Is there a real interest in pushing FreeBSD on the desktop space?

alexseitsinger said:
Most things are ruined after they're forced over the cliff of inclusion--all for a dumb buck. "Eventually, you wake up one day, rub your eyes, and realize you're staring at 7 years of driver development for hardware we'll likely never use."
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Results speak for themselves - Boeing 727 can fly over 150 passengers and crew. It was introduced in 1964, and there are still a few in service today. A Cessna can't possibly hope to have the capabilities of a Boeing/Airbus.

Even if I discover I wasted my time and brains for the past 7 years, that's mostly OK, at least I got paid.

Frankly, I'm just happy my point was at least understood, even if there's little agreement.
 
astyle said:
Results speak for themselves - Boeing 727 can fly over 150 passengers and crew. It was introduced in 1964, and there are still a few in service today. A Cessna can't possibly hope to have the capabilities of a Boeing/Airbus.
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A nice analogy (and I see what you are saying)

But had the 727 "evolved" from a Cessna, it would have broken support (regressed) for fitting in a regular persons garage.
It should have been a whole new project (which it was).

Some features really are mutually exclusive. "Evolving" FreeBSD and adding complexity via a DE (especially one from the weak choice we have today) is one of those things that will be detrimental to all other FreeBSD use-cases *but* the dektop.
 
I think, I do really think, that what's missing here is a system setup option that includes a working Desktop environment, lets say XFCE or Gnome, with an free Office suite, and that includes an easy WiFi setup and USB plug'n'play volumes, etc.
That's what most desktop users do.
Browse internet, get some files, documents, work on documents, images, videos and then there's the need to plug a USB drive or pen and it just works to move the files, for a backup or whatever.
With such option that would be "one small step for man" thing.
 
rmomota said:
I think, I do really think, that what's missing here is a system setup option that includes a working Desktop environment, lets say XFCE or Gnome, with an free Office suite, and that includes an easy WiFi setup and USB plug'n'play volumes, etc.
That's what most desktop users do.
Browse internet, get some files, documents, work on documents, images, videos and then there's the need to plug a USB drive or pen and it just works to move the files, for a backup or whatever.
With such option that would be "one small step for man" thing.
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As already said in this thread: Such things exist (on top of FreeBSD). Some of these are:
  • GhostBSD
  • NomadBSD
  • MidnightBSD
  • HelloSystem
 
Sorry folks with respect to everyone, I think it's better do not continue this thread, other questions will remain unanswered and definitely no useful result will be obtained too and these threads somehow are against the rules: Why is FreeBSD not (more) like ....
I think the kernel development team does not even see these threads at all and this forum is only for users.
Setting up and maintaining a default desktop is cost a lot and this makes the development team focus on developing a fancy desktop instead of developing the operating system. Someone who cannot setup a graphical DE will definitely face more problems in the future. FreeBSD is full of challenges, the software you're using may not be maintained after a while and you have to replace it with another tool. You have to love these challenges and of course, love to learn.
I hope you don't find my words rude but these topics are repetitive and ineffective and do not help the FreeBSD community.
Sincerely yours.
 
freezr said:
Anyway I believe to make everyone happy the foundation had better to create a separate project, ...
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  • Typical annual budget of the FreeBSD foundation: About $1M to $1.5M.
  • Typical annual budget of the Linux foundation: About $100M.
  • Typical annual revenue and profit of Red Hat (before it was absorbed by IBM): $3500M and $500M.
  • Amount of money the big Linux operations like Intel, IBM and Google spend on Linux (much of it ends up being open source): Probably several billion $ per year.
  • Annual software engineering budget of companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft: Many billion $ per year, each.
The "separate project" you want is a desktop. Integrating an existing desktop (like KDE or Gnome) well into an operating system, tuning and customizing it, and supporting and shipping it, is probably a project that requires perhaps 100 people. Creating a new desktop from scratch takes probably 1000 people. The typical annual cost for a software engineer in Silicon Valley is about $250K per year (averaging over various levels of seniority, and including overhead costs).

So the FreeBSD foundation can employ about 4 to 6 full-time software engineers, assuming it stops all of its other activities. The idea that this could or should be used for creating a desktop is just laughable. (In reality, the FreeBSD foundation gets much more work done than the 4-6 full-time software engineer number suggests, because it is very frugal in deploying money where it does the most good).

The big Linux players are capable of taking the existing desktops and maintaining and enhancing them. There are a few computer companies that have big enough budgets to create and maintain their own custom desktops. Apple, Google (Android + Chrome) and Microsoft come to mind. The idea that the FreeBSD foundation can play in that league is much worse than laughable, it is asinine.
 
