FreeBSD Foundation Flounders on 15 with Rust, pkgbase, and KDE

pprocacci said:
The base system is broken up onto several packages now?
So the 'f' what? Just don't want pkg delete -af to remove anything related to base (I use -af all the time)
Click to expand...
It'll be all fun and games until the package builders have their next big whoopsie.
D

Thread 'Can someone explain to me whats going on with pkg?'

Hey, i am new to FreeBSD and so far i really liked it. It feels a lot more robust and simple and complete. But today i got hit by pkg. I ran pkg upgrade and it automatically removed a lot of packages, which i didnt expect.
From what i could gather it seems like there is a bug / build error on the build servers. But how can it be that these packages just get removed? I dont really understand the pipeline.
I am using latest already and i dont really have time to figure out ports and compile for days.
Can someone explain whats really happening? Is this a regular thing i have to be aware of...
  • Like
 
My desktop on the main server:

Screenshot 2025-08-18 at 4.09.20 PM.png


Serious: it can only be used via CLI.
 
vermaden said:
My Openbox setup seems so much bloated :)

freebsd-desktop-2019-04.jpg
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Yep, that's what I'm running. openbox
There's just something about it that's ... simple.

Before openbox, was fluxbox and before fluxbox was blackbox.
I can honestly use any of them and they'll suit the purpose just fine.
Your terminal though! Argh!! ;) The black background is nice, but those colors hurt my eyes.
I'm just a black/white kind of guy. lol
 
Jose said:
It'll be all fun and games until the package builders have their next big whoopsie.
D

Thread 'Can someone explain to me whats going on with pkg?'

Hey, i am new to FreeBSD and so far i really liked it. It feels a lot more robust and simple and complete. But today i got hit by pkg. I ran pkg upgrade and it automatically removed a lot of packages, which i didnt expect.
From what i could gather it seems like there is a bug / build error on the build servers. But how can it be that these packages just get removed? I dont really understand the pipeline.
I am using latest already and i dont really have time to figure out ports and compile for days.
Can someone explain whats really happening? Is this a regular thing i have to be aware of...
  • Like
Click to expand...
There's surely some truth to that.
It will happen. Though I have to give credit where credit is due.
The developers do a fantastic job of keeping this beast rolling and in a positive direction.
In the past +30 years there's only been a small handful of "sh*t" moments that were fixed relatively quickly.

That doesn't happen very often for the folks here.
 
pprocacci, that's exactly the progression I took. I even have an ancient page, https://srobb.net/fluxopen.html, talking about the differences between flux and openbox, a not very technical page, more about the way you achieve various things on each. Hrrm, I think I have a blackbox page too, though I don't think it's still up. As for my usual terminal, when I was younger, I thought it was cool to have a transparent terminal with white text, now I can hardly see one, and my typical terminal is a bit nostalgic, dark background with amber foreground, resembling some of those old consoles.
PS, just checked and yeah the blackbox page is still up, with a section on bbkeys--this was before flux and openbox made it much easier to map things to keystrokes. I'm almost embarrassed to give the link, as it's completely out of of date, but it's at https://srobb.net/blackbox.html.

Actually, the fluxbox/openbox page is also severely out of date, mentioning things like lal, which used to be a simple clock, etc. Though I did put in a link to tint2 for Fedora users (as they haven't had a tint2 rpm since Fedora 39).

And, vermaden, there was another *box-ish window manager I used to like, which either a post of yours on the old FreeBSD forums (when it was privately owned), or one of your pages, got me to try. I can't even think of the name now, but I think it began with a p.---ah, pekwm, I think.
 
Seems like we have another guest who preaches 'server good, desktop bad, TUI good, GUI bad, it's that simple, why the hell don't you guys understand'. 😩

Hell, Bill Gates was a Lisp programmer who actually knew the value of letting someone else read the source code and talk with you. And Stallman threw tantrums over something he could probably figure out himself if he gave it a bit of level-headed technical thought.

As a Perl programmer would say, "There's more than one way to do it".
 
pprocacci said:
... must .... not .... respond.......f*ck!

First, I'm a graybeard. I've been using FBSD since the dawn of man.
I've seen iterations of FBSD that some of you can only read about; and for everyone else, being a graybeard is starting to suck! Slowing down, needing thicker glasses, "the blue pill", etc.

.... Word up homies (proc on efnet - well, not anymore) .... damn ... need to stay focus'd.....

FBSD has had changes throughout its lifetime.
FBSD will continue to have changes throughout its lifetime.
Some of those changes will be rolled back if they don't work.

It's really that simple.

The inclusion of KDE as a graphical installer ... so the 'f' what?
So long as there are textish type options for those still using hardware that's ancient then it's a non issue.

