Re: *PLEASE READ* Re: Two NetBSDs: from Desktop NetBSD needs your help

[markucz%gmail.com@localhost]

I've been patiently reading this thread (and the one in tech-kern) and I'm
happy to hear that
> 1) There will be NO fork of NetBSD.
> 2) There will be NO mandatory GUI - NetBSD is not Microsoft Windows

I'm not opposed to having Desktop NetBSD. It's just 2) which keeps bothering
me. The point of having Desktop NetBSD is to attract new and possibly
inexperienced users, right? So besides GUI you also need GUI utilities to
help those users setup their machine. Basically:
1) One must be able to install and setup NetBSD as we now do, and have a lean,
fast, stable, predictable and usable system.
2) Once you go the GUI utilities way, you have to make sure they work just
as well as doing the setup in the ksh-and-vi way *and* play nice it. So you
must have them functionally integrated with the base system, while keeping
them separated from it. That's the whole problem, I just don't believe you
can do both at the same time. Once you try that, sooner or later NetBSD
won't be lean, fast and predictable. It will become bloatware. Hell, I've
read INSTALL.txt many times and I don't see what makes it more difficult than
clicking flashy buttons. Besides, what desktop environment will you choose?
KDE? Gnome? Blackbox?

I'm using both Linux and NetBSD. There's a huge difference between them.
Linux is great as a desktop system, but I wouldn't touch its guts with a
ten-feet pole. NetBSD is great as a system running on almost any hardware out
there and I *love* its (so far, more or less) clean code. NetBSD does the
portability stuff pretty well, and I think it should stick to it.

Just my 5 cents.

Best regards.