I just wanted to say thanks to
@Ericloewe for being open to continuing this discussion.
I seem to recall not all that long ago trying to start a new thread on the pfSense Forums regarding a change in direction for v2.5 that would bring a requirement for CPUs to support AES-NI going forward (putting myself and a reasonable amount of other people in a bit of a pickle down the road).
To my surprise, my post (authored in the middle of the night, one evening I happened to be up late) was unceremoniously DELETED.
At first I thought perhaps I somehow screwed it up / didn't publish properly, so I re-wrote it and found that thread was immediately deleted as well; this time complete with a nasty-gram PM from a mod, who basically told me to drop it, there would be no more discussion about it.
I responded, was very diplomatic, but the mod didn't seem to care: There would be no further discussion, full stop, case closed.
As a pfSense user for over a decade, I was more than a little taken aback. It may or may not be a coincidence, but haven't been active on their forums since.
So I applaud you, Eric, for trying to keep the piece without resorting to outright silencing of dissenting opinions. Hopefully things at the pfSense forum will improve over time as well, because right now it's feeling a little too authoritarian for my taste.
Anyway, back on topic, I'm interested where this discussion goes but don't have a major dog in the fight.
I will admit that I liked the idea of the "ease of use" of the Coral UI. As a relative n00b (only have built a few FreeNAS boes, many 5 or more years ago, and only one or two in the last few years based on 9.10, mostly in anticipation of upgrading to Corral at the time) I was really looking forward to the "ease of entrance" I saw with Corral. FreeNAS has always felt a bit dated to me, and overly technical on the surface.
What I mean by overly technical is that I, personally, tend to like a GUI where the major functions are highly visible and presented in a non-cluttered way and advanced features are there, but are tucked away in collapsible boxes, etc. I tends to give me confidence when I am first learning a system when I have a window with one or two actionable items, with all the nitty gritty tucked away than a window with 12-14 options, many of which are rarely used or edge-case-y.
So, I find I agree with both of the major schools of thought I'm seeing here, actually:
- That once it's setup you won't spend much time with it (that's true). An interface that is super dumbed down isn't functional, and function is more important than looks. But, I also agree that pure function isn't a great reason to have a dated GUI (personally).
- In order to attract new users, which in turn makes the project more popular, potentially drives more people to buy TrueNAS, you need something that lowers the bar of entry for new people. FreeNAS when you first install it, can be somewhat intimidating. On the other hand, again, you don't want to totally dumb it down and you also don't want to turn of people who have used it and gotten use to it (i.e., people inherently don't like to change, it's just a fact of human life).
It seems to me that, on balance, more "new" users like the feel of the Corral UI where as more "old hands" do not. Not exclusively, of course, but in general terms.
You've got to strike that balance of keeping the old timers happy while also freshening things up for the "Synology Folks" who expect a super clean, super intuitive design (I'm sure that got just as many cheers and it did gags).
No easy task, will be interested to see where it goes!