Important announcement regarding FreeNAS Corral

[Ericloewe]

I also have noticed some pretty harsh and borderline arrogant responses to valid concerns (and a somewhat thin skin, exemplified by the above...)

Maybe. I don't respond well to being accused of things I did not do, particularly when the accusation is being used to scare people away from FreeNAS.

 

[FFK]

Maybe. I don't respond well to being accused of things I did not do, particularly when the accusation is being used to scare people away from FreeNAS.

Nor should you... I just thought that the reply ban threat was coming a bit too fast and I do have to agree that some of the responses/defensive arguments made in this thread by senior users are (borderline) arrogant and revealing in terms of what some see as the priorities of FreeNAS development.

 

[Stuclark]

Maybe. I don't respond well to being accused of things I did not do, particularly when the accusation is being used to scare people away from FreeNAS.

My reply was based purely upon what I've read in the preceeding 22 pages of this topic. I don't know you, nor anyone else in person, which means that how you and I and everyone else acts in these forums and this topic in particular, dictates the opinions and impressions which we all form.

As a moderator on a forum such as this, and in a topic such as this, it is very, very important to remain impartial. As soon as one starts banning or threatening bans based upon personal feelings or feelings of mis-representation, that impartiality disappears and the resulting feeling and tone merely incites prejudiced behaviour in others.

My cmments still stand true, even if I was mistaken in my interpretation of what was said in previous comments.

FreeNAS *needs* to remember that is not a product developed for developers ... that seems to be a recurring concern in this thread, and I think the admins and mods especially need to seriously consider their responses to that concern.

Documentation is still an issue for FreeNAS. As a newbie user who doesn't know Linux *nix / BSD / whatever-OS I *NEED* documentation to help me out. As a newbie user, I expect that to have been created by the developers. If and when I become competent with a project, I am then willing to help with the documentation effort.

Unfortunately, I also feel that the reply stating "That's very nice, but you seem to be under the mistaken impression that documentation is spontaneously generated. Information has to exist somewhere before it can end up in a document." when I suggested that users should not be expected to find documentation within bug reports, and to state that "You seriously expect me to personally write every bit of documentation?" are both as much of a mis-representation and outright lies as I was accused of writing. So sir, should I warn you about a potential ban for spreading false information and insulting other users?

...maybe it's time to take a step back and re-evaluate the answers and comments in this thread, on all sides...?

 

[danb35]

FreeNAS 9 has pretty good user-facing official documentation, and certainly far better than average for open-source projects. Are there ways it could be improved? Sure there are, and you can submit bugs against the docs just as you can against the code. There's also a lot of user-contributed documentation (including the wiki I host) that covers issues around the edges and/or outside the core FreeNAS functionality (e.g., setting up various software in jails).

The GUI is important. As I noted above, it's (along with its associated components, like the middleware) literally what makes FreeNAS FreeNAS--without it, FreeNAS is just FreeBSD + Samba (for 95+% of installations). It could stand to be more intuitive (I'm not convinced that the FN10 GUI succeeded in this, but others seem to be), and it's certainly looking long in the tooth (and the FN10 GUI definitely improved this). But even so, though the question was raised a few pages back, I still haven't seen an answer: why does an admin of a running FreeNAS server need to be in the GUI with any frequency?

FreeNAS *needs* to remember that is not a product developed for developers ... that seems to be a recurring concern in this thread, and I think the admins and mods especially need to seriously consider their responses to that concern.

I think the prevailing response to that concern (and certainly my response) is that it's meaningless, and repeating it doesn't make it any more meaningful. What do you mean when you say it? Do you mean that FreeNAS is too hard to use? Because I'm sure as hell not a developer of anything (I'm a lawyer, not a professional techie of any variety), but I've been able to make it do everything I've wanted to for some time now. And I've been able to do that since the early 8.x days (actually, since the 0.7.x days, but that was a different codebase, so it probably doesn't count), with at least a few iterations of pretty un-suitable hardware. So, when you (implicitly) express the concern that FreeNAS appears to have been "developed for developers", what do you mean by that, and how do you think it should be addressed?