The base system is broken up onto several packages now?
So the 'f' what? Just don't want pkg delete -af to remove anything related to base (I use -af all the time)

---------------------------------------

Now, the desktop experience on FBSD is a horrible one. It always has been a horrible one.
Just a couple of weeks ago I was installing FreeBSD using an amdgpu graphics card and dual monitor and it simply doesn't work well at all: (https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=288729)
This of course isn't unique to this installation. This has simply been my experience for the past century.
If they want to implement a graphical installer, the keyboard has to work at the very least of all things. (though this isn't a keyboard problem and is instead a amdgpu problem)

FBSD was never known for its desktop prowess and it will never be, in my lifetime.
The simple fact is there aren't enough eyeballs. Those eyeballs are on windows and macos mostly.
Does it work under a specific set of condition w/ a specific set of software? Yeah, sure. But don't expect much more from that.

The base system is broken up onto several packages now?
So the 'f' what? Just don't want pkg delete -af to remove anything related to base (I use -af all the time)

---------------------------------------

I grew up with FBSD when 'the power to serve' ... to me ... meant an awesome server operating system, and it is.
From a servers perspective, there's nothing better.....well mostly. There are exceptions to everything.
If you dabble outside of the "norm" and start trying to implement vpp w/ dpdk or netmap w/ custom ring management ...... yeah don't.
Generally though, you can't go wrong.

---------------------------------------

So ... late to the party. Sorry for that. Hoping that initial bit of satire makes up for it.
I think I'm about 10 pages too late here.
Offended by anything I said? The glue is -----> way ... Sniff it. ;)

~Proc
Click to expand...
From my experience, FreeBSD can be great for Desktops and Workstations if you know what you are getting into and will get. I use it as a desktop system, it is not "as polished" as MacOS, but I don't like the "everthing must be perfect from the GUI, no terminal use whatsoever" mantra of most non-BSD OSes. I find I am faster at doing things at the terminal anyways. This is coming from someone who uses twm, so I might not be the best judge on what makes a good desktop experience :).
 
pprocacci said:
Yep, that's what I'm running. openbox
There's just something about it that's ... simple.

Before openbox, was fluxbox and before fluxbox was blackbox.
I can honestly use any of them and they'll suit the purpose just fine.
Your terminal though! Argh!! ;) The black background is nice, but those colors hurt my eyes.
I'm just a black/white kind of guy. lol
Click to expand...
I also used Fluxbox in the past - also liked it.

As for terminal - I understand - I have a buddy at work that also hates colors in terminal :)
 
pprocacci said:
Just a couple of weeks ago I was installing FreeBSD using an amdgpu graphics card and dual monitor and it simply doesn't work well at all: (https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=288729)
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what your set-up is, but I'd use Xorg, Xfce (compositor disabled), and forced AMDGPU driver in xorg.conf (not modesetting). If there was problems not solved with different AMDGPU xorg.conf options, I'd switch to modesetting.

I've only used an Intel GPU on FreeBSD, but it looks like AMD GPUs are similar with needing a GPU firmware pkg and a drm-kmod package (I use drm-61-kmod on 14.3-R-p2).
 
scottro said:
pprocacci, that's exactly the progression I took. I even have an ancient page, https://srobb.net/fluxopen.html, talking about the differences between flux and openbox, a not very technical page, more about the way you achieve various things on each. Hrrm, I think I have a blackbox page too, though I don't think it's still up. As for my usual terminal, when I was younger, I thought it was cool to have a transparent terminal with white text, now I can hardly see one, and my typical terminal is a bit nostalgic, dark background with amber foreground, resembling some of those old consoles.
PS, just checked and yeah the blackbox page is still up, with a section on bbkeys--this was before flux and openbox made it much easier to map things to keystrokes. I'm almost embarrassed to give the link, as it's completely out of of date, but it's at https://srobb.net/blackbox.html.

Actually, the fluxbox/openbox page is also severely out of date, mentioning things like lal, which used to be a simple clock, etc. Though I did put in a link to tint2 for Fedora users (as they haven't had a tint2 rpm since Fedora 39).

And, vermaden, there was another *box-ish window manager I used to like, which either a post of yours on the old FreeBSD forums (when it was privately owned), or one of your pages, got me to try. I can't even think of the name now, but I think it began with a p.---ah, pekwm, I think.
Click to expand...

I believe it was PekWM - x11-wm/pekwm - still available here ... or You think about something else?
 
Nope, that was it pekWM, but that was a long tine ago, and I went back to whatever I was using then as it didn't seem to offer anything I liked better.
 
