[quote]That would be OK, except it looks like it could easily be just as bad as RH’s linuxconf: only partially effective, and frequently having to delegate to “manually edit the conf file”.
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That’s kind of a rude comparison, blah. Sysinstall simply manages the installation of your system. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no files to edit manually, no fragile scripts to break. In fact, there really isn’t any area of the system that’s hacked up with large chains of scripts like RedHat or a similar distro. About the only system scripts are the rc.conf scripts. These scripts are actually easier to manage than the System V design of Linux.
[quote]That is a fair question. However, most CLI’s have the same number of problems IME - mainly consisting of unhandled errors and implicit unhandled assumptions/assertions in the (usually script-driven) CLI.
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Not everything is about something being script driven. For example, I could run a fetch or wget on a set of packages I need downloaded from an FTP server, then run a ‘pkg_add *.tgz’. That’s going to be way faster than pointing and clicking each file.
[quote]Usability is not only about time taken to click/type/press. Even if it were, then GUI’s would STILL be best, since it’s been proven that it’s generally faster to initiate actions with a mouse than with keyboard given appropriately(sensible)-sized GUI buttons (if you had a resizable keyboard that could add/remove physical keys at speed-of-electricity then they’d be as good as each other).
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That’s not my observations from watching data entry departments. It takes the key punchers far, far less time to type everything in a CLI and hit ‘transmit’ than it does to enter it into a Webpage or GUI and click submit. The problem is that GUIs are designed for a combination of keyboard and mouse and can often slow down someone who’s efficiency depends on keeping their hands on the keyboard at all times.
In any case, this is academic. The FreeBSD interface works. I and many others have used it and can attest to that. Arguing something you haven’t tried just results in a lot of speculation being thrown around. Trust me. FreeBSD is not Linux. If you want a stable OS that Just Works™, FreeBSD is the way to go. 
[quote]Your argument sounds vaguely reminiscent of when C++ programmers talking about java say that complex pointer-arithmetic is an inherently faster programming paradigm - both in “time taken to code” and in “time taken to execute”.
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Actually, this is more like Java vs. C/C++. Java can do just about everything, but there do exist places where it is better (or sometimes the only option) to write code in C/C++. An example of this is JOGL. Someone had to write C code to interface Java with the underlying hardware. Even if OpenGL was written in Java in the first place, it would still need C or C++ code to send the commands to the hardware. Java doesn’t have that ability, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
[quote]Given the rest of this thread, that has to be a rhetorical question :). I know the (lack of) quality of nvidia-authored drivers - so good that linux support lists (used to) get very evangelical about “don’t use the nvidia driver, use the open source one instead - it’s so much better!”.
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Ack! You’ve definitely been spending too much time in the Linux camp. The NV driver is 2D only, and must use MESA software rendering to accomplish OpenGL. If anyone tells you to use the NV driver, tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. They’re probably gullible enough to do it! ;D
[quote]Thanks for the pointer. Probably weill skip it though since I’ve had great success with tiny distros before, come to rely on them, and then they disappeared :(.
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Knoppix is not small. It’s currently considered a major distro. However, if it worries you, Mandrake puts out a Knoppix-like CD called MandrakeMove. There’s also Morphix which is software that allows you to do a very easy “roll your own Knoppix”.
The one other advantage to a CD based distro is that all your info stays safe on a CD key or shared file system. The OS cannot become trashed, and it won’t trash your files in the process of trashing itself (i.e. Your data is on a separate and safe file system). Upgrades are as easy as burning/rewriting a new CD, and you can always move to a more permanent OS at any point in time.
[quote]Yeah. But…you have to get really really mad at your OS before you can gather sufficient courage to do it :). And the realization that you’re going to miss a deadline anyway because OO + X + mandrake deleted/corrupted/lost your hard work is a great motivator to starting.
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Actually, it sounds like a great time to pop in a Knoppix or Java Desktop System Demo CD and finish your work. THEN you can play with new distros. 
In any case, I’m glad to hear your system is working. I hope you haven’t lost too much time.
[quote] I’m not actually looking for this data, but keep running into it by accident. E.g. I just noticed that I wouldn’t have a mouse if I installed FreeBSD - my graphics tablet (the most common, most popular, best supported Wacom Intuos series) driver won’t work because, according to the authors, there is some problem with getting FreeBSD to run linux-compiled stuff that uses USB within XFree86. Shrug. This is why I mentioned some time ago that whenever I see OS-level emulation I get worried; I’ve been down this path before and know the game .
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Actually, it looks like USB tablets don’t work period (or don’t work correctly, there seem to be conflicting reports). That has nothing to do with the “emulation” (which isn’t emulation) and everything to do with FreeBSD’s hardware support. It does appear to support the Serial models. You MAY be able to get the USB model to work by downloading a binary XFree86 driver from http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/. XFree86 used OS independent binary modules, so the “Linux Wacom” name is a bit misleading.
I’m afraid I don’t have a tablet, so I can’t tell you if it works or not. All I can say is that FreeBSD, USB, and XFree86 get along fine otherwise. I use a Microsoft USB Optical mouse, and Linux is the only OS that doesn’t support it correctly.