For the ones who think it is more funny saying I am doing asinine question, it looks like there is a real interest in pushing FreeBSD in the desktop space especially for the laptop market. It looks also they have a clear vision about what they do want, which isn't even welcoming at all by the majority here.

Anyway I reiterate the point that improving the desktop space will bring benefit for all, for the desktop space I mean drivers, drawing attention by the manufacturers, helping new comers that come from different experience. If FreeBSD improves here, than also the other desktop projects will improve either.
 
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freezr said:
for the desktop space I mean drivers,
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Then how about stop saying "desktop"?
Instead say "better support for modern hardware like in laptops?"

As evidenced by this and the other "half a billion"(yes sarcasm there) threads related to "Desktop" it does not mean better modern hardware support.
 
What can be said about a reader who just picks the last word (asinine) of a text, puts this in relation with himself where there is no relation not even a subtle one, and ignores the rest of the text greatly because of personal emotional arousal? I’d say such a reader is failing already on a low level.

Now why are people eager talking about visions, pitching and pushing? I’d say they try to share their discontent. Of course this mostly sucks others being around and being approached like this if there is no need for action.

Next question is, why some special folks love it to tell others how they could improve their business which is none of theirs? That one I leave it to the readers' own thinking.

Do not feel encouraged to respond to those questions.

Better stay on course discussing lack of developers and allocating financial budget on selected projects.
 
freezr said:
For the ones who think it is more funny saying I am doing asinine question, it looks like there is a real interest in pushing FreeBSD in the desktop space especially for the laptop market.
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I don't think ralphbsz thinks it's funny - being direct about to whom you refer - but more likely frustratingly tragic that despite detailed analyses you press on regardless in the face of irrefutable facts.

Even if his well-informed estimates were off by a whole order of magnitude, you must see the futility of tilting at those windmills?

freezr said:
It looks also they have a clear vision about what they do want, which isn't even welcoming at all by the majority here.
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I want a Ferrari and villa on the Riviera. If wishes were horses ...

freezr said:
Anyway I reiterate the point that improving the desktop space will bring benefit for all, for the desktop space I mean drivers, drawing attention by the manufacturers, helping new comers that come from different experience. If FreeBSD improves here, than also the other desktop projects will improve either.
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I've been using FreeBSD 'on the desktop' since ~5.4, nearly 20 years ago, on Compaq and then several Thinkpad laptops.

Yes, you need to choose hardware that's known to support what that takes: decent graphics, suspend & resume, audio, whatever YOU - individually - need.

No, it cannot suit everyone, every machine, every want. For that there's M$, Mac and Google, or dozens of Linux packagings.

Please don't waste further breath arguing that FreeBSD could become one of those; that would be tragic.
 
Let's see how the FreeBSD Foundation will address this topic.

I just wish all the good for the both the FreeBSD project and the FreeBSD foundation!

Cheers! ☮️
 
freezr said:
Let's see how the FreeBSD Foundation will address this topic.
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Indeed. I am sure their actions will clarify to you that FreeBSD is not going to become a desktop oriented OS any time soon.

freezr said:
I just wish all the good for the both the FreeBSD project and the FreeBSD foundation!
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Honestly, don't worry. The decision makers have been around for a while and are quite capable of making correct choices.

Daft things like the motd.template mess might occasionally slide under the radar but a big change like project direction won't.
 
freezr said:
Let's see how the FreeBSD Foundation will address this topic.

I just wish all the good for the both the FreeBSD project and the FreeBSD foundation!

Cheers! ☮️
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Yeah, this looks like someone who took a look at the A380 the Saudi prince owns/flies, and decided he likes the shower feature of it, the roominess, and goes, "I want the shower feature in my Cessna, plus a mini-bar and a whole living room!".

Interior of an A380 can be redone to be extremely spartan and match a Cessna in lots of ways. But no, you can't redo a Cessna to have all the features of an A380 while still having the upsides of the Cessna.

Wi-Fi on FreeBSD is still very much a homebrew that is a hit and miss, with a mile-long list of chores to get right.
 
This isn't comparable to commercial vs civilian airplanes, which their frame limits what can be put on it. Software has limits, but not those kinds of limits. In software (an extreme example is the case of SystemD), a lot of limits are self imposed. A lot of other self imposed limits are that it takes a good plan and structure from the beginning.