Sadly amiwm has severe problems, and my x11-foo is happily climbing the edge of the carpet - so to speak. I can't fix it, but I like it.
 
vermaden said:
As for terminal - I understand - I have a buddy at work that also hates colors in terminal :)
Click to expand...
I'm only surprised that you never tried to automate that 'lolcat' thingy. IDK about zsh, but in bash this will work:

exec > >(while IFS= read -d '' -r line; do if [[ -n $line ]]; then echo; printf "%s\n" "$line" | lolcat; fi; done); PROMPT_COMMAND='printf "\0"'

🤪
 
vermaden said:
I also used Fluxbox in the past - also liked it.
Click to expand...
Seriously now, my only contact with Fluxbox was way back ~'06 in the first FreeBSD based distro I ever touched - .ua made FrenzyBSD LiveCD. Fluxbox was very usable, nicely configured and more than enough for LiveCD based OS. BTW, FrenzyBSD is "guilty" that I fell in love for life with FreeBSD. Soon after Frenzy, when I decided to go with actual FreeBSD on bare metal, I went with KDE because that's what I knew from my previous Mandrake use, and since then it's only console (vt, of course) or KDE 🤷‍♂️
 
KDE might benefit from an OS releasing a new Plasma version proper:
  • I tried KDE 3 on Kubuntu and thought it was ok, but eventually went to main Ubuntu that happened to have GNOME
  • Plasma 5 I tried relatively new on Arch Linux on a 2-in-1 tablet without a keyboard: Arch or KDE figured to release a DE without an on-screen keyboard built-in (GNOME's is built-in)
  • Plasma 6 new ended up crashing from odd memory management likely OS-side, but KDE's interested in not having session restore re-invented before mainlining Wayland

I'm not sure about GNOME on FreeBSD with systemd, and use Xfce now. A proper Plasma implementation on FreeBSD would catch my interest :D (if it's a default for FreeBSD, I have expectations of it being pretty good)
 
Espionage724 said:

I'm not sure about GNOME on FreeBSD with systemd, and use Xfce now. A proper Plasma implementation on FreeBSD would catch my interest :D (if it's a default for FreeBSD, I have expectations of it being pretty good)
Click to expand...
How old is your info?

Get up-to-date info here: Thread trying-to-run-kde-6-plasma-with-wayland.93951, last post is less than a week old.
 
FreeBSD can benefit KDE, as the clean system design, will help KDE see how their end can improve, which wouldn't be as possible on most Linux systems. If there's to be an install version of KDE, it needs to be a flavor install that they maintain. FreeBSD has limited resources, so mostly, KDE needs to maintain that end. it'd be nice to see a ports fork of KDE, which is on top of FreeBSD ports, then have a cleaner desktop design in these ports. I'd like to see light desktops in ports, without full desktops. Sure, Qt and KDE applications can be in these ports, though I want to use a trimmed down version for light window managers.

I'd also like XCFE and Gnome based each have their own ports tree, which resides on top of FreeBSD's main ports tree. Where gtk and xfce applications in the lightest form are in the main ports, while parts for full desktops are in those specialized desktop ports of XFCE and Gnome based. XFCE and Gnomes based would be on top of the main ports tree.

Also, Wayland needs its own ports tree as well that rests on top of the main ports tree, and lump every latest desktop in there, including newer versions of KDE and Gnome based. Xorg needs to be in a clean ports tree without other screen servers.

Ironically, users who say, window managers don't belong in FreeBSD would get their way. Because, there could be a root ports which is CLI only, then a ports tree each for X, Wayland. Maybe a ports for each major desktop which resides on top of X ports.
 
Espionage724 said:
A proper Plasma implementation on FreeBSD would catch my interest :D (if it's a default for FreeBSD, I have expectations of it being pretty good)
Click to expand...
KDE/Plasma 6.4.4 works great for me on FreeBSD 14.3. It even feels much more snappier and smoother than 6.4.3 which I have on another OS installed on the same machine - systemd based Alt Sisyphus Linux. Interesting thing to note, I have one VM Gentoo (OpenRC init) with KDE/Plasma 6.4.4 on XLibre, and it also doesn't have weird things (like short-time freezes) which happens from time to time on systemd based one.
 
vmisev said:
KDE/Plasma 6.4.4 works great for me on FreeBSD 14.3. It even feels much more snappier and smoother than 6.4.3 which I have on another OS installed on the same machine - systemd based Alt Sisyphus Linux. Interesting thing to note, I have one VM Gentoo (OpenRC init) with KDE/Plasma 6.4.4 on XLibre, and it also doesn't have weird things (like short-time freezes) which happens from time to time on systemd based one.
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Can you let the machine 'sleep' if you step away for 5-10 minutes? If I step away from mine, like to eat or sleep, and the screen turns off in my absence, the whole session crashes... does that happen to you (on Wayland) ?
 
astyle said:
Can you let the machine 'sleep' if you step away for 5-10 minutes? If I step away from mine, like to eat or sleep, and the screen turns off in my absence, the whole session crashes... does that happen to you (on Wayland) ?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I never had Wayland on my FreeBSD, and no, it's not happening to me with X11/KDE 🤷‍♂️
 
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