# Things that make me go "GRrrrrrr" installing FreeBSD 13.1



## andmars (Oct 2, 2022)

Ahoi, first off: I realy want to make the transition from Arch Linux (been using it for more than 12 years now) to FreeBSD. But as much as I try, there are too many show-stoppers and things blocking me to finally use FreeBSD as my main OS. Here's a list;

1. Kernel driver for Realtek PCIe Ethernet Controllers not included in the install medium
Having an ASUS P8P67 motherboard I need realtek-re-kmod-v196.4 which is not in the install medium. Which means that after the installation I have to boot into the system, mount a usb-stick with the files on it, install it manually and make entries in the config files.
I know that Arch had the dame issues when these chipsets came out about 2 years ago, but c'mon.

2. neovim removes obs-studio...wtf?
I'm a communications trainer and create educational videos so I work with tools like, obs-studio, inkscape, kdenlive, etc.
But obs-studio prevents me from using neovim. How is this a thing? Installing one will remove the other (same is true with the game minetest).
The reason: "luajit-openresty-2.1.20220411 conflicts with luajit-2.0.5_6 on /usr/local/bin/luajit"
So they use different versions of luajit so I can't use them both on my system...wtf?

3. Strange behaviour with color-schemes
I use mutt for my e-mails and the dracula-color scheme which work fine in Arch.
Using the same config in FreeBSD all of a sudden it highlights all mail when moving up instead of just one at a time. No idea why this happens.

4. Nvidia driver and handbook








						Chapter 5. The X Window System
					

This chapter describes how to install and configure Xorg on FreeBSD, which provides the open source X Window System used to provide a graphical environment




					docs.freebsd.org
				



The handbook describes the installation of various video cards. Since I have a modern nvidia card I installed nvidia-driver and added kld_list="nvidia-modeset" just so see the xorg-server crash.
Why does the handbook describ "Setting the Video Driver in a File" for every other card manufacturer except for nvidia? Only after I created a /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/driver-nvidia.conf file out of desperation the xorg-server finally started.

5. Building packages from source
I'm a chess player and like to work with a database programm named scid. In Arch I can download the .zip file, unzip it, and do the trinity of "./configure", "make" and "make install". In FreeBSD I get "exec: tclsh: not found". tk/tcl installed.

Now please don't take this as me bashing FreeBSD. It's quite the opposite. I want to use FreeBSD exclusivle and maybe some of the points are mentioned are not FreeBSD's fault. And maybe I'm just too stupid to find sollutions for the points I mentioned. But at this point I'm close to giving up (again) and going back to Arch...and systemd...and a bloated kernel...and opt-out stuff...and...
Anyway...have a nice sunday


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2022)

1) FreeBSD does not install things you do not need. I wouldn't need that.
2) That sounds like a problem with that software and not FreeBSD but I don't use neovim.
3) Don't know
4) Because that's what you're supposed to do and it is described there.
5) configer? tclsh? Doesn't make sense to me. Typos? Or Linux-isms


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## Phishfry (Oct 2, 2022)

I agree with #2. It is a ports dependency problem.
For example:
I want to have open-motif and xblackjack on my computer. It is not possible. lesstif and open motif collide.


```
pkg install xblackjack

Installed packages to be REMOVED:
    open-motif: 2.3.8_2

New packages to be INSTALLED:
    lesstif: 0.95.2_7,2
    xblackjack: 2.2_4
```


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 2, 2022)

You can go gentoo with it's circular dependencies...
Or you can go debian with no configurable options in the packages...


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2022)

Phishfry then he needs to file a pr?


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## Alexander88207 (Oct 2, 2022)

andmars said:


> 5. Building packages from source
> I'm a chess player and like to work with a database programm named scid. In Arch I can download the .zip file, unzip it, and do the trinity.............



`# pkg install scid`


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## T-Daemon (Oct 2, 2022)

andmars said:


> 2. neovim removes obs-studio...wtf?
> I'm a communications trainer and create educational videos so I work with tools like, obs-studio, inkscape, kdenlive, etc.
> But obs-studio prevents me from using neovim. How is this a thing? Installing one will remove the other (same is true with the game minetest).
> The reason: "luajit-openresty-2.1.20220411 conflicts with luajit-2.0.5_6 on /usr/local/bin/luajit"
> So they use different versions of luajit so I can't use them both on my system...wtf?


I'm using the 'latest' package repository. The issue with lang/luajit, lang/luajit-openresty and editors/neovim are resolved here.

editors/neovim depends now on lang/luajit-openresty:

```
% pkg info -d neovim
neovim-0.7.2:
    luajit-openresty-2.1.20220411
    unibilium-2.1.0
    tree-sitter-0.20.7
    msgpack-3.3.0
    luv-1.43.0.0
    libvterm-0.1.1
    libuv-1.44.2
    libtermkey-0.22
    gettext-runtime-0.21
```

No conflict with multimedia/obs-studio.


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## andmars (Oct 2, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> Alexander88207 said:
> 
> 
> > `# pkg install scid`
> ...


Yes, but that version is pretty old and buggy unfortunately...


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## Alexander88207 (Oct 2, 2022)

andmars said:


> Yes, but that version is pretty old and buggy unfortunately...



Well then its time that you need to learn how to use the ports framework, updating the port and submit an update for the maintainer 









						FreeBSD Porter's Handbook
					

Essential reading if you plan on providing a port of a third party piece of software




					docs.freebsd.org
				




Just checking it out and building it works here and there easily but its not recommended and the ports framework includes many knobs that can save headache (for example setting build dir to /usr/local/share instead of /usr/share).