As for desktop, JWM was good and fast at some point, but later on, more features were made into the default and it slowed down my laptop. I switched to MCWM, while it's not as convenient, it gets the job done. Before, I had a lot in mind for desktop applications, but reducing it to basic wants, I'd want to see or port a few desktop applications to XCB, and leave the rest to what it is. Desktop applications I'd like to port, or see xcb clones of would be: osdmixer, a volume mixer like gvolwheel, a tray like stalonetray, and anything that sets basic desktop needs like the background. Also, improved functionality of the xcb terminal emulator jbxvt, an improvement or a replacement. I've noticed that a few XCB programs make calls to traditional xlib, so they're actually not completed projects to the name, and some XCB programs have bugs. Eventually, there could be xcb clones of Window Maker applications, but that would be a whole other project.

As for a vision, a separate project of a repository of retro game clones and emulators, with each category by the gaming generation or near equivalent. Though, that wouldn't only be a FreeBSD project, it would be a FreeDOS, PDOS and other BSD project as well. If I had the ability, I'd pay to have a project to get that done, even though there's similar websites, they're not categorized by generation style, and this would be more specific to ports and packages of multiple specific operating systems. So, I'm dreaming about this one.
 
sidetone said:
This isn't comparable to commercial vs civilian airplanes, which their frame limits what can be put on it. Software has limits, but not those kinds of limits. In software (an extreme example is the case of SystemD), a lot of limits are self imposed. A lot of other self imposed limits are that it takes a good plan and structure from the beginning.
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Ah, I said from get-go that my comparison is gonna have holes:
astyle said:
My comparison is gonna have holes in it, but still:
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My point was that FreeBSD project doesn't have the money or organizational capacity to give directions and devote resources to the same extent that Microsoft and Apple do. If Microsoft/Apple had wi-fi issues like FreeBSD does, you can bet they will prioritize solving that problem. Somebody high up will issue directions, find the brains/talent, and persist until the problem is solved. That's why:
  • FreeBSD is comparable to Cessna. Why? With everybody doing their own thing, and not wanting to be told what to do, coordination of effort to achieve anything is damn near impossible. Something can be achieved, but a piecemeal effort will yield at best something that looks like FreeBSD or a Cessna.
  • Microsoft/Apple are comparable to Boeing/Airbus. Why? Because they move as a team - organizing, problem solving, prioritizing. No, people are not gonna be happy how their personal desires are not addressed. But results speak for themselves - like reliable wi-fi on Microsoft/Apple or, by comparison, much bigger and stronger airframes from Boeing/Airbus.
This is not really about software limits, it's about the limits of what you can expect from a crowd of people, given the extent to which they get organized and compensated.

We complain about Linux being fragmented and inconsistent. FreeBSD solved some of that, by re-juggling priorities on a small-time project that is FreeBSD Foundation. The success of that project is pretty obvious - it survived for a LONG time, since 1993.

As another example: If you ask a few guys to build a few bathrooms from scratch, working separately. It's gonna take them a few months to get it right, and the results... Even if the individual knows what they're doing, it won't be a high-end bathroom, because something will be missing, or not done quite right. On the other hand, if those guys are professionals that work as a team, they can get those same bathrooms done in a week, and the results will be something worth high-end money. Why? Expertise, coordination, and compensation. You can't exactly favor one of these at the expense of others.
 
jbo said:
As already said in this thread: Such things exist (on top of FreeBSD). Some of these are:
  • GhostBSD
  • NomadBSD
  • MidnightBSD
  • HelloSystem
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No, the problem is:

- GhostBSD is changing to GhostOS and using Arch Linux as a base
- Nomad is not supposed to be installed / does not appear to be intended to be installed as a home OS
- MidnightBSD looks good but it looks like a fork / is based on an older version and I want to maintain full compatibility with FreeBSD 7.3
- HelloSystem is Not Ready yet

I am using FreeBSD right now on the desktop. The reason is that systemd-boot is in a lot of distributions and it does not work with non-UEFI motherboards. The remaining Linux distributions are less supported and most of them don't have great package management (FreeBSD does). But just in general, im sick of systemd messing up my stuff and don't really want it and am kind of done with the piecemeal unstable Linux approach in general. This has been going on for years and as a result you might get more refugees from the Linux desktop .

My experience thus far with FreeBSD on the desktop is that it works pretty much as well as anything else in Linux but is more stable, has good package management, but you have to configure a lot of stuff which is a large barrier (i.e. automounting, x, i also added a networkmgr applet). There are some Linux distributions that work well with a very small, competent team (Slackware is coming to mind). A pkg install desktop would be a value-add. My opinion.
 

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foobard said:
Nomad is not supposed to be installed / does not appear to be intended to be installed as a home OS
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How so, why? If your hardware tested as suitable, just one click to install NomadBSD from that live USB to the hard disk (or SSD) of your home computer. Please refer to 17.3 “Installing NomadBSD on a hard disk” in its manual (and do not forget to set your username right away). My laptop has been running NomadBSD for a year.
 
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