 

[Stuclark]

What do you mean when you say it? Do you mean that FreeNAS is too hard to use?

What it means to me is that I am one of those who feel the Corral GUI is streets ahead of the 9.10 UI, and as someone who knows Microsoft systems inside out, I will admit I'm a GUI whore, I much prefer a GUI to a command line. Sure, there are parts of the Corral UI that don't make sense, but it is way, way easier to navigate and understand than the 9.10 UI (and I absolutely love how if a task fails, it actually gives you a reason why ... maybe not the best reason, but a reason non the less).

Moreover though, I was referring to the concern that has been voiced by quite a few people in this topic; there is rightly or wrongly, a lot of concern over whether docker and jails support is going to be in version x.xx, but relatively little concern (seemingly) on the part of the developers, regarding the provision of an "upgrade" path from Corral to 9.10.3 11. For a newbie / "normal" user, surely that has to be a great consideration?

 

[FFK]

What it means to me is that I am one of those who feel the Corral GUI is streets ahead of the 9.10 UI, and as someone who knows Microsoft systems inside out, I will admit I'm a GUI whore, I much prefer a GUI to a command line. Sure, there are parts of the Corral UI that don't make sense, but it is way, way easier to navigate and understand than the 9.10 UI (and I absolutely love how if a task fails, it actually gives you a reason why ... maybe not the best reason, but a reason non the less).

Moreover though, I was referring to the concern that has been voiced by quite a few people in this topic; there is rightly or wrongly, a lot of concern over whether docker and jails support is going to be in version x.xx, but relatively little concern (seemingly) on the part of the developers, regarding the provision of an "upgrade" path from Corral to 9.10.3 11. For a newbie / "normal" user, surely that has to be a great consideration?

I agree that the current 9.10 UI is dated and somewhat ugly; that may be OK for some people (which was how I read your "developed for developers" line), but for FreeNAS to be broadly attractive surely a modern UI is paramount. No doubt about that. It is OK with me that some users disagree with that, but it seems that iX recognises this, because a new UI IS coming with 11.0 and Corral was also much about a modern UI. So, let's all just relax - a new UI is coming and seemingly has high priority; and users who do not need a beautiful UI can still rely on CLI.

Wrt Docker; this is a must-do IMHO, and it needs to be a top priority.

 

[raidflex]

I would really like to know why this announcement is still NOT on the web page for FreeNAS? People should not have to hunt through the forums to find this. I keep seeing people stumble upon this announcement by chance. How hard would it be to even at it to the blog page on the website?

 

[JoshDW19]

I'd encourage everyone to keep the thread on topic. This thread has become less about discussing Corral and more about philosophical discussions of how people are responding / should respond to each other. I honestly think this thread has run its course and there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. We are seeing a lot of the same information over and over and I'd like to encourage anyone making a new post to do a search and see if the information already exists that you're looking for. That being said, I also recognize there are a lot of concerns after Corral's "un-release"... That's why I agree with @danb35 on keeping the discussion open and honest. I realize some of you don't want to continue to see what may you may see as negative feedback, but I don't want to take away people's voices when the majority are responding in a reasonable way.

First and foremost let's try to just keep things civil here. Stay on topic. A lot of the new information being said has already been said many times so please do a search before posting the same information / questions. I'd encourage anyone that is reaching the point of being frustrated, to just take a break from reading the thread.

 

[Howard Swope]

I am still reeling over this change as features added to FreeNAS 10 were very important to me and I committed to it. But open source is open source and there is not really much I can say. I don't want my comments to be overly negative as that is not really productive to the conversation, but what could have happened to get this far into the process and then totally scrap it? By this point in the process one would have expected a huge amount of unit testing and integration testing to be happening along with all the exploratory testing the rest of us were doing. Risks around design decisions so vital that it would cause a complete failure of the project would have been mitigated much earlier in the process. This is not the era of the mythical man month where you build a system knowing you are going to throw the first one away. The science of software engineering has come along way. From everything I had observed (as an outsider) the project seemed to be running pretty well. If this decision was really done because engineering approaches taken in version 10 were so untenable, I admire the tenacity and commitment to quality. But it does point to huge failure in process. If this decision was made because one developer favored chocolate over vanilla, I am upset because I invested a fair amount in corral.

