Re: integrating Debian GNU/kFreeBSD into InstallingDebianOn?
Hello,
Being optimistic and naively believing that kfreebsd is near to being
released for mainstream Debian, I installed kfreebsd-i386 on an older
machine that was in need of a complete re-install from scratch.
My conclusions for the moment is that it is only marginally usable.
Indeed, many packages are indeed available, yet some crucial packages
are not yet available or are somewhat broken (and hopefully will be
very quickly fixed).
One major example is X11. I spent some time getting a basic X11
system to work - the problem on kfreebsd being due to hal.
This is somewhat of a regression.
Also, I use KDE, and konsole is currently broken/unusable.
This is being fixed (or, if I understand correctly, was fixed
once already and is now re-broken).
From an end user point-of-view, certain key applications
such as java are problematic.
Other applications are available, yet sometimes yield subtle
errors concerning specific functionality (such as OS identification).
One such example is TeX Live, that we have now fixed upstream.
Some applications are simply missing and compile (and run)
seemingly without problems from Debian sources. One such
example that I have found is povray. Why is this so?
I currently do not have a good idea of all that is missing
as I am hardly using this machine for the moment
(at least until konsole gets fixed, as I find it awkward
to revert to using xterm...).
I remain optimistic, but find the Debian announcement
to be just a little premature. I went through a similar
(thankfully short-lived) experience during the introduction
of KDE4.
Thank you to everyone working on bringing freeBSD to Debian
and especially on its documentation.
Alan
On Thursday 11 March 2010 02:50:14 Paul Wise wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> [Please CC me in reply, not subscribed to either list]
>
> With the upcoming Debian squeeze release, the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD port
> will be available in release form. As such, the installation of it on
> specific machines will be a candidate for documentation in the
> InstallingDebianOn section of the wiki. InstallingDebianOn is an effort
> to document how to install, configure and use Debian on some specific
> hardware.
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn
>
> Until now, all the guides were written for Debian GNU/Linux, so I am
> wondering how to integrate kFreeBSD into the new guides that will be
> written for squeeze. As an example, here is my primary machine:
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Inspiron6400/lenny
> http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Inspiron6400/etch
>
> When squeeze is released I'll probably do a new install on a spare hard
> drive to test installation again and ensure nothing is different to
> lenny. I'll probably try installing Debian GNU/kFreeBSD too, to see how
> the hardware support is going. I'm currently thinking that a second
> column for kFreeBSD could be added to the Overall Status section of the
> template and the Configuration section split up into Debian GNU/Linux
> and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD sub-sections.
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/ComputerTemplate
>
> Also, I'm wondering if the pages for specific releases should be merged
> into one page? The tweeks could be marked as specific to a release.
>
> PS: promotion of and contribution to InstallingDebianOn is highly
> recommended.
>
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