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Re: LiveCD for NetBSD equivalent to DesktopBSD or PC-BSD?



On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 06:40:52PM -0500, Doctor Who wrote:

> Is there a LiveCD for NetBSD equivalent to DesktopBSD or PC-BSD?  I
> remember a NetBSD-office (or something like that) back in the day and
> I see I live cd on the NetBSD ISO mirrors, but it appears a bit long
> in the tooth.

My - quite personal - feeling is: there's no need.

Why? NetBSD seems to be server-oriented OS rather, which - there's no doubt
- of course can be used on the desktops as well, but desktops aren't the
"target". Desktop user needs are somewhat different, than the server
administrator's; first of all: drivers for the newest hardware (or at least
for hardware, which still can be described as "new") - and I mean exactly this
sort of hardware, which is somewhat aside of the main interest of the devs:
like 3-D graphics accelerators, newest sound/music cards, and for other
hardware, which has no relationship to any server application.

So, a general question: what for? A skilled person will install it from the
already available standard CD - but an average PC-user most probably just
doesn't want it. Even, if there were such CD - what then? Do you want to
persuade former Windows-user, that he has to edit config files, if he wants
to tune the system?

Linux will be better choice (IMHO) for desktop; much better than PC-BSD,
exactly because of the better hardware support. Especially for those "coming
from Windows" perhaps the best tip would be Ubuntu-Linux, not any xBSD OS.

And for those, who want to test it as desktop-OS anyway - Zafer prepared his
Jibbed-CD.
-- 
                                pozdrawiam / regards

                                                Zbigniew Baniewski



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