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## T-Daemon (Oct 2, 2022)

T-Daemon said:


> I'm using the 'latest' package repository. The issue with lang/luajit, lang/luajit-openresty and editors/neovim are resolved here.
> 
> editors/neovim depends now on lang/luajit-openresty:
> 
> ...



I stand corrected, still conflicts.

/usr/ports/multimedia/obs-studio/Makefile

```
*LIB_DEPENDS_amd64=      libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit*
LIB_DEPENDS_armv7=      libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit
LIB_DEPENDS_i386=       libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit
LIB_DEPENDS_powerpc=    libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit
LIB_DEPENDS_powerpc64=  libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit-openresty
LIB_DEPENDS_powerpc64le=        libluajit-5.1.so:lang/luajit-openresty
```

If library dependency works for powerpc64*, it should work also for amd64.

Sorry for the noise.


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## hunter0one (Oct 2, 2022)

I understand the sentiment of #1. I wish there were live installers with things like nonfree firmware preinstalled, even if they were unofficial. Technically GhostBSD does this and it should be really easy to make a FreeBSD iso with extras but Im surprised to not find any online. I have a horrible monitor that I would gladly throw away if I had a replacement, but it will not show anything on screen until the graphics card firmware is loaded, so I have to pull out an older and crappier monitor to install FreeBSD or make any changes in the bootloader. Would not fix the bootloader not showing anything but would the installer.


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## kpedersen (Oct 2, 2022)

Neovim is a "_more, more, I want more!_" kind of Vim. If you don't need lua or luajit (which I am going to assume is likely), and you don't need all the other *shite* it chucks in; perhaps just use Vim?

NVidia's Xorg driver is documented in the handbook, including the changes to xorg.conf.

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-compiz-video-card

But yes, it is in the wrong place. The handbook has regressed since they changed the format to make it more "user-friendly".

So borrow the *nvidia-modeset* instructions from earlier, and include the *Driver "nvidia"* from there and you end up with the complete instructions


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## tingo (Oct 2, 2022)

A simple workaround for the first issue (needing a driver that isn't installed to get networking): use a supported usb-to-ethernet dongle, or "internet sharing" from a mobile phone to get the machine onto the net so you can install the necessary network driver.
It always helps to be prepared.


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## mer (Oct 2, 2022)

Assuming it's a simple hardware config, like a PCI Nvidia graphics card, not a laptop with wierd Intel/Nvidia hybrid stuff, this is the simplest way to get X working with Nvidia card.
install the correct nvidia-driver package based on your specific hardware
add nvidia-modeset to the kld_list lines in /etc/rc.conf
Create a file in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d, named driver-nvidia.conf with the following content:
`Section "Device"
        Identifier "NVIDIA Card"
        VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
        Driver "nvidia"
EndSection`

That's all I've had to do for a while, the big piece is installing the correct nvidia-driver package, which is based on your specific hardware.


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## jbo (Oct 2, 2022)

mer said:


> That's all I've had to do for a while, [...]


I have two desktops with Nvidia GPUs and after installing the driver they just worked out-of-the-box. Didn't even need the xorg.conf.d. Fancy!


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 2, 2022)

.


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## cmoerz (Oct 2, 2022)

A relatively simple way to work around port conflicts, is to use a jail. I.e. you can get multimedia/obs-studio running in a jail and install editors/neovim in the host.

There's multiple resources on how to jail X11 apps - i.e. https://wiki.freebsd.org/JailingGUIApplications

It's a bit of work to set up once, but you can reuse the technique to jail other X11 applications like firefox or chrome and even gain some additional security barriers this way.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> I wish there were live installers with things like nonfree firmware preinstalled, even if they were unofficial.



Then you want to turn FreeBSD into Linux where things get installed for you and you have to either accept it or uninstall it and install what you really want. Letting you install what you really want is what's great about FreeBSD.

And what is it you really want pre-installed? And what about the people who don't like what gets pre-installed and then come here to complain about things that make them go "GRrrrr" cause they have to do all the work to get what they really want.


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## hunter0one (Oct 2, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Then you want to turn FreeBSD into Linux where things get installed for you and you have to either accept it or uninstall it and install what you really want. Letting you install what you really want is what's great about FreeBSD.\


No, having alternative ISOs with firmware preinstalled does not turn FreeBSD into Linux. I don't know how you came to that conclusion but it would hurt literally nobody to have another (key word: another) image with firmware for people who can't get through the installation without it (i.e someone with a laptop that needs a wifi driver).

Or let's just feed into people's first impression that FreeBSD has bad hardware support.


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## kpedersen (Oct 2, 2022)

Debian traditionally did this.


> If any of the hardware in your system *requires non-free firmware to be loaded* with the device driver, you can use one of the tarballs of common firmware packages or download an *unofficial* image including these *non-free* firmwares. Instructions how to use the tarballs and general information about loading firmware during an installation can be found in the Installation Guide.



But Debian recently decided to stop caring and just whack all the dubious software on the images (which I imagine is the reason for this query). However there is no technical reason why *unofficial* installation images aren't made and released on torrents. Other than the fact that it isn't hard to put the firmware on a usb stick (5 second job) so no-one has bothered.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> it would hurt literally nobody to have another (key word: another) image with firmware for people who can't get through the installation without it (i.e someone with a laptop that needs a wifi driver).



So another "distro"? What would you put in? What would you leave out? How many people will start FreeBSD hopping to find their preferred one? Or dump FreeBSD altogether because the versions don't have what they want.

