Does
Fluxbox count? Because none of my FreeBSD machines running it have ever crashed in 12 years.
I've been running all 3 of my FreeBSD laptops with Linux emulation disabled for the past several days with no problem. I don't any Linux programs or any of the Linux compatibility libraries installed so what's the point in having it enabled?
I'm going to pretend I didn't see that, in light of my first response.
1) Linux emulation
The average user won't use the Linux emulation very much, but just imagine some specific business..
Companies across the world, acting in different areas (biology, chemistry, aeronautics....) , universities, may have a need to use some specifics and critical softwares developed for Linux, absolutely not the kind of software you find in the FreeBSD /ports/system.
They have IT staff able to "transplant" the Linux on the BSD plateform using the emulation layer
But as I said Linux emulation in FreeBSD is not 100% perfect, there are still some mechanisms too specific, but we can say that one can make work 80% of the Linux programs with an impressive speed.
2) Linux emulation and Linux adaptation
Please don't confuse Linux Emulation and Linux program adaptation
In Linux emulation a sub layer attempts to reproduce the Linux mechanisms, so the Linux code ignores as much as possible that it is running on a foreign host, in the same manner that Windows can run on FreeBSD through Virtualbox
But when Gnome 3 is ported to FreeBSD, it is not running on an emulation layer, it runs on the BSD base system, this is completely different. Basically Gnome 3 has been developed for Linux and use some specific mechanisms of Linux, so it took a long time before Gnome 3 became available for FreeBSD because it needed some workaround. KDE 5 Plasma is ready in most of Linux distributions... still not the case for FreeBSD, because unfortunately KDE staff have taken very very bad decisions following Gnome and using massively Linuxisms saying goodbye to *BSD, so now for the staff porting the software this is a headache to create something usable and stable, as for Gnome 3 it will take tong time.
On the contrary the philosophy of Lumina is to use as less as possible "platform dependent" solutions, so portability can be done quickly, and stability can be reached faster. Unfortunately Lumina is a young desktop, and in any case Lumina has no ambition. Lumina aims to be an alternative to LXQT, XFCE.. ok, for some of us it is sufficient, but not for everybody.
3) Desktop
We, and all the members of this forum can run FreeBSD as a desktop, this is not the question.
But we are not the average user, an average user wants all the comfort possible that offer Windows 10 or Mac OS.
I deal with some end user clients... I can tell you that even using a KDE desktop is something they will NEVER NEVER NEVER accept, because they want all the comfort of a Windows or Mac OS, they want beautiful interface... they don't care of the underlying and they don't want to spend 2 seconds to try to understand what's inside. So all must be accessible, pleasant, from this point of view Windows and Mac OS have no serious challengers as today.
The future challenger could be eventually in the coming years (10, 20 years ? or never ....) Canonical with Ubuntu in his home made flavor, today Unity, so I don't speak of Lubuntu or Xunbuntu.
I have begun with a ZX81, followed by an Apple II... ok I am not a C, Java developer but one can understand why I have been able to learn myself FreeBSD as a middle level user now, and why I finally managed to learn the basic of the shell scripting.
But my nephews, my nieces haven't seen that and they are very far from such considerations. This is a modern generation, with smartphones (myself I don't care about smartphone, I run an iPhone 4 a client gave me...), playing a lot with snapchat, something I can't understand, they want something easy, pleasant to use.
Yesterday I was answering to someone forced to use TrueOS due to a graphic card only supported by FreeBSD current, he clearly answered that Lumina couldn't be the desktop he was waiting for.
We are FreeBSD users, and for most of us accessibility, esthetic are minor considerations. We don't care because what we want basically is a powerful, flexible and reliable server. But this is absolutely not the opinion of the average user.
And myself I keep on using Windows for most usual tasks, for leisure, because this is pleasant to use.
If Google and Microsoft track me, I don't really care, I will just take care not to give all to the same.
I use Windows, but mainly Firefox. I use GMAIL and Google engine, but tend to use more and more QWANT which will be probably in the next years a possible challenger to the two giants Google and Bing (Sorry but duck duck go, dogpile... give me no satisfaction, only Qwant seems to be promising but still far from Google)
I use FreeBSD Desktop to administrate with little comfort, my server, and in such case Lumina, LXDE are sufficient not speaking of FLuxbox, OpenBox .....
But in fact most of time I use console simply because one compile faster under console.
I will also try to use FreeBSD Desktop when a computer is too old, my choice will be when possible KDE.
I try to recycle some Archos Tablets, the ancestor of all modern tablets (no Steve Jobs is not the inventor of the tablet, the first tablets ever were Archos and Cowon) by implanting FreeBSD 11 i386, I hope to run Lumina.
The excellent memory management of BSD makes BSD a good solution (only 500 MB of RAM)
4) Windows manager / Desktop
Fluxbox is a window manager not a desktop
Generally, problems are located at an upper level, what we call usually "desktop" is a package suites integrating full tools including a window manager.
Yes I know that many administrators use fluxbox when they need some graphic access.
In fact the most fragile desktops are KDE and GNOME3
Personally I use LXDE... frankly LXDE is very very light.... just a few components compared to the tons of components in Gnome 3 and KDE, so finally LXDE is not so bad, just HAL and gvfs are annoying me, creating sometimes some errors and hangs, so I will switch to Lumina as soon as this desktop become decent, I want to get rid of HAL and gvfs, using only DEVD based solution.
Last thing....
There is a little hypocrisy in the FreeBSD community of developers, because it is often said (and I have often read on this forum) that FreeBSD developers mostly develop with an... Apple, so they don't fight like most of us with UFS breaking its journal, ZFS looking for an invisible pool....
Ironically I would say : They develop something they don't use, they say to the FreeBSD users "esthetic ? ease of use ? we don't care, YOU are professionals ...".... frankly that makes me laugh and reminds me some dialogs in Quentin Tarentino's films (Pulp fiction or Reservoir dogs ?)