Christofer C. Bell said:
> > On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Ted Lemon wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > > > I don't see many new UN*X users sticking it out through the poorly
> > > > documented install procedure under NetBSD.  Then again, if the purpose is
> > > > to discourage newbies from using NetBSD, then that's another story ;->
> > >
> > > That's not really true.   The FreeBSD setup process is theoretically
> > > much more friendly than the NetBSD process, but in practice it isn't
> > > really - it works too hard to make things easy for the user, and
> > > sometimes gets things badly wrong.
> 
> One of the reasons I use NetBSD is because I am not a new UN*X user and
> I don't want my hand held.  I don't want to be insulated from the
> process.  I want full control over the raw system.  I would wager that
> there are a lot of users of NetBSD out there that use NetBSD/i386 over
> FreeBSD (i386 only) for that very reason.  
> 
> Sure, I think it's great to be able to come up with a slick installer
> for people that seem to *need* hand-holding, but please leave the
> ability to do a "raw" install. :)
> 
I can (and have) installed a FreeBSD system manually without the installer,
just as I can (and have) installed a NetBSD manually without an installer.
That ability is missing in FreeBSD.  One is *very* welcome to avoid a system
because it has a feature that one won't use and can easily ignore, but I can't
understand why.

e.g.  I don't like EMACS, but I will use an OS that has that program as
a feature.  It is a feature that I won't use, and can easily ignore.  The
installer isn't very different in that light, especially since I already
know how to use VI (or even a more primative program) as an editor.

-- 
John                  | Never try to teach a pig to sing,
dyson@freebsd.org     | it just makes you look stupid,
jdyson@nc.com         | and it irritates the pig.