Just install what you want. That's where FreeBSD shines. FreeBSD is not for everyman. If one can't figure out how to install the driver they need or software they want then Windows is for them.


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## kpedersen (Oct 2, 2022)

I would say that many Linuxes don't even come with wpa_supplicant in their base install. So we are ahead of the game here when it comes to user-friendlyness of home networking.


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## hunter0one (Oct 2, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> So another "distro"? What would you put in? What would you leave out?


I've already said this several times: firmware. Like what kpedersen said Debian does where there is a free and non-free iso but this doesn't make FreeBSD more like Debian or Linux in general, it just makes it possible for more people to install FreeBSD. Firmware is something some people need to actually get through installing FreeBSD and installing what they want. How can you install everything yourself if you can't see the installer or afterwards can't install packages/ports from the internet because your particular hardware does not have the firmware it needs?



kpedersen said:


> Other than the fact that it isn't hard to put the firmware on a usb stick (5 second job) so no-one has bothered.


I don't see how someone hasn't done this yet and released a torrent, having something like that to send new users to would lead to more successful FreeBSD installs.


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## Alexander88207 (Oct 2, 2022)

andmars said:


> 1. Kernel driver for Realtek PCIe Ethernet Controllers not included in the install medium



This problem is always somewhere. When I was a linux user i only had a USB wifi adapter with the rtl8812au chip and i had to think about how to get the kernel module while it is included in FreeBSD.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one You would turn a FreeBSD install into a bloated mess like Windows which throws everything and the kitchen sink into an install. People who want to install FreeBSD know what to do. And if one cannot install due to hardware problems then one is using the wrong hardware or downloading the wrong iso. 

How does one download the iso but then complain they can't install from the internet?


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## hunter0one (Oct 3, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> People who want to install FreeBSD know what to do.


This is gatekeeping 101.


drhowarddrfine said:


> And if one cannot install due to hardware problems then one is using the wrong hardware or downloading the wrong iso.


Not really, FreeBSD doesn't have the _best_ hardware support but it's not that bad if you have firmware you need. I am a 100% free software advocate but having an optional iso with firmware loaded does nothing but help more people install FreeBSD. Maybe even include an option to remove all the firmware they don't need from the system in the installer.


drhowarddrfine said:


> How does one download the iso but then complain they can't install from the internet?


Have a desktop computer where they get it but try installing FreeBSD onto a laptop or other computer with hardware that is not covered by the default installer.


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## jmos (Oct 3, 2022)

1) needed kernel driver not shipped with the install medium
No difference to my Linux experiences. If your were different you just had luck.

3) colors for console programs
I don't use mutt, but as a starting point: Colors in terminal programs depends on the terminal as well as the used shell. Try xterm & bash - does it work with that combination again?

4) missing hint in the handbook
You're right - it explains how to set up four different drivers, but not how to get the Nvidia driver up; IMO it should be replaced to explain this step by just one example, or Nvidia should be added, too.

5) packages from source
Therefore there are ports 
But if you want to install third party software (so in your example), you will always have to deal with the need of knowledge (or ask the developer), have to tune code etc. (same as #1 - no difference to my Linux experiences). In case of Tcl/Tk: It isn't recommended to execute "tclsh" directly, because it is known to be a) found in different paths, and b) named f.e. tclsh, tclsh86, tclsh8.6 etc. - so the code you're trying to execute should be improved ("bug report to the developer"). To go on without a bugfix: I expect you're having /usr/local/bin/tclsh8.6 (8.7 ist still alpha and not for daily work), so your code has to be changed to match that (or the package "lang/tcl-wrapper" might solve this - but I've never used it; or you could set up a symlink, but that's the ugliest solution).
Also for script files generally: Instead of relying on the shebang line you always can use the wanted interpreter directly (f.e. "tclsh8.6 /path/to/your/tclscript").
And no, source isn't to be installed with "./configure && make && make install" - there's a lot of source that works different (so f.e. Tcl code - that's a script, and not a binary that has to be compiled from source). The way to go is to read the developers informations about how to install their code first - always. And if that is not shipped you've got to understand what you got.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> This is gatekeeping 101.


No. It's requiring one to have some level of knowledge in order to install the system. If one doesn't have the ability or take the time to learn, then one should go elsewhere. And no one here should feel bad about that.




hunter0one said:


> Maybe even include an option to remove all the firmware they don't need from the system in the installer.


You have that option now. 
	
	



```
pkg delete <package>
```



hunter0one said:


> try installing FreeBSD onto a laptop or other computer with hardware that is not covered by the default installer.


Again, how did one get FreeBSD to install in the first place? Your statement makes no sense.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 3, 2022)

jmos said:


> not how to get the Nvidia driver up


It used to! Where did it go? I've installed it for nearly 20 years and my initial learning came from the Handbook. Perhaps it was moved during the update? 

There is a section that talks about nvidia configuration but not in proper detail.


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## kpedersen (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> This is gatekeeping 101.


Unfortunately, not having a graphical installer is also considered gatekeeping. If this means keeping the operating system reasonably "correct", so be it.


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## PMc (Oct 3, 2022)

I agree with the OP, these are annoying issues. But, FreeBSD is industry-grade OS, so it might be advisable to do things like the industry folks do them. This means:
If you do an installation for a new platform (hardware+software), in the first step you install from the public installation media, you see to get to a running OS, then you check your requirements (supported hardware+software): can it work? what is required? how to proceed to it?
In this phase one can experiment, one can change things in any way.
At some point there will be enough data to come to a go/no-go decision.

