Offtopic rants (was: Why is nVidia So Problematic?)

[kpedersen]

If the desktop OS cannot do a straight forward install of Nvidia without tinkering then screw that OS. nVidia is a major player and I demand it install and run without hacking.

You need to ask Nvidia to release open-source drivers so FreeBSD can put it in the source tree.
FreeBSD can hack around their blobs so much but its not perfect. This is essentially out of our hands.

If you like BSD and want to keep with it, then check out NetBSD, they have Nouveau, the open-source Nvidia driver in their tree and it works very well.

 

[Maturin]

y goodness (Maturin) but you are a condescending ass. Leave the personal insults to yourself as they have no place here. I do not appreciate them.

And I do, or what?

Ass - sometimes.
condescending - for sure not. Never, ever.
I always try very hard to have understanding for even the most stupid BS and taking effort to explain it all the way even a five ear old could unerstand while being concerned to stay patient, polite, understanding and gentle.
Insult? Where did I wrote a single insult?
YOU insulted me and others SEVERAL times! Just as the most recent example (again):

condescending ass

You are the fanboy

Do you read anything like that in any of my posts?
No. Because there are no such things.
Do you read your own posts?
Lost contact to reality?
Are on drugs?
What insulted you?
The truth?
The fact that you keep on mourning some old Windows situation you cannot have back, neither anybody here can fix it for you?
Or is it the fact that you are neither really satisfied with any Linux you tried, but at the same time keep up complaining here about the issues you have with FreeBSD, while not willing to learn it, which would prove:
FreeBSD ain't not tinkering, as I also told you many times.
If that insults you, you do have the issues.
Your problem, buddy, is, you are deeply unsatisfied with the situation, and neither willing to accept you cannot change it, nor anybody else can do it for you, no matter how much you complain, nor willing to be flexible enough to adapt yourself to a new system and stay with it.
But that's neither ones fault except your owns.
I learned myself FreeBSD, and learned, when you're doing it right (Handbook), it's exactly what you're looking for: solid, no tinkering.
I told you that several times - you don't wanna hear it. That's not my fault.
You do not want to accept this. That's is not my fault.
Pointing out, that's contradicting and pointless makes me a

condescending ass

and a

fanboy

and being accused of insults.
Take my last advice:
Seek help.
You true issues are neiter with any OS, nor some NVIDIA drivers, or anything like it.
It's something like a dissatisfaction you carry somewhere deep inside yourself.
But this here is neither the place, nor any other technical forum, for helping you with that.
Only you can solve your problems yourself, nobody else can do that for you.
All this forums here can provide, is helping you with you some certain technical issues.
But you don't ask for help, at least do not take any advice.
All you do is complain, whine, mourne and tell some "if it was otherwise" BS.
And if somebody points that out, especially to tell you, that also doesn't help your case neither, maybe to reconsider it all over completely new again, you start a brawl, insulting others while accuse them of insults they have not made etc.

Ignore list.
Permanent.
While you neither need, nor want my help, it's no loss to you neither.

 

[msplsh]

you are deeply unsatisfied with the situation, and neither willing to accept you cannot change it,

IDK, seems like they accepted that they were't going to use FreeBSD to solve the problem

I think it's reasonable to expect that nvidia hardware work without having to fiddle with it, particularly if Linux does, and be annoyed that it doesn't.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

I think it's reasonable to expect that nvidia hardware work without having to fiddle with it, particularly if Linux does, and be annoyed that it doesn't.

It's been stated twice, and now a third time,

You need to ask Nvidia to release open-source drivers so FreeBSD can put it in the source tree.
FreeBSD can hack around their blobs so much but its not perfect. This is essentially out of our hands.

 

[bakul]

I’ve been tinkering in this business 53 years now and simply want to do work without constant tinkering. I’m tired of having to tweak things to make them work.

If you don't want to tweak things, don't run the latest release. Stay on 15.0 until it is retired. 15.0 is what I have on a pi3 (since 15.1 libc tickles a hardware bug).

However, you should consider donating to the freebsd project. With more money more things will get fixed....

 

[Maturin]

If you don't want to tweak things, don't run the latest release. Stay on 15.0 until it is retired.

Pointless.
I (and others) already told him things like that several times.
All you get by him is, 'It just works with [some Linux distro].', 'I don't like tinkering' and, 'Windows were all I just need.' etc. Well, OK then.
But when you tell him, it's just well OK then, so simply stick to it then, you are accused of being an condescending ass insulting (by being insulted.)
Pointless.
And pointing out, that's pointless, just give it at least a shot, makes you being the bad guy being accused a "fanboy insulting others".
You just have to live with, that bgavin is just here to complain about FreeBSD does not come as a full automated fool-proof turn-key installing his favortite GUI DE of choice without the need of placing a single simple shell command, while also avoiding GhostBSD, which would provide exactly that, and mourning, that the great days of exemplary Windows 95 are over.
(Sorry, had some wine when I wrote this - I AM pissed. Trying to be patient, understanding, helping and being accused of doing an insult, while there was none [I read my post 5 times; can't find any.] can makes you pissed.)

