*BSD News Article 86241


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From: cjs@cynic.portal.ca (Curt Sampson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why no addusr?
Date: 6 Jan 1997 23:28:47 -0800
Organization: Internet Portal Services, Inc.
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <5astvf$hos@cynic.portal.ca>
References: <none-ya023480001912962244220001@news.infi.net> <5aj14j$ri8@abel.ic.sunysb.edu> <5arjo9$foo@cynic.portal.ca> <5as0dq$a0l@keyhole.west.spy.net>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:5072

In article <5as0dq$a0l@keyhole.west.spy.net>,
Dustin Sallings <dustin@bleu.west.spy.net.> wrote:

>	I am *very* pleased with the install on Net.  The only thing I'd
>change was the way it does the partitioning, and I'm not even sure if
>I'd do that (I had a calculator, and I learned something).  I can do a
>Net install in a fraction of the time it takes to install Linux or Free.

Actually, after a half dozen installs you'll probably find you can
install faster by ignoring the install routines completely and just
setting up and untarring the stuff yourself at the root prompt.

Nobody with any reasonable sysadmin skills is going to have any
trouble with NetBSD once they've gotten over the initial learning
stages. This is possibly one of the reasons that NetBSD doesn't
have such nice install routines: NetBSD users are for the most part
fairly sophisticated, and of course people tend to be reluctant to
write code they won't use. (Probably they are for the most part
fairly sophisticated because the less sophisticated users use
something easier, however.)

I do think, however, there is a place in the Unix world for very
easy-to-install, easy-to-run systems that concentrate on having
good install procedures and good binary packages, even at the
expense of being painful for sophisticated Unix hackers to use.
I was lucky enough, many years ago, to learn on a system that
someone else set up and administrated. If I'd had to do my own VAX
11/780 4.2BSD install to get started, it probably would have slowed
me down rather a bit.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson    cjs@portal.ca		Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc.	
Vancouver, BC   (604) 257-9400		De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.