Christopher R. Bowman wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Tom T. Thai wrote:
> > On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Ted Lemon wrote:
> > > > get lots of twisting going! :)  I am getting tired of seeing all this
> > > > support out there for Linux and FreeBSD but no native support for NetBSD.
> > > 
> > > All we have to do to fix this problem is increase our installed base
> > > to the point where it makes more sense to port to NetBSD than FreeBSD
> > > or Linux.   It's a SMOM.
> > 
> > let's start by asking why isn't our install base as big as the others..
> > From what I can see:
> > 	1. ease of installation
> > 	2. documentation (I'm working on this)
> > 	3. www.netbsd.org doesn't have much content.
> > 
> > what else? 
> 
> 4. Frequency of releases, current is suppose to be experimental but (at
> least in the mac68k port) people are constantly told to try current
> to get this or that feature.  I really think that a yearly release
> cycle is to long.

Fortunately, this recommendation should change a bit after the 1.3
release.  We now have the majority (although a slim one) of 68k-based
Macs working.  The long release cycle has affected other ports as well,
tho.  The i386 port has seen significant improvements which required
-current to take advantage of them (like bounce buffer support, atapi
support, pcmcia support...)

Hopefully, the 1.4 release cycle will not last nearly as long as 1.3 :-)

> 5. Availability of simple to use CDROMs for installation. I know
> that there is a cdrom out there with netbsd stuff on it, but having
> one offical FreeBSD CDROM to my mind is a good thing.

Yeah, this would be really nice...but how many architectures do you
support on a CD-ROM?  NetBSD supports quite a few :-)  We have made recent
efforts to cut this down some by creating an m68k shareable /usr tree, but
this still leaves all the non-m68k architectures.  Is it really worth it
to create a NetBSD/i386 only CD-ROM?  I mean, I think that the
multi-platform nature of NetBSD is certainly one of its strong points.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - MD6                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.