Re: Making desktop setup hard (Was: Two NetBSDs)

[David Brownlee <abs%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> David Brownlee wrote:
>
> >     Random question for the day:
> >
> >         How much time has been wasted (duplicated time and time
> >         again) by technically literate people who just wanted
> >         a basic desktop system setup so they could work on
> >         something that actually interested them, like adding
> >         new pkgsrc packages or drivers for some item of USB
> >         hardware?, or who just wanted to run the same OS for
> >         development on their laptop as they were running on
> >         their servers?
>
> Since you asked...
> I never seem to "waste" much time on this. Getting the base system up, and X 
> runnig usually goes rather fast. (But I'm also one of those guys who still 
> use ctwm).

        Its a nice lightweight WM :) I used it for a while (along
        with fvwm, blackbox, fluxbox, pekwm, golem, and most recently
        jwm).  The look on a friend's face when I switched his tiny
        netbook from gnome+metacity to jwm was impressive - gnome
        login ~5 seconds to finish, jwm: apparently instant.
        Currently playing with xfce, which has improved a hell of
        a lot since I last used it... but I digress.

        Its not wasted time for you because you are comfortable with
        the process. If you had bought a new machine and had to go
        through a (to you) painstaking process to install Windows from
        CD, enter a licence key, copy a network driver across via
        USB key, install it, update online, register, and then goto
        a webpage to run a special program to unlock some device on
        the system so you could install NetBSD, how happy would you be?

        I would expect you would never buy that machine... which
        mirrors that large set of users will never install NetBSD.

> What usually takes time is getting all the packages installed. But I guess I 
> only have myself to blame for that, since I prefer to build form source, and 
> that just means it takes time. I'll do that in one window, or on one screen 
> when I don't even have X up, while I play around with something else in 
> another.

        I also build my own kernels+userland and all packages from
        source, but we know how to adjust the keyboard layout in
        X, get it to display the correct resolution for an external
        LCD panel, set the window manager in .xsession, adjust the
        wm config file so the mouse and keybindings are right, plus
        the apps we have installed are in the menus where we want
        them, hell, we even know exactly which apps to install for
        what we want, and probably what to tweak to get volume
        control working on an arbitrary box.

        If someone wants to do that, great, lets try to make sure
        the docs are good. But if I have a couple of sysadmin
        friends who use NetBSD on servers and are interested in
        having the same OS on the desktop/laptop, why should they
        *have* to jump through those hoops? They don't care about
        the desktop, its just a means to an end so they can get on
        with their work.

        Your answer "You must waste <---this much---> time on
        something you care nothing about before you can join the
        NetBSD ride" seems to mystify them, so they install Linux
        on their desktops, and then maybe one of them puts it on
        his servers because its nice to have the same environment
        everywhere. The servers are a little more awkward for him
        to administer, but he can set his laptop up exactly the
        same as his servers.

        Also, most new users for NetBSD are doing to install it on
        a desktop or laptop box. When someone is being introduced
        to a new OS they have a limited amount of time and capacity
        to pick up details (some have more than others). I'd much
        rather they didn't hit the end of that time before they
        even had a working X server and gave it up as a bad job.

        Yes, lowering the entry bar will mean more users who are
        lacking in clue, but it will also mean more users who *do*
        have a clue, and can potentially help out with pkgsrc,
        documentation and code, more users who will tell others
        about NetBSD and be there to answer their questions, more
        users who will ask hosting providers "can you offer NetBSD
        on that box"?

        I remember the push back when NetBSD introduced sysinst over
        the previous installation system. People also objected that it
        wuld make installing too simple and would permit the less
        technical to install NetBSD. For those who are fortunate
        enough to have not installed NetBSD 1.2 or earlier the
        install notes included:

            "Before you begin, you should know the geometry of your
            hard disk, i.e.  the sector size ... sectors per track
            ...  tracks per cylinder ..., and the number of cylinders
            ..."

            "You should now be ready to install NetBSD.  It might
            be handy for you to have a pencil, some paper, and a
            calculator handy."

            "If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit
            Control-C at any time, but if you do, you'll have to
            begin the installation process again from scratch."

> Heck, I don't even need X up before I start working on something.
> Why is this fanatical focus on having a graphic environment? There are a lot 
> of things I can do without even having ggraphics.
> But I guess that just shows that I still also use a lot of VT-xxx terminals. 
> But for the kind of "problems" you describe, X is definitely not required. I 
> would even go as far as saying that I'd probably not want X when doing some 
> of that stuff.

        Why is this fanatical focus on stopping people who want
        the graphic environment automatically installed so they
        can get on with their work?" My natural working environment
        is in a 'screen' session.  Often that screen is in a urxvt
        or xterm, sometimes putty from my mobile phone, most often
        its one of a set in urxvts from a remote box. I often
        overlap the X and screen cut & paste buffers with different
        content. I don't want to spend my lift fiddling with a
        desktop configuration, yet I'm quite happy to write scripts
        to recompile large chunks of pkgsrc to tweak compiler flags
        or settings.

        Coming back to the subject one thread back. If you feel
        you want to take NetBSD in a different direction, you are
        of course free to fork the code. I prefer to try to ensure
        that any new features added for netbsd-desktop do not impair
        NetBSD use on servers and related. I'm probably not even
        going to run the new desktop package on my systems, but I
        know a few friends who would...

--
                David/absolute       -- www.NetBSD.org: No hype required --