Ars Technica article on FreeBSD new user experience

[Kyle Evans]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 2:05 PM Ed Maste <emaste at freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> Jim Salter has an article in Ars Technica discussing his experience
> with FreeBSD 12.1 as a desktop:
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-freebsd-12-1-release/
>
> There are some points in there that might involve misunderstanding,
> but there are also a number of real issues raised about the experience
> a new (or newish) desktop FreeBSD user will have. It will be a good
> idea for us to examine these, and offer advice or corrections if
> appropriate, and otherwise look how we can improve the FreeBSD
> experience for new users.

Random small collection of thoughts I had after reading this:

1. re: LiveCD/Amnesiac prompt, we really should indicate the expected
credentials... we already do special stuff in release/ for install
media, my initial impression is that this shouldn't be all too hard.

2. re: default shell and niceties: complete agreement, IMO we should
at least have basically usable history at a minimum

3. re: `pkg search xorg` -- that makes sense, given "pkg search xorg
returns too many hits to fit on a single page of a text-mode console".
Looking at sample output for that specific inquiry:

linux-c7-xorg-libs-7.7_8       Xorg libraries (Linux CentOS 7.7.1908)
xorg-7.7_3                     X.Org complete distribution metaport
xorg-apps-7.7_4                X.org apps meta-port
xorg-cf-files-1.0.6            X.org cf files for use with imake builds
xorg-dmx-1.20.8,1              Distributed Multihead X from X.Org
xorg-docs-1.7.1,1              X.org documentation files

I wonder if we shouldn't push the version numbers into a second column
so it's easier to glean. The initial column with full pkgname is a bit
too noisy for my eyes. Further, and this only really applies probably
in conjunction with other potential problems and may be completely
incorrect, but I think we should be giving our users something that
they can just quickly slap onto a `pkg install ` line and have the
greatest chance of doing the right thing. AFAICT pkg-search won't
trigger a `pkg update` before the search, so by the time you actually
pkg update+install the remote repo may not have that specific package
(w/ version) anymore:

4. re: /proc, we should hold a separate discussion on this list about
whether we can mount /proc by default with debugging facilities
eradicated.

Thanks,

Kyle Evans