FreeBSD 15 probably will include KDE as DE installtion option

Yampress said:
I think that at some point, the installer should display a window to choose the installation type:
- Installing the base system without a desktop environment
- Installing the KDE desktop environment on Wayland
- Installing the GnomeFlashback desktop environment on Wayland (gnome-flashback-desktop)

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback , gnome3 - with the gnome 2 look)A pretty decent desktop environment looks like gnome 2/mate, but there's gnome3, which is the latest technology on Wayland.It's worth going straight to the newer Wayland technology, since KDE and gnome support it and have been working well on it for a long time.
If you want to install KDE or another Windows desktop environment on X11/Xorg, choose the base system installation option, and after installation, you can install the desktop environment solution you want. And then nothing is imposed.

For beginners, there would be two graphical environments for Wayland;
for advanced users, only the base system would be installed, and after installing it, the advanced user could install whatever they want (X11 + KDE/Mate/Xfce/Cinammon/Openbox/Fluxbox/Other...).I also recommend that the installer offer at least two graphical environments for Wayland. One for QT enthusiasts – KDE, and the other for GTK enthusiasts – Gnome Flashback.

As a long-time Debian Linux user, I suggest taking a look at the Debian Linux installer and how it handles these installation steps. The installer gives the user a choice at each installation step. Initially, the installer allows the user to choose whether to run the installer in text/graphical/normal or expert mode, and then mix these modes, or choose other modes, such as rescue mode or chroot. Then, at each step of the installer, we have a choice, partitioning, and then what we want in the system: the base system or any additional graphical environments.
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If FreeBSD had that kind of installer, I wouldn't be using Debian on my laptop tbh. At the moment it's just not there for a seamless install experience unfortunately.
 
It's not about the installer itself. Installing the system is a snap. Customizing and configuring after installation takes a lot of time. If you have a lot of knowledge, you'll figure it out quickly. If you have little knowledge, you look for a solution, try to implement it, and see if it works. When it doesn't work after several attempts, you give up.Linux distros have many mechanisms for automating system configuration processes. They also have graphical and clickable system configuration tools, which speed up and simplify work. FreeBSD, of course, is about editing text files.And while you can attract new users by installing a graphical environment in the installer, when a new/less advanced user encounters the classic Unix-style system configuration after installation, they anticipate that they'll give up at that stage and abandon the system. It's good that there are text editors other than vi... Because for some, vi text editor that's an insurmountable barrier.
 
Just imagine driver/application developers not having to worry about wasting time with post-mortem configuring just so they can port their software to FreeBSD. What an idea..
 
Advanced users can, of course, handle the configuration after installation. But if we're moving towards a graphical environment in the installer, it's probably implemented to bring inexperienced or new users to FreeBSD with a graphical environment. People who previously worked with graphical/clickable configuration tools suddenly find themselves faced with system configuration in text files. And in such a situation, people are turning away from the system because they can't cope. So, if we want to attract people to FreeBSD, we'd have to create some additional graphical configuration software. I really appreciate that the FreeBSD system is now for a select few—advanced users, not for everyone due to its difficulty. Just anyone can handle it. Only persistent, experienced, and advanced users.
 
I think installing any large DEs like KDE would better be an option for install media which assumes Internet connection.
Or support reading/writing newer UDF that are used for BluRay disks and use BluRay image. 4.7GB DVD is already too small, as DVD1 image that cannot be fit into it are already missingly provided.
 
Including a full blown graphics stack + DE puts more unnecessary stress on release engineering. This is why Projects like GhostBSD exist. A simple opt-in flag in the installer is a good compromise without touching the base system or interrupting development workflow. The dvd is just there for offline ports usage.

I wonder how the installer is going to deal with device enumeration and driver matching for a particular device or hardware configuration.
 
fjdlr said:
And why not, a second choice:
OpenBox, Plank, Polybar and Rofi? Light and fun :cool:
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Because it will add more stress to the release engineering team. There can't be more effort to testing on every graphical environment just to make sure it isn't broken on a certain snapshot of the ports tree used for -RELEASE.

And Beastie7 makes a valid point. I'm hoping they're thinking of using some form of CI as an automated way to do checking to further reduce the amount of effort spent testing.

EDIT: Actually that's part of the 15.0 Release Checklist: https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/proj-laptop/issues/25
Code: 
Appropriate test coverage or testing (automated or manual)
 
Shouldn't it be co-working with Release Engineering Team and Portmgr/SecTeam?
I think Portmgr are regularly monitoring breakages of ports thoroughly and SecTeam are monitoring security-related things throughout base and ports.
And breaking changes (except for merging urgent security fix from upstream) require explicit approval of Portmgr (and SecTeam if appropreate) prior to be landed.
 
