and this is explicitly a KDE topic <
https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/kde.30/>, so (with respect) I'll not respond re: other desktop environments.
… something like an installer option "Install with KDE desktop", …
Exactly like that.
Installation.
… If such thing existed, would you expect you can download a FreeBSD Kommunity Edition to an USB thumb drive to stick it into your laptop or tablet, and that boots and/or installs? Would you like that? …
Initially: treat the installer as entirely separate from the wish for everyday runs of KDE from a USB thumb drive.
Focus on installation.
… Not with just KDE. Needs at least 3 …
Whilst I understand the wish, I can not recommend a multi-DE effort at this time.
… I don't know why topics like this seem to be frowned upon. …
For one thing: brainstorming can be stormy, and uncontrollably sprawling.
Good brainstorming benefits from good facilitation. Forums are less than ideal. Even with superb facilitators, real-world brainstorming sessions often over-run.
… a few hours of wasted setup time …
… It took over a full 24 hour day to build everything I wanted … I don't see it as a tedious task. …
Spending/wasting hours or days can be intolerable.
I tolerate it only because I like FreeBSD.
… that's the way I work with and run mine and doesn't have to be yours. …
… very easy to install from ports (with a little research on the xorg setup end). …
The research aspect makes things less than easy.
Wish for an installer that requires zero thought of X.Org …
… A noob can not easily install & use FreeBSD, because s/he is confronted with terms s/he doesn't understand. …
… exactly!
<
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/> requiring a newcomer to learn about X.Org before proceeding to install KDE is
not a welcome to KDE on FreeBSD.
… things that fail too often, e.g. the desktop search
sysutils/kf5-sysutils/kf5-baloo …
Yeah, I've been ignoring those crashes for years. One day I'll seek or open a bug.
… You're an experienced wizzard, but for sure you know other (non-nerd) people. …
… this thread was not only to gather a pattern of opinions & brainstorming ideas about this topic, but also to encourage participation & maybe find a few allies. There are already some interesting projects, not only the desktop-oriented distributions, but also e.g.
sysutils/desktop-installer. But whenever I'm looking at these projects, I come to the conclusion that
one-man-shows are not the right way to do it, …
True.
… get more users interested in FreeBSD for an entry level user …
… lots of ideas and good intentions that aren't matched with skills or resources (mostly money). And I don't mean that rudely …
There's an abundance of skilled people who are willing, capable and motivated.
This abundance is not evident in FreeBSD Forums.
Updating and upgrading FreeBSD
… how to safely update the system (regardless of how far out of date) reliably. …
… how to safely update the system (regardless of how far out of date) reliably. … Let's assume that PkgBase is the way forward. and so on. https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-pkgbase In addition to the list, there's sometimes discussion of PkgBase in IRC for FreeBSD...
forums.freebsd.org
▶ please join the discussion there. Thanks.
Wikis and the like
I updated the
Quick start at <
https://community.kde.org/FreeBSD/Setup#Quick_start>. Some other parts of the page are outdated.
Discussions of other wikis (I'm a FreeBSD wiki editor) might be better spun off to a separate topic.
OpenZFS
… Encryption is always good! …
… Let's wait for ZFS encryption to settle, help with testing on a separate dataset, and then use that when it became rock-solid. …
I should treat OpenZFS native encryption as rock-solid.
Plus, from recent <
https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=603f1c3da48c938c4e556760b771fc1a29635b7d>:
openzfs: attach pam_zfs_key to build
This PAM module allows unlocking encrypted user home datasets when logging in (and changing passphrase when changing the account password), …
Hardware
… suspend/hibernate, but the former is broken due other things (but often can be worked around), and the latter is not implemented at all (but can be made work on UEFI systems according to an excellent HOWTO). …
Please, where's the HOWTO?
… What I would expect is that after booting, it actually worked - on a reasonable range of semi-recent laptops at least. Which is a matter of hardware support before details like KDE. …
As a user of a notebook with graphics hardware that was previously not well driven, I must say that things have improved dramatically. For me now, DRM is close to perfect. To everyone whose experience with DRM falls short of perfection: emphatically,
YMMV and:
X.Org and Wayland on FreeBSD; installation & configuration.
forums.freebsd.org
Internal storage, motherboards, PCI cards, stuff inside the case.
forums.freebsd.org
… Since the X11 DRM drivers have moved closer to Linux, they have been a nightmare in terms of documentation and mismatched versioning. …
I don't know about documentation, but I'm delighted by the greater reliability. Above, YMMV and the related sub-forums.
… The Foundation has done a great job supporting and spearheading the DRM porting work …
see above, and (unless I'm missing something) none of the promotions of
13.0-RELEASE
put the
superior DRM in context.
… The biggest part that I've been seeing (and has been mentioned before in the forums, and in this thread) is going to be the hardware support. The biggest problem on this is that the common person isn't going to accept something isn't working right off the bat. …
and I expect the common person to express frustration.
… In-place updating via the official instructions from 12.x-RELEASE to 13.0-RELEASE broke my KDE setup. …
<
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=255040> appears to be hardware driver specific,
not an issue with KDE.
… Based on the poll here, neither devs nor users have any interest in true FreeBSD DE support …
I empathise with your frustration but please, don't base your opinions on this poll. There's interest.
Miscellaneous
… I am making my postinstaller …
When the time comes, will you make a topic? Thanks.
… Possibly Kommunity would be a slightly problematic name. …
KDE is fine.
K or
k makes me cringe when it's used to mis-spell words. I don't like to be so blunt, but it's awful.
… FreeBSD
Virtual Town Hall meeting/
Office Hours @17th of March 2021 …
I was very interested (I participated in a previous survey, in which I requested priority to compatibility with notebooks) however, unfortunately, I missed this event. I'll try to catch up.