A guide for the perplexed : Results of Debian Referendum on Systemd

Truupe said:
but should Devuan's future be compromised by Debian's foolishness, I need an escape plan.
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When confronted with Linux, Devuan would definitely be my choice, but what you stated sounds like a good plan. I know many people say (quite correctly) that the BSD projects have much less man power than Linux. However this small number is still considerably larger than an individual distro that will have to fight systemd almost entirely alone.

I also wonder if developers will provide more care to port to FreeBSD as an entire operating system compared to what they see as a niche individual distro with an unknown init system. Time will tell. That said, I think the entire Linux community reverting back to Devuan is a potential outcome too (in which case we would be at the "forefront of OSS technology" again as a bonus :p).
 
kpedersen said:
When confronted with Linux, Devuan would definitely be my choice, but what you stated sounds like a good plan. I know many people say (quite correctly) that the BSD projects have much less man power than Linux. However this small number is still considerably larger than an individual distro that will have to fight systemd almost entirely alone.

I also wonder if developers will provide more care to port to FreeBSD as an entire operating system compared to what they see as a niche individual distro with an unknown init system. Time will tell. That said, I think the entire Linux community reverting back to Devuan is a potential outcome too (in which case we would be at the "forefront of OSS technology" again as a bonus :p).
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I'm 100% agree!

When people said they are lacking man power to do something, the fact is they mean they just don't care and if you desperately want it just do it yourselves and they are very willingly to merge your pull request. The later part I'm unsure. Because they know individual users with no CS knowledge like us will never have the ability to do such a job so their speech here is just to speech. If someone come up with a ready to use patch they will said that they don't have the man power needed to merge the patch and everything still stagnant as before.

Lack of man power is a magic spell. And it worked very well. No one could blame you if you cast this spell to their faces. This spell will shut up any voice concerning the need to do something useful.

p/s: Finally they know the need for a better Wifi support, but we will have to carefully watching if it really happens. I will not move my desktop system to FreeBSD anytime soon in the near future and just stick with Debian 10.
 
jiaxing said:
When people said they are lacking man power to do something, the fact is they mean they just don't care and if you desperately want it just do it yourselves and they are very willingly to merge your pull request.
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Exactly. I contribute to a few open-source projects but I just don't care enough about Linux these days. I am sure many members of these forums are in the same position.

I am also pretty sure skeptics of systemd will just migrate to FreeBSD rather than use a more niche distro. (Though, I don't think that is particularly healthy for FreeBSD or its communities in all fairness)
 
kpedersen said:
Exactly. I contribute to a few open-source projects but I just don't care enough about Linux these days. I am sure many members of these forums are in the same position.

I am also pretty sure skeptics of systemd will just migrate to FreeBSD rather than use a more niche distro. (Though, I don't think that is particularly healthy for FreeBSD or its communities in all fairness)
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This is somewhat conspiracy. I will not move to FreeBSD because FreeBSD's Wifi support sucks. I will not make the move just because I hate systemd. I'm not willing to give up my network speed. I have to pay the same bill every months, why I have to use an inferior product? (No, I don't mean FreeBSD as an OS is inferior, but it Wifi stack is obviously inferior to Linux). I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision. With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine. The most sensible move for me is to Devuan, if systemd really messed my system (that it doesn't, currently), not FreeBSD. FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.
 
FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop

let me now why please
i'had to add...now that you mention "pay bills every month" , when systemd(maybe) gets non-free and
the linux users will have to pay a license...where you go?
there will be a market around this in the future,when they dominate the dependencies of the last version packages(like gnome) and they NEED systemd to work...the options not be many
 
jiaxing said:
This is somewhat conspiracy. I will not move to FreeBSD because FreeBSD's Wifi support sucks. I will not make the move just because I hate systemd. I'm not willing to give up my network speed. I have to pay the same bill every months, why I have to use an inferior product? (No, I don't mean FreeBSD as an OS is inferior, but it Wifi stack is obviously inferior to Linux). I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision. With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine. The most sensible move for me is to Devuan, if systemd really messed my system (that it doesn't, currently), not FreeBSD. FreeBSD is something to keep inside VirtualBox or online VPS, not something to use on a laptop or even, desktop.
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I don't believe anyone's forcing you to use FreeBSD, are they?

FreeBSD is less of a desktop experience than Linux, that's true. Just as Linux is less of a desktop experience compared to Windows or even MacOS.

Your point is therefore valid and there's no reason for you using it on a desktop if you compromise on WiFi quality.

FreeBSD is aimed at servers, it's GUI desktop environment has always been an after-thought. Why would it even attempt to match what Linux and all the thousands of developers that contribute to it can do. I mean, Linux people (and companies) are working on the 802.11ax standard and FreeBSD hasn't even got 802.11ac working correctly. That's no slight on the developers, it's just pure economics; not enough manpower.

Because of this, FreeBSD is compromised in some areas. It's not therefore all things to all people. I accept that, you accept that and we can all stop comparing which one's better; Linux or FreeBSD. Use what suits you.

PS. If you want 100% coverage of all WiFi cards, then your only choice is Windows. :sssh:
 
jiaxing said:
With or without systemd, my Debian 10 still fast and smooth, my commonly used applications still there and worked fine.
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And that is fine. I am sure you are very happy with your current setup and that is why you are on a forums of a completely different operating system.

Just like Bluetooth, the latest WiFi gizmos are a consumer affair and there is more to computing than that. Debian is great. I use it (more or less) on my Raspberry Pi. Works well.

I agree with mark_j : If this kind of hardware is the most important thing to you; then you will find more success with Windows than you will even Linux (at least for another 5 years).
 
jiaxing said:
I will not move my desktop system to FreeBSD anytime soon in the near future and just stick with Debian 10
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You put things upside down: at the first place why you WOULD LIKE to use FreeBSD as your desktop OS? If you're happy with Debian and MS Windows, why this question even bothers you?

