsasxqbnV0kE2Gv61GyHS/c/9gQ9V22aftF0z+y8CoC zsOQODuYbpc2rT+1utcdmSKTJXCLMdhqFfe3UXt8xiEXaF0+81nUaLjSenfKNnWAuyqS XHCldFvXutId44bZzWgWlp1WRD0mZFw9qIYzJMPz0zRiSZBXMartZBwKThAGcpE58XbC mLTqsN2644SCiQr6EXx+1QYIz7PQaoqKvMJ44Lt/v5yEn6fzocaO5IQbGHBYyEolNCfM fJYw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=2mmQWBLi4P7PKUDBaqISOSxQ/mFU0Ul3Bh3IfSfxJBk=; b=O8YXygZTTmD20P16368G3AkNZIhdn7COjebmaeAjZeR31eKtY3uFHxXEMcrFXcLM6o 0eM2hdWAusIF4nNGOX7zeDKlabUgi+vfS7mBRlIs9Co4jaG3YgcY3/svOrxIA53FY8+Q E8axDRYR9IAJofXTgM15zEvJCPwN9HBC6FO87KTvRgFFK0J1p5Jo//szwLyA6lxybx7p NtHPnyVKa0uAQ3Zl6V3sBUn2VR2ccKtk3RGsO4yFrxEKBm0AZ7nwJFB4qLrtLgn4JNQh KWuYa6yCIh1kgx9stvvOmcG7iF5p2gOfIrmMWwtCLng98CpFg8D/k99Ryur6hJEgFkvf 2BTA== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM532RyS+MCPBEb2+oXCKi/DlKEcNS4iY6LAkHtWtTXjapXW8/vrq9 wpHxjUI6zvtuEHmkF6rHQjnyIF97AWfDrusFXScEfdxURQU= X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJx2GuEgV6QukqIQJqtq+3f1m7RbH4rTYDLw2Pxiwvr/5lNCOUopK3ftNUxzLFDkv49xsBOwOZs5pwuq7Jrajis= X-Received: by 2002:a05:6808:2121:b0:32e:64f5:4b5 with SMTP id r33-20020a056808212100b0032e64f504b5mr6548762oiw.278.1654479680109; Sun, 05 Jun 2022 18:41:20 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20220603213215.GO10240@mcvoy.com> <20220603214032.GQ10240@mcvoy.com> <20220603223014.GS10240@mcvoy.com> <20220603234822.GV10240@mcvoy.com> <20220604010543.GZ10240@mcvoy.com> <20220606011511.GG10240@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: <20220606011511.GG10240@mcvoy.com> From: Dan Cross Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2022 21:40:44 -0400 Message-ID: To: Larry McVoy Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Message-ID-Hash: LWVNRAPCF22WY64BSPXDZPIFTXSYL4GR X-Message-ID-Hash: LWVNRAPCF22WY64BSPXDZPIFTXSYL4GR X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Fwd: [simh] Announcing the Open SIMH project List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Sun, Jun 5, 2022 at 9:15 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > Today's FreeBSD install process is like a trip back to 1980. It is > not pleasant. The Linux install process 15 years ago was a better > experience than Windows install process (if you've done the windows > install then get some ethernet dongle that windows recognizes so you can > connect to the internet, then do the driver search and install, install, > install all the drivers - contrast that with Linux where it just has 99% > of the drivers in the kernel). But every distribution has its own installer, and they vary wildly. At the start of the pandemic, we realized really quickly that our older kid needed a dedicated computer for her use, so I put Mint on an Intel NUC and gave it to her. It was a delightful experience; very simple, graphical installer, all of that. It does everything she needs for school and goofing around stuff. It's great. The other day, I needed a Linux machine for work. I grabbed another NUC and put Arch on it. A vastly different experience: much more akin to installing 7th Edition than Windows or macOS. Oh! And I missed a step, so I had to pull some shenanigans to fix that. I'd put the FreeBSD install process somewhere between the two. Sure, it's textual, but it's pretty straightforward. OpenBSD is probably a tad closer to the Arch-like experience -- it's not as colorful -- but it's not too hard[*]. So the experience varies across BSDs, but not that much, while it's vastly different across Linux distributions. The ABI compatibility thing breaks down, too. A colleague was trying to get the host-side of a Salae logic analyzer working on Arch, and it doesn't. They more or less require Ubuntu 18.something, and that's not what he runs. As far as most end-users are concerned, your distribution of choice is "Linux", and distributions vary in all kinds of ways. - Dan C. I ran into some weird behavior in their bootstrap, though; I traced this to something slow in the BIOS, did a fix locally, sent a bug report along with a patch, and got told, "go use UEFI." Meh. Ok.... So I went back and used UEFI, and the same thing was slow (unsurprising as almost certainly the BIOS and UEFI flows share common code), wrote back, and got silence. I pinged again the other week and still haven't heard anything. Very discouraging. I suspect it's that kind of thing that turns people off of at least some of the BSDs.