Hello Zbigniew, On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 01:10:38AM +0100, Zbigniew Baniewski wrote: > Why? NetBSD seems to be server-oriented OS rather, which - there's no doubt > - of course can be used on the desktops as well, but desktops aren't the > "target". Desktop user needs are somewhat different, than the server > administrator's; first of all: drivers for the newest hardware (or at least > for hardware, which still can be described as "new") - and I mean exactly this > sort of hardware, which is somewhat aside of the main interest of the devs: > like 3-D graphics accelerators, newest sound/music cards, and for other > hardware, which has no relationship to any server application. I think that it isn't true. On the -current and of course on the 5.0 we'll have got drm(4)[0] for example. NetBSD isn't an OS for ``old hardware''. Yes, for its clean design you can run it without any problem on an old machine but it is good on a new machine too. > So, a general question: what for? A skilled person will install it from the > already available standard CD - but an average PC-user most probably just > doesn't want it. Even, if there were such CD - what then? Do you want to > persuade former Windows-user, that he has to edit config files, if he wants > to tune the system? Huh? AFAIK NetBSD is a ``general-purpose[1]'' OS, it isn't an OS for only server machines. It is also a great (IMO the *best*) OS for users charmed by Unix-like OS and users that wants a good, free (as in freedom) OS. And of course it isn't for ``skilled person'', it is for ``beginners'' too, the community and the developers wrote and are writing good documentation, from ``The NetBSD guide[2]'' to ``The pkgsrc guide[3]'' and almost all software, device drivers and system libraries have got their man pages (more than GNU/Linux (just to name an OS :P)). We have got also a great wiki[4] that helps the new users (and expert NetBSD users too) to get in touch with NetBSD and pkgsrc, and other cool things too. > Linux will be better choice (IMHO) for desktop; much better than PC-BSD, > exactly because of the better hardware support. Especially for those "coming > from Windows" perhaps the best tip would be Ubuntu-Linux, not any xBSD OS. I suggest to Doctor Who: ``Try NetBSD, but please pay attention! ...You will be magically charmed by its design and philosophy!''. :) BTW for a live NetBSD system probably Jibbed[5] is the best choice. If you want to try NetBSD there is other ways as well: o emulators/qemu o emulators/gxemul o and a lot of other ways (Xen, etc.) If you want to install it as a desktop system: # cd /usr/pkgsrc/meta-pkgs/gnome # make install Is it hard? :) [0]: http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?drm++NetBSD-current [1]: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/misc/index.html#netbsd-uses [2]: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/index.html [3]: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/index.html [4]: http://wiki.netbsd.se/ [5]: http://www.jibbed.org/ Ciao, Leonardo -- Leonardo Taccari (leot) | http://leot.netsons.org
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