I do use FreeBSD in both scenarios: as servers and as desktops for many years. I find the desktop use is really useful and advantageous at my workplace although I have to deal with embedded Linux as a part of my job.
 
aragats said:
You put things upside down: at the first place why you WOULD LIKE to use FreeBSD as your desktop OS? If you're happy with Debian and MS Windows, why this question even bothers you?
...
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The actual and at the same time easier to answer question is: „Why you WOULD LIKE US not to use FreeBSD as our desktop OS?“ Answer: „Because he wants to make his problems ours, by dragging us into his Linux/Windows hell.“
 
jiaxing said:
Lack of man power is a magic spell. And it worked very well. No one could blame you if you cast this spell to their faces. This spell will shut up any voice concerning the need to do something useful.
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Definitely, no!

I've been a developer for 30+ years, I know the job - which is usually your daytime job.
On open source projects, "lack of manpower" means "lack of paid, full-time manpower".
When you've spent 8-9 hours on your daytime job, plus 2-3 hours commuting, you deserve some rest and, if possible, some leisure other than coding.
 
I think this defeatist attitude about the inadequacies of FreeBSD isn't healthy for newcomers or the existing community. Telling someone to use X operating system for Y feature doesn't really help in fostering the growth of usage or aspects of the platform. I'd be best if these concerns be brought up with the Foundation, than complaining here at forums or to the developers.

I wish the Foundation would do a better job of assessing the needs of it's users (including non-developers) or lack of features to cultivate more wide spread usage. Maybe even throw a poll up, and pay a developer a years (or something) salary to develop X feature, etc.
 
It is not a defeatist attitude, it's realism. If people think FreeBSD will run on alll devices then they're sadly mistaken.
Why hide its inadequacies? Linux has many inadequacies vs Windows. It's just dealing with the reality of it being a more niche operating system with limited manpower and money.

If you don't openly state what FreeBSD supports but rather pretend it does everything (out of the box) you run the risk of deceiving people. While systemd/linux is not for novices, FreeBSD is not for systemd/linux distro hoppers either.

I do agree with your views on the foundation. It seems extremely remote from its userbase (the plebs shall I say) but obviously listens to netflix et al. When presenting in Australia to the linux .conf, Goodkin gives the spiel about FreeBSD and how she listens to the community. All I can say to that is actions speak louder than words.

Perhaps a 'feedback to the foundation' forum is required?

www.techradar.com

Supporting an open source operating system: a Q&A with the FreeBSD Foundation

FreeBSD has continued to evolve thanks to its large community of developers
www.techradar.com www.techradar.com
 
Ah right. Maybe it would help to put more than just a link in?
Anyway, yes, Deb Goodkin announced development of that in the Quarterly statement (I think). It's probably overdue for laptop users wanting a decent speed. Now, it's when rather than if.
 
mark_j said:
It is not a defeatist attitude, it's realism. If people think FreeBSD will run on alll devices then they're sadly mistaken.
Why hide its inadequacies? Linux has many inadequacies vs Windows. It's just dealing with the reality of it being a more niche operating system with limited manpower and money.

If you don't openly state what FreeBSD supports but rather pretend it does everything (out of the box) you run the risk of deceiving people. While systemd/linux is not for novices, FreeBSD is not for systemd/linux distro hoppers either.
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You've misunderstood my point. My entire premise is to be more positive and productive about its shortcomings, than deterring users away from the platform by preserving the status quo. Which isn't conducive to making FreeBSD more useful. Saying "Oh well, we don't have it. Go use X platform" is far less encouraging than bringing the issue up to someone who could possibly make things happen. Hence my statement about the Foundation.
 
Beastie7 said:
You've misunderstood my point. My entire premise is to be more positive and productive about its shortcomings, than deterring users away from the platform by preserving the status quo. Which isn't conducive to making FreeBSD more useful. Saying "Oh well, we don't have it. Go use X platform" is far less encouraging than bringing the issue up to someone who could possibly make things happen. Hence my statement about the Foundation.
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Accepted, but then where's the avenue for such enhancements? Where's the feedback from users to the foundation or core or whoever is responsible for the direction at any given moment? Without it, we just note the shortcomings and wait and wait and wait....

Equally, what I'm saying is that, for example, 802.11ac is not functional (or partly). There's no sugar coating it. If you want an OS that supports it fully and without drop-outs then FreeBSD is not the one. Whether there's a fix in the pipeline doesn't affect the reality of the moment, does it?
 
All great questions. I wonder where the motive came from for the Foundation to initiate their 11ac efforts. I think some kind of feature planning and priority survey could be propped up with a list of things users would care about for a certain use case. For example, for the desktop a survey could enlist things we feel are needed, and which ever is most selected or selected by priority; resources could be allocated to developing for it. The same for servers, embedded, etc. It appears to me that things are either developed on the whims of the committers or the Foundations donors. This is fine, but I feel there are more users who're interested in FreeBSD as a desktop than what we think appears to be.
 
jiaxing said:
.....I'm the kind of people will not let ideology to affect my decision.....
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Your decision to use Debian or Devuan is perfectly reasonable, but those who are using FreeBSD (I primarily run OpenBSD) do not do so because of any "ideology" -- it is an engineering decision and requires a careful understanding of what one is trying to achieve with "the system", the economic/time cost of each option and the functionality gained by each option. It is hard to face tradeoffs like this but we are all optimizing for the stuff that matters most to us. Facing the tradeoffs realistically is tough and demanding but it sure as hell is not simply a matter of ideology. I don't know what "operating system" ideology could even mean. I guess I missed the chapter on Ideology.
 
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