 

[Alain De Vos]

True. Pointless, note "15.1-RELEASE-p2" is not that bad

 

[T-Aoki]

Pointless.
I (and others) already told him things like that several times.
All you get by him is, 'It just works with [some Linux distro].', 'I don't like tinkering' and, 'Windows were all I just need.' etc. Well, OK then.
But when you tell him, it's just well OK then, so simply stick to it then, you are accused of being an condescending ass insulting (by being insulted.)
Pointless.
And pointing out, that's pointless, just give it at least a shot, makes you being the bad guy being accused a "fanboy insulting others".
You just have to live with, that bgavin is just here to complain about FreeBSD does not come as a full automated fool-proof turn-key installing his favortite GUI DE of choice without the need of placing a single simple shell command, while also avoiding GhostBSD, which would provide exactly that, and mourning, that the great days of exemplary Windows 95 are over.
(Sorry, had some wine when I wrote this - I AM pissed. Trying to be patient, understanding, helping and being accused of doing an insult, while there was none [I read my post 5 times; can't find any.] can makes you pissed.)

I'm tempted to request a turnkey system that:

• Rebuilt everything from source on base upgrading, by clicking YES on common-to-DEs dialog box querying "Updates for base FreeBSD is found. Do you want to upgrade now?" and proceed unattended pulling of targetted srcv tree / rebuilds / installkernel if appropreate / installworld / forcible rebot when YES is clicked.
• Same for ports.

It should be a complete turnkey computer after first installation is finished.
windows-update often takes hours on long standing, oldest supported hardwares. So taking hours / days SHALL not matter here. Isn't it?

Maybe the largest hurdle to do it would be per-field merges of /etc instead of current line-based merges by etcupdate(8) and/or now-removed (on 15.0) mergemaster(8).

Note that I've once proposed (actually, requested, as I don't think I can implement it myself) to make kmod pkgs to be a kind of hooks to build kmods locally but contains everything else just as normal pkgs. The answer was, as you can see, providing current FreeBSD-{ports-}kmods repo instead.

 

[Maturin]

Maybe the largest hurdle to do it would be per-field merges of /etc instead of current line-based merges by etcupdate(8) and/or now-removed (on 15.0) mergemaster(8).

That's what I also see, as the biggest problem.
All the rest can be fully automated with scripts.
My idea so far was - if someone wants to create a FreeBSD based turn-key distribution, do such things by yourself (the maintainer) once manually as a template, provide them by a central servers (doesn't need much space, a few kB at most), and the according machines can get it from there, e.g. by a script run by root's cron as part of the update procedure.

But, when you think it through - and I did, since also within my friends there are several ones not happy with Windows anymore, but not knowing shit about computers (Windows only users), neither willing to learn the smallest bit, nor caring at all (e.g. which DE, as long as it's not too strange) - apart from doing this as some excerzise/brain teaser/hobby, I see no point in starting another fork while there already is a pretty useful solution as far as I can judge already providing the most jobs for a good turn-key OS based on FreeSD:
GhostBSD
In my eyes it would make way more sense to join that project, and put such effort in there, instead of splitting working power, and having smaller projects, eventually lacking of people to consequently maintain it.
Don't forget: It needs to be reliable. Not some Linux student's project,: halfhearted started, and never got even remotely to some useful state before interest was lost.

Anyway the largest hurdle I see is independent from any BSD, Linux or what else.
It's every Window leaver must face the fact to learn and use other Software.
In many cases it's simple: Use firefox instead of explorer, thunderbid (or something else) instead of outlook, LibreOffice instead of... you get the picture. Don't underestimate, that's already very much for the common Win user, spoilt with eyecandy, never seen such software.
And there is at least a must to learn at least some small bits about computering - one must at least learn how to install/deinstall software packages.
And as you can see almost every month here, pkg install pdfviewerXYZ is already too much for many.

But what concerns me above all at most is, there is lots of Software in Windows Universe, which cannot so easily be replaced. I'm not taliking games. Cut games! Focus (first) on the users not playing.
I'm talking all this Microsoft 356 Meeting collaborating and video calling stuff.

 

[scottro]

More than video stuff, I'm thinking of what I'd term professional software because it's used by what are commonly called professionals, that is, doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, and the like. For example, dentists have all sorts of programs that only run on Windows, Same with doctors, and I'd guess lawyers, etc., as well. Where I am, Zoom is adequate for video calling,and that can work in a browser, but the various complex medical and other software is going to be a huge barrier to many.

 

[T-Aoki]

More than video stuff, I'm thinking of what I'd term professional software because it's used by what are commonly called professionals, that is, doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, and the like. For example, dentists have all sorts of programs that only run on Windows, Same with doctors, and I'd guess lawyers, etc., as well. Where I am, Zoom is adequate for video calling,and that can work in a browser, but the various complex medical and other software is going to be a huge barrier to many.

