Linked by Paul Hankes Drielsma on Tue 15th Apr 2003 06:40 UTC
I can't take anymore comments like "Debian/Gentoo/OpenBSD/etc. are not good/user-friendly because they lack a graphical installer." Searching the web, I couldn't find a comprehensive site describing the good and the bad about graphical installers for various OSes throughout the years, so in this article I hope to debunk a few of the myths on the basis of my own personal and professional experience.
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Again, you're forgetting a few words...
"The OpenBSD installer is bad [for me]"
I personally find the OpenBSD installer perfect for my needs. It's simple, quick, yet versatile.
Sure you have to know what disk slices are, but hey, that's what the FAQ is for. Instead of displaying screens full of basic information most of the people installing OpenBSD already know, they have chosen to nicely bundle that information in the FAQ.
There's a complete installation-log in the FAQ, providing quite some hand-holding for first timers. Maybe if you read the information that's available, it would've gone a bit better?
It is true that Theo (and he's completely right on that) wants to discourage people who are not "serious" enough as you call it. Theo wants to discourage people who don't read the FAQ/manpages/... because they'll end up wasting developer time asking already answered questions on the mailinglists anyway.
This may seem harsh, but then again, it isn't OpenBSD's goal to be a mainstream OS. If you want that, use Linux or Windows. In the end, it's all about the right tool for the right job, not?