Thoughts

Hi,

I had some thoughts about PC BSD:

Why should we introduce a new package system ?
This is more work than benefit, in my opinion

Of course it is nice, installing everything that belongs to a program in its own directory, it seems someone is inspired by Mac OSX ? But why ?

Well, I don´t like pkg_add, ... of freebsd myself.

There are many other packages around, why not use these ?
I like pacman which is part of archlinux, btw.
But let this idea fall down

We could simply make a graphical tool which also checks dependencies for freebsd´s package system, so we could use standard freebsd packages.

All packages already exist, why don´t use them ?
Look at the forum, people talking almost all the time about how they could make pbi, that´s a waste of time.
FreeBSD has its package system, USE it.



We should concentrate on the goals described on the homepage:
"an easy to install and use desktop OS"


- enhance the installer
- make a GUI for package system
- concentrate on the things "modern" os uses: plug and play:
I want to stick in my usb stick, a small message appears in the right corner saying, "USB device found", it is automatically mounted and I can use it within kde.
The same for the rest of the devices: printer, scanner, digital camera

I thought this should be an office os ?
Most people aren´t interested in how things work. It should simply work.


- Introduce a central control center for all settings. Something like yast, which makes it easy for users to change their /etc files




These are just thoughts. So feel free to comment. It´s quite late here, so g8.


Kin

[antik]

Why should we introduce a new package system ?
This is more work than benefit, in my opinion

Of course it is nice, installing everything that belongs to a program in its own directory, it seems someone is inspired by Mac OSX ? But why ?

Because we can....


Well, I don´t like pkg_add, ... of freebsd myself.

There are many other packages around, why not use these ?
I like pacman which is part of archlinux, btw.
But let this idea fall down

we do not want package manager- we want dumbed down package installer for these dumbusers who newer touch command prompt and don't give a shit about underlaying technology.


We could simply make a graphical tool which also checks dependencies for freebsd´s package system, so we could use standard freebsd packages.

All packages already exist, why don´t use them ?

We don't have openoffice 2.0 package actually...



Look at the forum, people talking almost all the time about how they could make pbi, that´s a waste of time.
FreeBSD has its package system, USE it.


I use both...But I LOVE .pbi



We should concentrate on the goals described on the homepage:
"an easy to install and use desktop OS"


- enhance the installer
- make a GUI for package system
- concentrate on the things "modern" os uses: plug and play:
I want to stick in my usb stick, a small message appears in the right corner saying, "USB device found", it is automatically mounted and I can use it within kde.
The same for the rest of the devices: printer, scanner, digital camera

I thought this should be an office os ?
Most people aren´t interested in how things work. It should simply work.


- Introduce a central control center for all settings. Something like yast, which makes it easy for users to change their /etc files


let's make another shitty linux distro clone....



These are just thoughts. So feel free to comment. It´s quite late here, so g8.


Kin

I understand what you want but I want more....

[Sparkfist]

Yeah.... I read about BSD a bit before jumping in the pool.

Mac OS X and installing everything in one directory isnt a new thing.BSD which is what OS X is based off has done that for years. Every program has its own library so everything is indenpendent of the other. I like it as I didnt get stupid reason why Gaim and Mplayer wouldnt install.

The .pbi is a graphical installer. And a much simpler one then PRM with YaST.

And if you havent figured it out after installing the OS. PC/BSD is very spartan in design. They dont want to add anything that the user wouldnt want or have no use for. So everything you wnat you get and install, not that its hard.

[pcbsdusr]

1- f you dont see the usefulness of the .pbi sistem just ask people here in the forum if they are are able to install software by other methods.
80% aren't able without help. And that is the forum people, most of us are interested in alternative os's and have some (little) experience outside windows. Other users wont be so forgiving about having to read through a whole document just to install their software.

2- We are in the 21st century. Try buying a 20GB drive today.

3- If we can make installation of programs simpler and kill dependencies at the same time, it's good!

4- you will say "but if a library gets updated we have to update it in several locations"
Yes, but that is good.
Because on other systems, you upgrade once and leave several applications unusable

If an application is using a library, that library must be updated by the app's developers and maintainers. who are we to mess with their app?
People must start taking responsability for what they maintain.

Cheers!

Renato

[qratman]

1. Well I think FreeBSD's pkg_add is very good thing. If you wanted to make the program installation look like in Windows - download program, double click, next, next, finish, then I think it would have been better idea to just put text file which contains the file name user wants to install into the .PBI. There would also be script which says pkg_add -r "package name". That way you could use all the pacages that have been made available by FreeBSD community and the installation process would look like in windows.

