On 13-Feb-2009, at 12:26 PM, Andy Ruhl wrote:
These people are probably not against having to learn some things specific to NetBSD and using text files to configure the system, they just don't want to start from a black screen with white letters and not a good background or understanding of where to go from there.
Well, OK, then I think that gets us all the way back to why the heck this is even a question in the first place since the installation procedure for a proper "desktop" OS _must_ work without having to edit any text files whatsoever.
If some inexperienced user suffers real troubles getting their machine going properly then they're not likely to get very far at fixing it with a terminal based text editor, even if they can muddle their way through using it. They will need guidance and support and if that has to include instructing them how to drive ed(1), ex(1), or vi(1) (or cat(1)) while they make changes they don't understand anyway then so be it. Many of us have been supporting end-user unix installs and setup this way for decades now -- and I for one really don't want to make the mistakes I made in the past by suggesting that newbies use something like pico to try to edit system configuration files. I'd much rather walk them through using ed(1).
I.e. if the user doesn't get so far as to have X11 running they're not able to run X applications then they're hosed and they'll probably not ever want to try NetBSD Desktop again anyway. It would be called a "desktop" OS for a reason after all. Heck, many of the the various GNU/Linux variants have been starting X11 right from the installation CD (to run the basic installer) for many _years_ now, so it can't be that hard even with all the brain-dead XFree86 config crap to deal with.
As for a offering a simple X11 based text editor to those that do get a basic install done with X11 running out of the box, well we do already have xedit(1) in (x)base and it's about ideal in terms of basic functionality and simplicity, though it could use a decent help window, and a wee bit of cleanup in the main UI to make things appear a little more obvious as to their purpose, and to get some obvious things like scroll wheel support working, etc., etc., etc. Heck if we put ispell in text.tgz it'll even do spell-checking out-of-the-box! :-)
--
Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.ca@localhost>
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