Re: Why is Desktop NetBSD a threat to NetBSD?

[Andy Ruhl <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Andrew Reilly
<andrew-netbsd%areilly.bpc-users.org@localhost> wrote:
> My point was that the scope will get out of hand anyway.

That's always a danger, yes.

> You can't just help people to download GNOME and install it,
> because GNOME (and now xorg itself) needs hal, and hal is the
> crux of the problem.  You can't just install linux-hal, because
> it wants to talk to the underlying system in the linux way
> (whatever that is).  *someone* will have to support netbsd-hal
> in pkgsrc, (along with all of the XML-based configuration
> mechanisms that go with it), and that is going to be a large and
> on-going job.

I haven't used Gnome seriously in, well, ever, so I didn't know that.
I always just do pkg_add on KDE and it mostly just works.

> Maybe it's worth it.  The FreeBSD GNOME folk seem to think it
> is, and are working on it with great vigor.  I'm just saying
> that it's not as simple as it sounds, and the implications are
> large and on-going.

I don't necessarily agree with using Gnome, and I'm not sure why there
is such a push to start with it. Maybe because everyone else is using
it? Or is there a better reason?

> As others have said, if you don't want to bite off this much
> pie, you can probably still make something that looks like
> a desktop by staying with traditional window managers like
> WindowMaker or fvwm, and leaving folk to do their own system
> administration, same as it ever was.  I'm not sure that that
> will satisfy the people aiming for Desktop NetBSD, though.  I
> think that a "Desktop" system (of today) really needs the "right
> thing" to happen when someone inserts a CD or a USB drive...

Mabye I'm interpreting this too simply:

Hence the desktop project, the primary goal
of which is:

   Given a NetBSD CD and a reasonably modern x86 computer, make it possible
   to install a useful desktop system in under 15 minutes, responding to
   only a few prompts in the process.

I didn't realize that using Gnome automatically turned this into some
cumbersome undertaking.

Andy