Then everything is removed again, and installation is started anew, this time with a plan.

#1 a suitable driver would have been prepared in phase1 and a bootable media created
#2 a workaround would have been decided in phase1 (or this considered a show-stopper for now)
#3 no idea, but sounds like a minor issue. (I am using mutt, but don't know "dracula-color" - anyway, the mutt config is plaintext and should be fixable)
#4 this would be figured out in phase1
#5 sounds like a normal prereq. With individual installations (outside of the ports tree) it is not avoidable to read the Installation/Readme docs provided with the software, and check/install the requirements.

Then, yes, it might be possible to make the OS behave more plug&play so that these issues would not appear. But
1. who should do that?
2. it would bloat the OS a lot, and I would not want to carry that bloat along. This means: the additional pseudo-AI that makes basic installations run smoothly, will soon get between your legs and make you stumble when you try to implement and integrate more elaborate things.



hunter0one said:


> gatekeeping 101.



This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible technical quality.


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## mer (Oct 3, 2022)

PMc said:


> This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible technical quality.


I'm stitting rereading this, laughing and thinking "I should ask PMc permission to use this as a sig line for all my work email".

Firmware for hardware.
Lots of people forget about Licensing.  Sometimes "forgetting" can cost you (think GPL/LGPL), sometimes just money sometimes more.
Why is Licensing important?  The majority of hardware manufacturers want someone to sign a legally binding NDA in order to even write something for the hardware, lots of times there are legal clauses that restrict the redistribution of said firmware;  a single user may be able download and use it for their home use, but a business cannot legally provide that firmware in a distribution.  FreeBSD Foundation is a "business" or at least a legally responsible entity for distribution of FreeBSD and in theory maybe could be in legal trouble for distribution.


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## PMc (Oct 3, 2022)

mer said:


> I'm stitting rereading this, laughing and thinking "I should ask PMc permission to use this as a sig line for all my work email".


Granted. But I must correct myself: if that comment concerns the discussion quality in this thread, rather than the design of the OS, then I might agree - some comments were not very understanding and helpful.


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## mer (Oct 3, 2022)

PMc said:


> Granted. But I must correct myself: if that comment concerns the discussion quality in this thread, rather than the design of the OS, then I might agree - some comments were not very understanding and helpful.


For a work sig, I'd drop the "This is crap" part of course.  The rest of it stands regardless of what is being designed by engineering.  At least it does in my opinion.


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## hunter0one (Oct 3, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> No. It's requiring one to have some level of knowledge in order to install the system. If one doesn't have the ability or take the time to learn, then one should go elsewhere. And no one here should feel bad about that.


You are assuming everyone who uses FreeBSD is experienced with it and knows exactly what to do to get their system working... In a very around-the-world way at that. You are also assuming they have the hardware that supports FreeBSD without any firmware (which is rare).



drhowarddrfine said:


> You have that option now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh so you dont object to installing the firmware and then removing it later? That works too.



drhowarddrfine said:


> Again, how did one get FreeBSD to install in the first place? Your statement makes no sense.


Who said they installed it? Yours doesn't either. 




kpedersen said:


> Unfortunately, not having a graphical installer is also considered gatekeeping. If this means keeping the operating system reasonably "correct", so be it.


I wouldn't say that since FreeBSD's installer is rather good, much better than something like OpenBSD's. Gatekeeping would be objecting more options to help beginners just because FreeBSD already works for the veteran. 

Sorry but if you come at me with something as ridiculous as "You want to turn FreeBSD into Linux" I can see why OP does not use FreeBSD and do not blame them.


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## hunter0one (Oct 3, 2022)

PMc said:


> This is crap. Pulling engineering decisions into the scope of social-sciences and then interpreting them from there is a guarantee for horrible tech


No, its gatekeeping alright, and there's plenty of FreeBSD zealots/gatekeepers about. There is nothing "crap" about having an optional (KEY WORD one last time everybody!) image with firmware. This is what completes thousands Debian installs through their unofficial non-free iso. 

There's no point in even arguing, OP has ran away.


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## mer (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> This is what completes thousands Debian installs through their unofficial non-free iso.


"unofficial non-free iso".
Is it maintained/distributed by Debian project proper or are there simply links to non Debian projects?
I'm asking because there is a big difference between "The Debian project creating/maintaining an ISO with this stuff on it" and "An ISO, based on Debian, that has added stuff on it".
There are no issues with "someone not FreeBSD project" creating an ISO "based on FreeBSD with extra stuff on it" (this is exactly what GhostBSD is in my opinion), but asking the project to maintain yet another set of install images (effectively one for every release, for every supported version) with stuff that a small percentage may use becomes unrealistic.
Heck in the past I've installed a Windows system that I needed to use the motherboard manufacturer supplied CD for ethernet drivers.  Note:  it came with the hardware, not the OS.
Could someone create an extra image containing some ported hardware drivers?  Absolutely, but what should it contain?  Every version of every related package?  Heck that's seven packages along for all the nvidia drivers.

But, bottom line, in my opinion, take it for what you've paid me for it ,  it's not the responsibility of the FreeBSD project to do this.  Maybe it would be the responsibility of the project to have a clearly defined set of "instructions" somewhere (like off the website, in the readme or notes for each release) but I think there may be legal ramifications if they started directly providing the raw packages/firmware/driver.