Before Windows dominated PC markets, what application softwares are provided for specific OS was the largest reason for users to choose OS.
The next may be "is my boards in my PC supported by this OS and runs stabully and fastest among others?".

 

[mer]

Before Windows dominated PC markets, what application softwares are provided for specific OS was the largest reason for users to choose OS.

This is still true today, although it's more "Mac or Windows". My wife doing landscape design, the program only runs on Windows, so stuck there.

 

[Maturin]

but the various complex medical and other software is going to be a huge barrier to many.

Most medical offices and hospitals have a contractor that delivers and maintain everything. It's completely unimportant which OS or hardware brands the stuff runs on, as long as it works. And if not, an technician is called to make it run asap again.

But one has to start somewhere, and private uses without gaming are already mire than enough machines.

Before Windows dominated PC markets, what application softwares are provided for specific OS was the largest reason for users to choose OS.

That's still the case today. A doctor in a hospital just needs to use his hospital software.
Companies need their accountant software, which OS it's running on doesn't matter.
Today it's just simple: Since everybody runs Windows, every Software is written for Windows, so everybody runs Windows.

The next may be "is my boards in my PC supported by this OS and runs stabully and fastest among others?".

The next will be everything is kind in a browser; hardware doesn't matter much, so doesn't the OS, as long as it's capable to provide a GUI which connects to some online servers ("cloud compzuting" or what's it called) - MS is almost completely there.
But here we - the open source OS - become more interesting. At least in the private sectors. Because MS is overdoing things, which becomes a growing nuisance to more and more users, also in public areas. And it's also political. France is developing their complete own system for their government offices Linux based.

 

[mer]

The next will be everything is kind in a browser; hardware doesn't matter much, so doesn't the OS, as long as it's capable to provide a GUI which connects to some online servers ("cloud compzuting" or what's it called) - MS is almost completely there.

It's not just MS: you have applications like QuickBooks and Adobe that really really push you do their online version. They also muck with licenses: lets say you've been using QB for a business and you are winding the buisiness down. You still have a need to access at least read-only for some period after closing (taxes); well last time I asked Intuit says Nope, not even read only if you don't have a license.
That is huge problem.

 

[msplsh]

Ok, well, step one in breaking the hegemony is being able to install an OS that can responsively draw pretty pictures on the screen without having to know the model number of the GPU in the process...

 

[msplsh]

You need to ask Nvidia to release open-source drivers so FreeBSD can put it in the source tree.
FreeBSD can hack around their blobs so much but its not perfect. This is essentially out of our hands.

Give up and perfect the shim until we're Tier 1 for them Wireless was important enough to do this.

 

[kpedersen]

Give up and perfect the shim until we're Tier 1 for them Wireless was important enough to do this.

The wireless LinuxKPI shim works because we have the source code to the Linux iwlwifi driver. Shims don't unfortunately work with blobs. Otherwise I would agree this is the way forward.

In light of this, I'd recommend give up and go full in with nouveau until we're tier 1 for Nvidia.

The blob from Nvidia is lacking cuda, lacks support for older hardware compared to nouveau and requires a shed load of patches and compromises.

That said, we will never be tier 1 for Nvidia. We might as well start planning around this now. Once they drop the blob, we will be dead in the water.

 

[ralphbsz]

Most medical offices and hospitals have a contractor that delivers and maintain everything. It's completely unimportant which OS or hardware brands the stuff runs on, as long as it works.

That's actually true for most non-computer professionals. The laptop/desktop machine has become a pure appliance, used only to "run software", more on that below. The choice of OS is a decision internal to the IT infrastructure, which doesn't affect users much.

The next will be everything is kind in a browser; hardware doesn't matter much, so doesn't the OS, as long as it's capable to provide a GUI which ...

... which provides a standard browser. Which is why Chromebooks are such good computing platforms: No overhead for running apps locally. Running everything "in the cloud" (with the user interface being through a browser) makes administering IT so much easier and more efficient. To begin with, you don't have to worry about data stored on end user devices. Nor about compatibility, as long as they can run a common browser.

I used to work in what today is probably the largest software company in the world (the one with the most software engineers). Lots of my software engineer colleagues used Chromebooks. They would a browser-based ssh when they needed to log in to a CLI, they would use browser-based graphical tools for code editing (I preferred emacs in a CLI window, but not everyone does), they would use graphical tools for CI/CD and code review workflows, for database access and authentication, graphical dashboards for data access and monitoring, and so on. I had a Mac (partly because the keyboard is more ergonomic for my damaged hand, partly because the screen is bigger for my old eyes), but a lot of the others had Chromebooks. In this environment, it doesn't matter at all what the OS on the device is ... it doesn't matter that the Chromebook runs some version of Linux or Android, while my MacBook runs MacOS, as long as Chrome and a text window work.

In my opinion, for end user computing, the era of the operating system is over. It's now an unimportant technical detail.