So why the idea of including a graphical environment in the installer? After all, everyone who uses FreeBSD on the desktop uses completely different environments than KDE. FreeBSD as it is is used mainly by advanced and experienced users, and that's the beauty of this system. A user with little knowledge and skills doesn't stand a chance. In such a case, I'm against introducing and installing a graphical environment in the installer. Introducing the option to install a graphical environment in the installer is a step towards inexperienced users. And if we want to continue in this direction of system development, we need to introduce additional mechanisms or software for less experienced users. I attribute this to the fact that even advanced and experienced Linux users have trouble using and configuring FreeBSD as a typical desktop system.
 
Yampress said:
So why the idea of including a graphical environment in the installer?
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Even on sysinstall, which was the installer BEFORE current bsdinstall is introduced, had post install configuration including installations of chosen packages. It would be "plus alpha" to it.
And devices are enumerated by base (kernel and devd/devmatch) at least as generic device on the bus the device is attached, even if base does not have drivers for it. Installer uses (IIUC) generic kernel and devd/devmatch, so informations about devices would be obtained on installer.
What is lacked now is how to match the detected devices and X11/Wayland drivers and if it requires special configuration (like for x11/nvidia-driver) or not.
 
ralphbsz said:
I actually do have a problem with it. In my opinion, meaning for my use case, it is a waste of money, brains and time (WOMBAT) to add it to the installer. My use case is servers, more or less headless (at most keyboard and VGA, perhaps serial).
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It's not going to get included on the CD images, the base OS itself barely fits.
 
covacat said:
90% of the users that need the installer to install kde (or any de for that matter) will quickly reach the conclusion that freebsd is a shittier and more complicated linux distro and leave
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Hey! Hey! Don’t piss all over the Cheerios ok?

Admittedly, this is a valid point. Brand association n all.
 
[Sarcasm]
pkg info -D $packagename
"Congratulations, you now have an almost full-fledged KDE Desktop installed, except KDE/Discovery, KDE/NetworkManager. Now familiarise yourself with vi, doas and wpa_supplicant.conf!"
[/Sarcasm]
BTW, I am using KDE/Apps with Plasma or another WM, mostly bspwm.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
You have to consider what happens if someone accidentally accepts that. Accidentally selecting "no" is far safer and easier to recover from.
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And given the level of integration in current CPUs, I think almost any platform that FreeBSD can be installed on would detect as "supports running a GUI". I think rackmount servers would support a GUI but the user would not want one.
 
my student club is building a custom Arch Linux distro for our school. What percentage of these DE's are turnkey on FreeBSD. Think of it as FreeBSD eye candy ;)
 
Yampress said:
Advanced users can, of course, handle the configuration after installation. But if we're moving towards a graphical environment in the installer, it's probably implemented to bring inexperienced or new users to FreeBSD with a graphical environment. People who previously worked with graphical/clickable configuration tools suddenly find themselves faced with system configuration in text files. And in such a situation, people are turning away from the system because they can't cope. So, if we want to attract people to FreeBSD, we'd have to create some additional graphical configuration software. I really appreciate that the FreeBSD system is now for a select few—advanced users, not for everyone due to its difficulty. Just anyone can handle it. Only persistent, experienced, and advanced users.
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This is only my opinion but by your definition the only prerequisite to being an advanced user is literacy. I say that because the issues you raise regarding configuration are all clearly documented in the handbook.
 
To me, adding an option upon install KDE upon install is a fine choice (though not the first chose I would make for a DE as KDE has always been sluggish for me, but I use it on older computers which doesn't help much). But it could open a can of worms of people wanting to be able to install other DEs upon system install and as mentioned before more inexperienced users coming from other OSes who are used to being able to edit OS configs with GUI programs promptly giving up due needing to edit *.conf files.
 
That might depend upon the distribution. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, Mate, as well as Cinnamon and XFCE4 are really turnkey on LinuxMint. I guess, without pretending to read developer's minds, that they're looking to create something for someone wanting to try FreeBSD. Seems to me that GhostBSD already fills that need, but, i don't think it will have much effect on most of us on these forums, aside, of course, from giving us something to talk about.
 
Why didn't they choose something like CDE? I mean sure, it's less user friendly, but it should still be an option. And what about twm? It should probably also be an option. I like the minamalism of twm and CDE much more than the Linuxy, Microsoft-style bloat of other DEs
 
kpedersen said:
You can get headless amd64 servers
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For those, that's what the memstick / mini-memstick / bootonly amd64 iso's are for.

kpedersen said:
Our CD/DVD/USB stick images are custom for each platform. This is also not the case.
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why not? the listing of the iso's in the download area for the images makes a pretty strong case for yes.

Besides, userland and installer kind of have to be compiled for specific architectures. You can't just rip /bin/ls out of an amd64-tagged image and stick it into an arm64-tagged image...
 
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