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## hunter0one (Oct 3, 2022)

mer said:


> Maybe it would be the responsibility of the project to have a clearly defined set of "instructions" somewhere (like off the website, in the readme or notes for each release) but I think there may be legal ramifications if they started directly providing the raw packages/firmware/driver.


I mean have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project, with the firmware and maybe have a section to point people towards it. This is what Debian does for theirs and avoids any legal trouble.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project,


And be as screwed up as Linux?! Oh hell no! You are going up against all the things FreeBSD is for. This isn't for kids. You want a dumb downed version and that's not going to happen


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 3, 2022)

I dual-boot freebsd-gentoo. Gentoo is a really flexible distro. I use it with openrc which is not very different from freebsd rc.


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## PMc (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> No, its gatekeeping alright, and there's plenty of FreeBSD zealots/gatekeepers about. There is nothing "crap" about having an optional (KEY WORD one last time everybody!) image with firmware.


Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.


hunter0one said:


> I mean have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project, with the firmware and maybe have a section to point people towards it.


You know what my boss said when I came up with what I thought might be a good idea? "You're welcome, do it."


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## SirDice (Oct 3, 2022)

1) net/realtek-re-kmod is a port/package, not part of the base OS. The install media doesn't contain any packages, at all. The DVD images only have a _selection_ of packages, you simply cannot cram all packages on the DVD, it just won't fit. 
2) With 56450 ports there's bound to be some conflicts. It happens. Maintainers try to avoid them but that's not always possible. 
3) don't have a clue. 
4) Yes, the handbook could be improved; FreeBSD Documentation Project
5) learn what ports are.


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## kpedersen (Oct 3, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> Gatekeeping would be objecting more options to help beginners just because FreeBSD already works for the veteran.


Whilst helping beginners is possibly important to some; I believe we would be at risk of breaking what we know is very successful in a vein attempt of achieving an impossible goal. Windows and macOS will always win. And targeting "semi-beginners" is a niche that Ubuntu has mopped up. Plus things like helloSystem.

Can you point out an OS that is targeted exclusively towards a veteran? Why shouldn't they be catered for? Especially when they effectively run the industry.



hunter0one said:


> I wouldn't say that since FreeBSD's installer is rather good, much better than something like OpenBSD's.


Discussion about gatekeeping aside, I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better. Have you run through it? What do you find is missing?


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## Jose (Oct 3, 2022)

Looks like the OP is legit, but this is starting to feel like another drive-by to get us to yell at cloud.




_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ-LivK4-78_


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## mer (Oct 3, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better.


Installers.  Some people think that some fancy shiny spinny graphical installer is better than a straight forward curses text installer.

My problem is that I've been using curses based text installers for so long that I get confused/scared/worried when an installer flips to some kind of graphical mode with mouse support.

Heck take the installs themselves:  how many variants really are there?  Server, text based workstation, graphical based workstation cover say 87% of standard installs.  Server/text based workstation we have what different set of packages installed after the base OS?  Graphical builds on text based workstation driven by the specific hardware.  I still maintain that a default install of "server" with a choice of "workstation" on say "first boot" would satisfy the bulk of users.
No extra "distros", could simply be documentation, but worst case "if user selected graphical workstation during the initial install run desktop-installer on first boot"

But it doesn't matter what I think, I'm one of the old dogs, done the roll your own from source for long enough that frankly the initial install doesn't really matter to me anymore.


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## mer (Oct 3, 2022)

Jose said:


> Looks like the OP is legit, but this is starting to feel like another drive-by to get us to yell at cloud.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm.  I've got clear skies here.  Maybe I'll yell into a pillow.


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## jmos (Oct 3, 2022)

SirDice said:


> 2) With 56450 ports there's bound to be some conflicts. It happens. Maintainers try to avoid them but that's not always possible.


Additionally: Some conflicts can be solved by using ports instead of packages; I needed e.g. Kdenlive, MariaDB and LibreOffice - no idea if this is possible today, but via ports this was solvable years ago (as well as today), while packages insisted on "Kdenlive, MySQL & LibreOffice" - or MariaDB.

But if you're starting with FreeBSD … IMO: Stay with packages.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 3, 2022)

Funny thing about graphic interfaces is most of them update a config file with text


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## smithi (Oct 5, 2022)

PMc said:


> Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.
> 
> You know what my boss said when I came up with what I thought might be a good idea? "You're welcome, do it."



Exactly.  Trouble is when ${someone} expects *${someone_else}* to "have someone make an unofficial ISO, not the FreeBSD project".

Here's ${someone}'s chance to be someone!


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## hunter0one (Oct 7, 2022)

PMc said:


> Then where is the problem? As far as I understand, anybody is free to create such an image and put it online.


Okay, I will. 


kpedersen said:


> Can you point out an OS that is targeted exclusively towards a veteran? Why shouldn't they be catered for? Especially when they effectively run the industry.


Who said they aren't catered to on FreeBSD? If anyone or myself was to make a non-free ISO, it would not affect any zealots. They could keep using what they normally use.


kpedersen said:


> Discussion about gatekeeping aside, I actually find OpenBSD's installer much better. Have you run through it? What do you find is missing?


About every other *BSD has a great ncurses installer but OpenBSD. The partition editor in OpenBSD is especially confusing compared to every other one I've encountered, and when it asks you how you want to get the base system it doesn't really explain anything at all. I believe I tried getting the installation media from the USB but it wouldn't let me.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 7, 2022)

Installing openbsd is cumbersome. Foremost, the partitioning/slicing. Mostly it wants the whole drive. And the text-gui is not friendly.


