Subject: Re: Things That Suck About pkgsrc, part 3
To: Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>
From: Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 07/15/1998 23:08:28
On 15-Jul-98 Perry E. Metzger spoke unto us all:
# > I've been investigating doing something about this.. but I really
# > have nothing solid planned.  Mainly I was thinking of extending
# > sysinst to be more smit-like,
#  
#  smit is disgusting, IMHO.

Don't interpret what I said above as a like for smit.  I truly share your
opinion that smit is nasty.  (except for the log/script feature.. Its nice that
it gives you commands.)

However...  smit sells operating systems.  People use crap like linux and
AIX because it has all these nifty little drool systems.  Do you really think
people buy AIX because its powerful and extensible?  (ok, jfs is kinda neeto) 
They buy AIX because the don't need as much of a clue to make it go.  (keeping
it going is a different story)

#  Just my opinion.

I think netbsd has suffered from the "if you can write a disklabel by hand you
are ready to run unix" theory for a long time.  This, IMHO is why more people
run linux and freebsd, because we don't make things easy for joe random.  

Mind you.. my idea isn't: "Lets make it so you can do everything in the drool
canister, and never touch the OS"  My idea is, give people who are new to unix,
a way to set it up.  We provide a very simple installation, and set them up
with a *working* system.  Not just a "you have succeeded, here is your #"  Give
them a full system.  In the case of i386, that means let them install X, set it
up, install some common applications easy, and have a working, usable desktop
environment right off the bat.  A menu guided install.. not a "now type cd
/usr/src/pkgsrc && make install, now configure xdm, etc etc" help guide.  

Then they can learn how to use the system from there..  People are much more
inclined to use a system that doesn't look half working to them.  If all the
pop-up-ducks they need to live are right there for them, they will continue to
use it, and learn more about it when they feel the need for more
applications/power/features/etc.

Mind you.. I want to leave a way out.  I hate that stuff.  I don't want to be
subjected to it if I don't want to be.  it should allways be possible to do
things the good ol fashioned way.  The drool should be an extension, not the UI.

Perhaps this was a bit of a rant..  my apologies.. but I really would like to
see NetBSD take off.. I'm sick of hearing about linux.  I think we have the
product.. we just don't have a fancy box.

---
Tim Rightnour    -  root@garbled.net
http://www.zynetwc.com/~garbled/garbled.html