 

[danb35]

I much prefer a GUI to a command line.

Sure, and that's how FreeNAS is designed to be used. With the exception of FN10, it's generally been treated as a bad (or at least potentially dangerous) idea to do something at the command line that can be done through the GUI. There's a GUI in FN9--perhaps not as good, but a GUI nonetheless (and most of the time, if a task fails, that GUI gives you a reason too--and you can copy/paste the reason, making it easier to Google the issue or post questions here about it; you can't do that in FN10).

there is rightly or wrongly, a lot of concern over whether docker and jails support is going to be in version x.xx,

If "version x.xx" is intended to refer to the next release (i.e., FreeNAS 11, due to release in a week or so), I thought those questions had long been answered: jails will be in FN11 (though they weren't in FN10), but direct docker support won't be. VM support will be, though, and docker containers are all in a VM, so they should be able to migrate.

but relatively little concern (seemingly) on the part of the developers, regarding the provision of an "upgrade" path from Corral to 9.10.3 11.

You mean other than the information posted in the OP in this very thread? Like this?

 

[Ericloewe]

Please stand by, the FAQ is temporarily unavailable due to minor technical difficulties. We're working to fix it ASAP

 

[joaorikard]

Hello,
in Corral, there is an "update" option from which I can select several versions of FreeNAS. Can I use it to "update" (even if fresh) to 11 nightly, or do I have to use a usb drive to install?
I know I've been told that a direct-update/upgrade is not possible, the question is if I can use the option to replace the OS.

Thank you,

 

[danb35]

What it means to me is that I am one of those who feel the Corral GUI is streets ahead of the 9.10 UI

I agree that the current 9.10 UI is dated and somewhat ugly; that may be OK for some people (which was how I read your "developed for developers" line)

I'm reading this as two votes for "developed for developers" meaning "the FN9 GUI is ugly".

 

[Ericloewe]

It doesn't work very well when trying to move from Corral to something else. It's best to just install from ISO.

 

[Dent]

But even so, though the question was raised a few pages back, I still haven't seen an answer: why does an admin of a running FreeNAS server need to be in the GUI with any frequency?

As a frequent user of the GUI I gave my reason in post 390. Maybe not important to some, but for me...


Important announcement regarding FreeNAS Corral

Sorry if this link does not work properly, trying to do this on a tablet at work.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

As a frequent user of the GUI I gave my reason in post 390.

Ah, yes, I'd missed that. I still wouldn't think it's something that needs regular attention in most cases, but yes, that makes sense.

 

[danb35]

I would really like to know why this announcement is still NOT on the web page for FreeNAS?

The announcement may not be there, but at least the download links to FN10 are gone (you can still get it from download.freenas.org, but the links on the home page go to 9.10.2-U3).

 

[anodos]

The main feature of FreeNAS 10 that I would like to see in FreeNAS 11 is the ability to perform all GUI actions (or most of them) from the CLI. I honestly feel more comfortable in the CLI, and would love to be able to just SSH in to the server to do everything I need to do.

 

[Ericloewe]

Ok, the FAQ is back up.

Unfortunately, it was only feasible to restore it from a somewhat messy backup straight from the database, so I might have missed something when posting it again.

The new link is https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ng-from-freenas-corral-to-freenas-9-10-11.36/ - yes, it's a new link. We'll be fixing the old link wherever we notice it.

 

[raidflex]

The announcement may not be there, but at least the download links to FN10 are gone (you can still get it from download.freenas.org, but the links on the home page go to 9.10.2-U3).

I know the links have been removed, but its been what over 10 days since the project has been halted, there is no reason that a simple message cannot be added to the website so people are aware of the status of corral. This is not asking for much, considering that this was not a beta product that was pulled, but a RELEASE version.