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## Jose (Oct 7, 2022)

I admire the simplicity of the Openbsd installer. It boils down installation to its essence:

Download some compressed archives from the Internet
Uncompress and unarchive the files from step 1
Edit some text files
Execute some command(s)
That's all installation ever is, for anything. Yet we wind up with abominable wizards and registry "hives" and whatnot in an effort to make it simpler somehow by hiding these simple details from people who can't be bothered.

But I am a dinosaur. I learned how to partition disks from MS-DOS in the '80s, mainly so I could play games with my friends. It somehow turned into a career.


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## kpedersen (Oct 7, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> Who said they aren't catered to on FreeBSD? If anyone or myself was to make a non-free ISO, it would not affect any zealots.


Wait, are we talking about zealots or veterans?


hunter0one said:


> They could keep using what they normally use.


So you agree then that the current curses-style iso image should never change so that veterans can continue to be able to use what they normally use?

Because newbies often want to break default installers in the name of "false user-friendlyness".




Alain De Vos said:


> And the text-gui is not friendly.


This is the part that seems odd. If someone can't read text or if they think text is unfriendly, then they must really hate computers. In that case, no need to break them for "veterans" or people who do like text. Luckily, the OpenBSD guys will strongly push back against such ideas. I am hoping the FreeBSD project will too (or at least not replace it entirely with a GUI installer aka Microsoft Windows).


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2022)

andmars said:


> 1. Kernel driver for Realtek PCIe Ethernet Controllers not included in the install medium
> Having an ASUS P8P67 motherboard I need realtek-re-kmod-v196.4 which is not in the install medium. Which means that after the installation I have to boot into the system, mount a usb-stick with the files on it, install it manually and make entries in the config files.
> I know that Arch had the dame issues when these chipsets came out about 2 years ago, but c'mon.


Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228  ,  even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages.  In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> .


??? What was the point of something like that?


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 7, 2022)

Mostly it means i wanted to delete the message i was too eager to write . But then, there is no point in it.


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## hunter0one (Oct 7, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> Wait, are we talking about zealots or veterans?


The "veterans" ITT are really just zealots with the "works for me" mentality, barring everybody else off and scaring them away.  Might not like to admit it but that's the truth.



kpedersen said:


> So you agree then that the current curses-style iso image should never change so that veterans can continue to be able to use what they normally use?


I never said the default ISO should change, I only said there should be an optional non-free ISO similar to how Debian has an unofficial one but they point to it for new users who might need it. I feel like newbies would not trust some random torrent with the non-free firmware or even find it, but if it pleases the zealots then it's better than nothing.


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## eternal_noob (Oct 7, 2022)

Early adventure games had difficulty levels to choose from. Maybe adapt that for the installer?


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## kpedersen (Oct 7, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> The "veterans" ITT are really just zealots with the "works for me" mentality, barring everybody else off and scaring them away.


That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.

You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.
> 
> You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.


Skilled, yeah, but lack of adaptability will come back later to bite everyone when nobody understands what's been done, or how to troubleshoot the problems.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 7, 2022)

Installing freebsd even on zfs is relatively easy. Openbsd can be very picky when booting.


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## hunter0one (Oct 7, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> That is where I strongly disagree. They are simply more skilled than you. They are simply more skilled than me. The best thing we can do is get out of their way and make the best of what we can out of their scraps.
> You (presumably) and I are not operating system developers, nor are we usability experts. We have very little useful or actionable input other than bad opinions and selfish requests.


I don't disagree with this, but I'm trying to convey in relation to the original post how it could be avoided with things like a firmware installer. If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road and I don't want that, I don't think anyone here does.


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## andmars (Oct 7, 2022)

astyle said:


> Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228  ,  even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages.  In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.


Oh, I have to correct myself. I named the board of my previous computer. I currently have the Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, hence the issue with the Realtek driver.

Ok guys, thanks for all your replies. (Even though the discussion got a little off track I think). This weekend I'll have a new attempt at making FreeBSD my main OS. (because dual-booting is for p.....s ;-)
I can live with having to install the network driver from a USB after installing FreeBSD. And I found a fix for the color scheme issue (at least partially...mutt is still a mess). And can live with vim instead of neovim. With everything else, I'll take some time to learn about ports and I'm sure I'll get the latest release of the scid chess database programm in no time.
The fact that you can't install certain programs on FreeBSD (one removes the other) is still a little bewildering to me, but I'm sure there'll be a solution for that, too.
I'll keep you updated...have a nice weekend!


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## kpedersen (Oct 7, 2022)

astyle said:


> Skilled, yeah, but lack of adaptability will come back later to bite everyone when nobody understands what's been done, or how to troubleshoot the problems.


In theory, perhaps but in practice; well, I feel FreeBSD is good evidence that keeping some more traditional ideas alive does age well compared to Linux. There is a thin line between adaptability and volatility.



hunter0one said:


> I don't disagree with this, but I'm trying to convey in relation to the original post how it could be avoided with things like a firmware installer. If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road and I don't want that, I don't think anyone here does.


I suppose I jump the gun a little bit but from experience, I do see that this has the potential to lead up to some of the mistakes as seen in Linux (or other user-friendly platforms). Ultimately I even feel a mere passion project would end up a more useful bit of software than Linux has become. I say, let the veterans keep their passion project, for those who don't like it; Linux is there for the more wild west style bucket of ideas and friendliness.


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## PMc (Oct 7, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> About every other *BSD has a great ncurses installer but OpenBSD. The partition editor in OpenBSD is especially confusing compared to every other one I've encountered, and when it asks you how you want to get the base system it doesn't really explain anything at all. I believe I tried getting the installation media from the USB but it wouldn't let me.


