Re: Downloading NetBSD - Too complicated ?

[Volkmar Seifert <vs%nifelheim.info@localhost>]

On 2014-02-08 10:37, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> On 8 February 2014 08:55, Lucius Rizzo <Lucius.Rizzo%lucius.xxx@localhost> 
> wrote:
> > Also there is a lot of discussion and thought about new users. The
> > evangelism differs in intensity from project to project, but it is a
> > reality of most OSS. Either loosing or gaining users
>
> 'Evangelism' is an insidious word. What kind of user would you want to
> bring in? Linux or other *Bsd refugees, complete n00bs, power users?
>
> The major stumbling block here is that Netbsd doesn't run on tablets
> and smartphones.

I don't exactly see how this is a -major- stumbling point.
And while this is a topic best discussed in its own thread, here some 
quick thoughts on it:

Yes, it might be considered a drawback that there's no port for mobile 
devices yet, that can be flashed using a recovery-"mod" or tools like 
"odin" (and while this targets the android-devices, please understand 
this just as an example).
I don't know if there's serious work on that or not, but actually I 
don't exactly see the major benefit in it. Most software available for 
Unix isn't tablet/smartphone-optimized in regard of UI and handling, 
anyway, so using it would be major pain in the butt. Something, that's 
not the issue of any operating system but an issue of those writing the 
UI-frameworks and UIs for the "desktop-environments" and 
window-managers.
Yes, it was or is one aim of NetBSD to run on as many systems as 
possible in a stable, reliable and manageable manner, but usability of 
an OS on a mobile device, when there's no properly optimized UI 
available would make that attempt rather...futile.
If one is bothered with the number of clicks it takes to download an 
OS-image, imagine how one would be bothered by being able to use his/her 
tablet only by means of SSH...

> I had to buy an old laptop to have a good chance to
> run Netbsd, I am not sure how it will work on new hardware optimized
> for Windows 8. Sure, it runs on backroom servers, but then the sys-ad
> won't really be bothered by how many click it takes to download an
> image.

As John Nemeth already wrote, the major stumbling point is called 
"UEFI". That's already work-in-progress, as old-style BIOSes are going 
to be extinct rather sooner than later, and if I am right, it's working 
already as long as the UEFI supports a so-called legacy-mode - you can 
read about that in some earlier mails of another thread [1].

NetBSD is no FreeBSD nor a PC-BSD. It's goal is not, and has never been, 
to run on the hottest, newest, bleeding edge hardware. NetBSD's goal is 
and has always been stability and reliability. You can't have both, 
newest hardware-support and stability. When someone decides to use 
NetBSD, I simply expect them to have read as much and taken a look at 
the supported-hardware-list - or may even selected the hardware in use 
to match that list. Otherwise, it might actually occur that NetBSD won't 
work for her/him.
But again, that's actually not what this thread was about. It was about 
easing the download, not discussing on which hardware it would work.

Besides that and to get back to topic, it took me two clicks to get to 
the BitTorrent-Files, with a third click to actually initiate the 
download. The direct iso download is just as many clicks away from the 
start-page, and I didn't experiment which link to click to get the least 
number of clicks.
I simply used the obvious one.

So...remind me, please, what are we actually discussing here?

- Volkmar

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