I am not sure if these suggestions can be considered in the Project Ideas, but here some that will need some funds…
Better HID driver support
Well, enhance the new HID subsystem,
as it can be quite buggy, even with ~16 years old USB keyboard that used to work fine… (Moreover I am not alone in this kind of situation, take a look at the forum).
Make INIT(8) faster
INIT(8) make any system start/reboot very slow. If there is a way to reduce the boot time, no matter how many time in a year you reboot your machine, it should be done.
Having to reboot for any reason your server (to get ride of zombie processes or whatever) takes too many time, especially for a server that host critical services and applications…
We are no more in 90 or in 2000; now things have to run fast, as people wants things right now.
Yes INIT(8) works fine, but it is very slow. And if “working fine” means no change,
well stop working on anything trying to accelerate changes in the operating system, as it just works. Do not try to bring more people to the BSD hold, and just let FreeBSD die…
I insist, I write here MAKE INIT(8) FASTER (through parallelism?), not replace it.
Better workstation experience
Increase efforts on laptop and desktop usage of FreeBSD. Indeed, we can have over 30,000 open source software packages that are easy to install, but some are outdated, others are buggy or broken, while others are missing…
FreeBSD as laptop is almost impossible, and some users experience some lags with their desktop computer,
even with a descent machine. Maybe, somebody should really investigate on the causes of these issues.
Here, I have a descent and recent PC (6 cores CPU, 32GB, relatively big GPU), and experience me too some lags even when listening audios, with no reason, while under Windows or any Linux distribution the system works perfectly fine.
Pkg
Provide a better mirror management
It can be very difficult to get a decent speed with pkg. It takes sometimes more than 1 hour to get llvm90-9.0.1_3.pkg downloaded (that was the case two days ago on this setup).
Unfortunately, tweaking
/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
does not guaranty to have the fastest mirror (behind a vpn, I can download faster with an US mirror than the EU one)…
Add pkg new options
search -file
Provide a way to find files inside packages. When developing, we often have to use some libraries, especially when porting a software from a system to another. Packages that provide a library file have not the same name across systems, so I too often have to go to pkg.org to find out which package I have to install on FreeBSD.
-no-recommended
We do not need everything that came with a package by default. According to our need, the Internet plan, and disk size, etc, it would be great to control on how to install packages, for example, by installing only required packages. Moreover, it will reduce the attack surface in such system.
For now, there is no real policy, so some packages are well sliced, but other not.
Better “decoupling policy” in ports and packages
Offer ports and packages with less superficial dependencies, particularly useful for limited system (among other, limited SSD size, raspberry):
- for LibreOffice add in ports support for
–enable-split-app-modules
, and offer the installation of individual application (writer, cal, and so one) with pkg ;
- not gluing Gnome with unnecessary applications like Cheese, Glade GTK demo, Print Editor…
- TexLive in ports is old, if we download it from the official web, we do not need gigs of old TexLive that is glued with Gnome Latex…
Try to get more “languages supported”
There are missing languages for the documentation (yeah a lot), as well as missing myths dictionaries, for language like Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish (yeah I know, these are not inside the OS "core"), etc… Maybe we should find a way to increase widely language support.
Jail
Provide us unprivileged jail
For now, we have to be root or in wheel group (via
sudo
) to create and to start a jail. Please provide us a way to do the same thing as unprivileged user.
jailme
allows to start a jail as unprivileged user, but not to create jail, like
lxc-create
.
Orchestration tools
Some orchestration tools like lxd could be very helpful to manage lot of jails.
Better documentation and Wiki
It will be very helpful to get a better documentation, as well as a better Wiki especially for new users.
Here some subjects that are not well documented:
- how to get Internet access for jails, virtual machines, etc.
- how to setup different kind of virtual network, for which use case;
- how to use vale(4).
- how to get Wayland working with any supported DE.
Try to have a better upstream cooperation
Maybe by dedicating, upstream, some developer on some project, could be beneficial, as well as more “meeting” between “FreeBSD” and leaders of major projects too.
The goal? To get more abstraction layer upstream that will facilitate the work downstream for FreeBSD ports and package, and maybe to stop this Systemd assimilation, acting like Borgs, in more and more projects.
I see too often (to my taste) FreeBSD maintainers acting alone, even when being stuck on issue for months, without trying to reach the maintainers of the initial project (if ever)…
LibreOffice
Why LibreOffice cannot be build directly from sources while there is some work already done? Why we need to add more patch downstream?
Eclipse and other IDE
To be competitive as a workstation, FreeBSD must have more Opensource IDEs. For now, the choices are pretty limited, and even Eclipse is outdated and a real pain to get work outside the port. Atom is missing too, and very painful to build from upstream sources.
It probably contributes to the fact that BSD are used by only 0.18% developer, when Linux distributions are used by 25.32% of them, competing with MacOS.
Host some ports inside FreeBSD
Make some critical ports and packages (like Firefox, and so one) run not by benevolent, but by some FreeBSD developers. Maybe through a vote, or after some consultation, decide which package will be chosen. Yes, it means to maybe increase the FreeBSD "core" responsability.
"The Power to Server", a failure?
The Power to Server what? How? Whom? When?
Try to understand why FreeBSD keep failing to attract people that prefer to go to Gentoo or ArchLinux, and the like, while these distributions often do a bad coping/pasting of FreeBSD (if only by choosing Systemd). Yes they have a better hardware support, but what lead Intel and others to start ignoring FreeBSD and to keep ignoring it?
Now FreeBSD is lagging even in server field. Again, why almost all web hosters propose only some Linux based distributions, and not FreeBSD (it hasn't always been the case)? What these Linux based distributions do better?
Yes, I know, the foundation have increased marketing support, and try "to increase the awareness and use of FreeBSD", but there is a big
OLD issue there.
Even Deb Goodkin “now” sees Linux as a threat for FreeBSD.
Finally! 15 years ago, FreeBSD fanboys mocked me when I was saying and writing that Linux was a threat. The most stupid of them keep answering that Linux is only a kernel, FreeBSD is not a desktop OS, and do not need to evolve…
Anyway, if nothing is done, FreeBSD will probably die, soon or later, as it will deem useless.
Whonix, QubesOS, Tor browser
Indeed, why Whonix choose to use Debian as a base, 10 years ago? Why Qubes Os did not choose FreeBSD but Fedora, 10 years ago? Yet, at that time, Debian and FreeBSD were pretty equivalent.
FreeBSD is supposed to be more secure, yet it was not chosen. There is obviously something wrong…
Why Tor browser is not available for FreeBSD?
Why “big projects” for those privacy and security count do not choose FreeBSD as their base or add support for FreeBSD?
Kill the Mascott
Finally, maybe more subjective, I really thing that FreeBSD should discard its mascot that looks like Elmer Fudd looking at himself experiencing satanic acid trip.
Yeah, I hate it. I disagree with Robert Watson (with all due respect it should let marketing people working on that issue). FreeBSD need a new mascot or simply get ride of it, as it is tacky, and stink old fashion.
Did you ever asked people how they find him? I have been told by young IT people that they find him crappy, and pretty representative of the redneck FreeBSD users…
Pay survey if needed, as a bad image will not attract people and moreover young people, toward FreeBSD.