That's indeed difficult. When I tried to install OpenBSD, it could not read the installation medium - it didn't have device nodes for it. So it was impossible to read the distribution packages. I started FreeBSD, created another partition on the target disk and copied the archives there. But it wouldn't install from there either, because that was outside the OpenBSD slice. Finally I copied them into the intended /home filesystem, and then it worked. Luckily the ufs filesystems are still somehow compatible.
Later I figured that OpenBSD seems to still use the old non-filesystem /dev with a MAKEDEV command - so one could have created the devices - if one knew the major+minor numbers...

This installation seems indeed something for people who already have experience running the OS...

Compared, the FreeBSD installation is pure luxury - but actually I never use it, as my compile-scripts can create readymade images with arbitrary ports preinstalled.


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## PMc (Oct 7, 2022)

astyle said:


> Asus does make good boards, yours can be found on Amazon for $228  ,  even used. But even so - that board came out in 2010, and the chipsets came out earlier. There's a good chance that some drivers got deprecated, and split off into ports/packages.  In all honesty, though, I'm surprised that a special ethernet driver is even needed there - unlike wifi... That makes installation of anything pretty awkward.


I didn't bother to try and understand that. I'm running these boards. They're indeed good, never had an issue. This one has the same network chip as one of mine, and that did work for years with the re driver in GENERIC. 
In fact it's the first time now I notice that there is another one in ports.


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## hunter0one (Oct 7, 2022)

andmars said:


> Oh, I have to correct myself. I named the board of my previous computer. I currently have the Asus TUF Gaming B550 Plus, with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, hence the issue with the Realtek driver.


This is similar to mine, I use a Gigabyte B550M DS3H (big mistake) with the same Ryzen processor. I have constant popping sound issues on Linux because of the Realtek sound chip this motherboard uses but in FreeBSD with OSS instead of ALSA the audio works flawlessly.


andmars said:


> I can live with having to install the network driver from a USB after installing FreeBSD. And I found a fix for the color scheme issue (at least partially...mutt is still a mess). And can live with vim instead of neovim. With everything else, I'll take some time to learn about ports and I'm sure I'll get the latest release of the scid chess database programm in no time.
> The fact that you can't install certain programs on FreeBSD (one removes the other) is still a little bewildering to me, but I'm sure there'll be a solution for that, too.


Good luck. ports-mgmt/pkg is extremely basic so there's not really any way to tell it to install something if it conflicts with another package due to the maintainer's build options, so this means as of now you have to go down the line and build whatever port without an option that conflicts with what you're trying to install. You ran into the same luajit vs. luajit-openresty problem as I did, but I had it with Minetest and OBS Studio. I had to go and build Minetest without its luajit-openresty support so that I could install OBS Studio which used the other. Its a real PITA but perhaps one day we'll see a way to tell `pkg` to blacklist certain packages or prioritize ones in the future.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 7, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> there should be an optional non-free ISO similar to how Debian has an unofficial one but they point to it for new users who might need it.



How bad is Linux/Debian that newbies are told not to run it and to go find some unofficial one somewhere. Can you imagine some newb coming here asking to install FreeBSD and we told him, "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 7, 2022)

hunter0one said:


> If we can't help new users then FreeBSD won't be anything but a passion project years down the road



Another "FreeBSD is dying!" statement we heard since 1995.

Educated and skilled new users don't have issues installing FreeBSD. Even kids do it right when they follow the Handbook. All this thread is about is people who don't like or can't handle how serious systems work. It's not a new thread. We get one every month or so. You don't get as many posts from people who don't have a lot of issues cause it's not a problem. Same issues they might have elsewhere. It's computer science. Situation normal. Learn how it works and deal with it. If it's not for you, move on.

The best thing about FreeBSD is you can make it whatever you want and you don't have to use what's given to you. So make it what you want. Try that with Linux Mint.


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> How bad is Linux/Debian that newbies are told not to run it and to go find some unofficial one somewhere. Can you imagine some newb coming here asking to install FreeBSD and we told him, "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."


FreeBSD does have spinoffs that the Foundation actually mentions, like DragonflyBSD, MidnightBSD, NomadBSD and the like... So this is really par for the course - everybody does this, so does FreeBSD. It takes some brains to read such comments to mean "You have options", as opposed to "Ehhhh just go find something else kid."


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## Holger (Oct 8, 2022)

Maybe a little of topic, sorry:

The fact that the “trinity” of `./configure`, `make` and `make install` usually does not work on FreeBSD out-of-the box simply means that the GNU-autotools are not portable.

FreeBSD is a UNIX-like operating system and GNU-autotools-project had been started with the aim of being portable along such kinds of operating systems. Since it does not fulfil this prerequisite, GNU autotools obviously fail. But somehow all folks blame the particular operating system.

As an example of a build-system that does a better job: `cmake`. All stuff I am compiling has been working fine so far, i.e. there was no need for ports-tree integration!


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## ProphetOfDoom (Oct 8, 2022)

Aah don’t get me started on GNU autotools. It claims to solve a bunch of problems that (for the most part) _nobody actually has, _and in the process simply creates a load more problems at a more abstract level... and the new problems are significantly harder to debug and fix than the problems that allegedly got solved.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 8, 2022)

astyle I was thinking more along the lines of unofficial versions of Linux Mint or Ubuntu.


