Ars Technica article on FreeBSD new user experience

[Joe Berner]

My 2 cents:

1) Make video driver detection a bit more straightforward. Or at least make
it dead simple to figure out which you need to install to get things
working. I still need 2 or 3 tries with pkg install -f after major driver
upgrades to get X server working correctly again with all the peripherals.

2) A wifi tool that's easier to use. wpa_supplicant is fine for those
already very comfortable with command line stuff, but for unix newbies it's
very intimidating. wpa_cli is better but still too complicated. An
interactive CLI tool that lists the SSIDs, lets you pick one, and then
progressively fill out the required info would help a lot. I remember
finding comments on the forums saying "just plug it in to ethernet to get
set up" and that's very inconvenient if not infeasible for a lot of home
set ups.

3) The horrible beeping. A newbie who starts out is likely to open up vi on
rc.conf (or whatever) and be greeted by a sequence of earsplitting system
beeps as they learn that vi is not vim and some of the things they are used
to do not work. Them not working is fine, but the beeping feels like a way
for the system to mock your failure, and quickly goes from annoying to
enraging. Years later I still remember this!

I don't think a Xorg + GUI are necessary on a default install, but make it
dead simple for a beginner (say, someone who doesn't know to do pkg search
$X | less ) to get it set up.

Joe

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.
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