On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 02:57:28PM -0400, Matthew Orgass wrote:
> On 2005-06-21 jhouchin@texoma.net wrote:
> 
> > Now I think it would be absolutely wonderful if NetBSD could (did)
> > offer the pleasant install that Ubuntu offers. It is not a "graphical"
> > installer. Ncurses I believe. It does require some knowledge, but it is
> > a pleasant experience. And the installer takes care of much of the
> > work.
> >
> > Are the BSDs moving that direction? Will the BSDs ever compete with
> > Linux in that arena? Is there a desire to? A nice process from pop in
> > the CD to a Gnome/XFCE4 or somesuch login screen would be very sweet.
> 
>   I wish NetBSD would go the other direction.  There is really nothing
>   you do in an install that is never done at other times and there are
>   very few steps necessary to get a system that boots to single user.
>   Time spent on systinst would, IMO, be better spent working on the real
>   tools and turn sysinst into a basic shell script or eliminate it
>   entirely.

I agree with Matthew.  For example: I don't want to go search my installer
cd after I added a second disk to my machine, just because I don't know how
to disklabel it myself (I always had this problem in FreeBSD).  

An installer should just guide you through the process of making your
machine boot, much of the rest can be done afterwards.  If that installer
is an online manual rather than a program, that's fine with me.  

GH

-- 
:wq