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## fernandel (Oct 8, 2022)

As many times drhowarddrfine  said  the same topics starts again and again.
IMO this is the "war of generation". I am not IT educated  but I can compare this debate with my work as researcher (genetics). Everything the same. Older you are less you want changes. But time didn't stop and young people with new ideas are coming but we old one never trust them. But it is not our future, it is future of the young generations.
I think drhowarddrfine  is close to my ages and he should remember how old people look on us young with long hair, music... Did they stopped us?


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 8, 2022)

fernandel The fundamentals have never changed and text will always trump graphics in the sciences. This is not a question of preferences. It's a question of fundamentals. That will never change.


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## PMc (Oct 8, 2022)

fernandel said:


> As many times drhowarddrfine  said  the same topics starts again and again.
> IMO this is the "war of generation". I am not IT educated  but I can compare this debate with my work as researcher (genetics). Everything the same. Older you are less you want changes. But time didn't stop and young people with new ideas are coming but we old one never trust them. But it is not our future, it is future of the young generations.


Good observation - and it is correct that way, because thus the balance is created. Purely conservative, not moving at all, is death. Purely innovative, wildly growing in all directions, is cancer. None of them could support life.


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## fernandel (Oct 8, 2022)

drhowarddrfine said:


> fernandel The fundamentals have never changed and text will always trump graphics in the sciences. This is not a question of preferences. It's a question of fundamentals. That will never change.


Yes, fundamentals are more or less the same. Just compare with PCR machine which was popular in my days or now.  When we  show the students they just laugh. Settings are very important (not just settings) but fundamentals is the same.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 8, 2022)

The other thing to remember is that change for the sake of change without reason is never a good reason to change. Often you hear the phrase applied to GUI ideas that "a picture is worth a thousand words" but that phrase was created and applied to something entirely different than this topic.

Something being new is not necessarily any better because it's new any more than something old is bad because it's old.


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## Jose (Oct 8, 2022)

PMc said:


> Good observation - and it is correct that way, because thus the balance is created. Purely conservative, not moving at all, is death. Purely innovative, wildly growing in all directions, is cancer. None of them could support life.


Exactly. The reason older folks are skeptical of the new hotness is that we've seen so much hype come and go, and often had to pick up the pieces when the whiz-bang new thing blew up in midair.

However, the brilliant new thing is there somewhere in the pile of buzz and nonsense. Younger and less experienced people are perfect for looking for it because their opinions haven't been colored by so much disappointment yet.


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## kpedersen (Oct 8, 2022)

ProphetOfDoom said:


> Aah don’t get me started on GNU autotools.


Too late!

GNU autotools does have some considerable advantages to CMake but it is implemented so awkwardly, it barely works on Linux or Hurd either (the two core GNU platforms).

I feel autotools would have worked so much better had GNU not been involved with any of it. I love the concept behind GNU but their technical implementations of anything are always a confused mess.


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## Holger (Oct 9, 2022)

kpedersen said:


> Too late!
> 
> GNU autotools does have some considerable advantages to CMake but it is implemented so awkwardly, it barely works on Linux or Hurd either (the two core GNU platforms).
> 
> I feel autotools would have worked so much better had GNU not been involved with any of it. I love the concept behind GNU but their technical implementations of anything are always a confused mess.


Here is a parody of GNU autotools (not mine) that – I feel – grabs its essence, at least from a user's perspective:

```
for i in /usr/include/*.h; do echo -n "checking for $i ... "; sleep 1; echo "ok"; done
```


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## ProphetOfDoom (Oct 9, 2022)

kpedersen : Yes, GNU was the best thing that ever happened to software... the main issue I have with GNU autotools in particular  (clearly I wanted to moan about this really) is that it seems to be written with the assumption that _autotools itself_ _will never malfunction_. And that’s way too optimistic. I recently had to write some patches to nasm (the Netwide Assembler) on Linux for a hobby project of mine, and was trying to build my patched nasm on FreeBSD and I had to fix ~15 or so errors related to autotools. I can’t remember if they were errors in nasm’s input to autotools, or errors in the actual scripts generated by autotools but I think it was the latter. I think bash was assumed, not sh, also.
Holger, time for a pull request? “Removed unnecessary cruft”.


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## xk2600 (Nov 18, 2022)

First, I love the FreeBSD installer. Ever since FreeBSD 5.x, or maybe I should say as far back as I can remember, I've never had to go read how to install FreeBSD. Literally, if you can `dd` an image or use cdrecord you're good. The availability of thumb drives made it even easier.

Also, with a small bit of reading learning how the installer works is remarkably simple: 

It uses gpart to create a partition table and create partitions and boot sectors written. geli is then used to encrypt the disks, and either UFS or ZFS is used to build filesystems on the resulting partitions. The root filesystem is mounted in /mnt; chroot into our new root, and the base.txz is extracted into the root. Password is set, users created, additionally src, lib32 support, man pages, and debug symbols can be extracted as well.. and you can drop into the installation to further customize before reboot.

The advantage of it's simplicity is A) its easy to customize and B) you don't actually have to use the installer.

I am not proposing we do this, but I actually think that the freebsd installer could be further simplified to a single screen asking to select disks and a geli key, create partition tables and partions, install base.txz, zfs on geli, and be done.

Back to the OP. I have the same issue with some of the older hardware I support in regards to needing firmware. I solve this problem by mounting the thumbdrive after `dd`ing onto the thumb drive and loading fiirmware and kernel modules onto the thumb drive. It would be nice to include this in the handbook and if I find some time over the holidays, I'll submit a PR.


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