I haven't used the FreeBSD installer.  I do know that when I was
installing Debian GNU/LINUX, their current approach annoyed me.

Well, this isn't a Debian support group, so I'll just say that while there
is a small amount of ``slickness'' to the ideas that the Debian installer
does, I found it more confusing and irritating than the NetBSD
installer.  (I, too, came to NetBSD as a relative new user to UNIX---and
absolutely new to system administration.  After 3 years of building some
modest experience, I found Debian's setup harder than I remember NetBSD's,
though the Debian folks seem to have put more software into the
installation process.)

I think that NetBSD's process is easier (at least for me) for two reasons:

 * NetBSD has put a lot of effort into writing up useful INSTALL
   documents.   As Anders Lindgren says, this helps a lot.  If it could
   be made more concise without losing any useful informatoin, that
   would be a plus.

 * The NetBSD installation software makes fewer assumptions about what you
   want to do.  When software takes some information and reaches unfounded
   conclusions, it's irritating, especially if it's tedious (or in some
   other sense difficult) to jump tracks to what you _do_ want.  A time
   or two, during the acquisition and installation of Debian GNU/LINUX, I
   felt feelings that I haven't felt since using BillOS.

A spartan installation tool (or just basic UNIX tools) coupled with clear
documentation wins hands down.


That said, it would be nice if NetBSD could get PPP onto an official,
alternative floppy boot-image.  A menu option to configure dial-up
outbound connects might be nice, but it might be better to simply provide
templates with directions for filling them in.  Primarily, this would
allow, and encourage, an informed user to deviate from the suggested
outline, while still benefitting from it as much as they can/wish.  A
secondary benefit would be that a new user-turned-admin would learn a bit
more about their system.


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about." --rauch@eecs.ukans.edu