Hope you get it what I mean.

[youlle]

sounds a bit cheating but thats one of the avenues i've been looking at for installing GNOME onto PC-BSD via PBI, are there any HD analytical tools for FreeBSD? i primarily mean File additions / moddifications that way it would be easier to code a removal script although you could also use ports un-install system (i assume there is one)

[qratman]

youlle:

I don't know how PBI manager works, but if you could somehow command it to run script which says 'pkg_delete gnome*', then it should do the work.

Why reinvent the wheel when it has been discovered already (by that I mean Gnome installation).

[scottro]

This thing with gnome is one of the reasons I think that it will become necessary to have pbi's interact with /var/db/pkg. Otherwise, there are bound to be conflicts.

whine whine whine. :)

[sblevin]

This thing with gnome is one of the reasons I think that it will become necessary to have pbi's interact with /var/db/pkg. Otherwise, there are bound to be conflicts.

whine whine whine. :)

I've done a bunch of little apps as standard .pbi's and they are easy that way. The games have had so many bugs because of the hundreds of lines of scripting needed to make them "feel" like .pbis.

The real problem comes when you get monster programs, like Gnome. If you are going so far as to put Gnome on your computer you really shouldn't expect just to "pluck it off again". I just don't see anyone in their right mind wanting to support that kind of arrangment - it more than doubles the support and workload, and splits the developers.

Possibly the simplest way to deal with Gnome (as it will never just go away and die for the good of the world like it should), is to bite the bullet, and put it in the base release, but ignore it as far as PC-BSD developement goes. Fans can run it, and still run pc-bsd apps. Kris and others won't have to bother trying to "dress it up".

Does that sound harsh?

[Solarin]

A nice idea, but I suspect that once it's in the base system people will demand support for it. Probably better off not to go there, at least no unless we're prepared to support it properly.

[scottro]

However, that doesn't address my issue (which I've stated before, and I believe that sblevin has agreed--though I could be mistaken) which is the pacakges being registered in /var/db/pkg. There are something like 12,000 ported applications, and while many are specialized and seldom used, the average user is certainly going to wind up installing some before the end. So, there should be some sort of indication that package A is already isntalled (via pbi) before ports starts looking for dependencies.

This of course opens up another issue (sigh, I'm so glad I'm not a programmer) about where to install pbis. A hardcore friend said to me "MyPrograms is just evil" :)

Anyway, I do feel these are issues to be addressed, but of course, a great deal of it depends upon where PCBSD goes--that is, simply a slight fork of FreeBSD or something completely different.

Not to mention that there are going to be some library bumps in 6.0 that will change things.

[Dingens]

We should concentrate on the goals described on the homepage:
"an easy to install and use desktop OS"
i think the pbi system is very good and expandable!

and one program one folder is a very good view because you have less trouble with dependencies.

and when people move ass up high we could move the mount everest :!: :wink:

[blind javelin thrower]

Why should we introduce a new package system ?
This is more work than benefit, in my opinion
IMO the real benefit may not be so much that it's a new and/or better package system, but rather, what PC-BSD and it's PBI system potentially stand to do for a) the quality of applications available to the desktop user, and b) increasing popular interest in BSD as a desktop OS.

At present, I simply don't feel that FreeBSD is a viable option for the vast majority of desktop users. And the problem isn't the OS, per se, or the BSD userland, but just the current state and condition of packages and ports, and the difficulties one can run into trying to use third party software under FreeBSD. It's easy to see why the typical Windows user looking for an alternative to the malware and poor system reliability is going to choose one of the Linux distributions over a BSD: better third party software, and better bundled distributions.

It doesn't have to be that way, but things need to be made less trouble-free for the desktop BSD user before things are going to change. I think that's what Kris is trying to do with PC-BSD.

-bjt

Why should we introduce a new package system ?
This is more work than benefit, in my opinion

Of course it is nice, installing everything that belongs to a program in its own directory, it seems someone is inspired by Mac OSX ? But why ?

Because we can....


Well, I don´t like pkg_add, ... of freebsd myself.

There are many other packages around, why not use these ?
I like pacman which is part of archlinux, btw.
But let this idea fall down

we do not want package manager- we want dumbed down package installer for these dumbusers who newer touch command prompt and don't give a shit about underlaying technology.


great remarks, way to go!
i hope the comments of this... individual are not representative of pcbsd fans.