FreeBSD Screen Shots

FreeBSD showing Fluxbox, XFE, Gkrellm2, URXVT and XMMS with Gimp for the shot.

All my laptops in the screenshots I've posted are set up with the same basic desktop config. I have sysutils/gkrellm2, x11/rxvt-unicode and x11-fm/xfe open with .xinitrc. Depending on screenspace I usually open another instance of urxvt at the bottom to work from running top till I need it. I always open multimedia/xmms and listen to music once I get started.

All those programs stay open for easy access the whole time I'm at the desktop. When compiling ports I exit Fluxbox to the login terminal and work from there.
why to run .xinitrc ? there are cool login managers...
 
Are we still talking UNIX here? ;)
How is this not UNIX? I remember a lot of machines running display managers (IIRC xdm most of the time) like the HP X-terminals, Sun and IBM (AIX) workstations etc, often using XDMCP to allow remote X sessions as well. Nowadays you typically only want a local X session (for remote, you use rdp or vnc), but the basic principle is the same.

That said, back then you normally got CDE in your X session, that's something I'm personally glad not to see ever again -- but I understand how it gives a "UNIX feeling" for historic reasons ;) My university had some Linux machines running that you could also pick in the xdm chooser, on these you got a KDE session .. which was IMHO a lot nicer than CDE even back then :eek:
 
How is this not UNIX?

I was more poking fun at Spartrekus than anything but it's not UNIX to me.

I never saw the need for a GUI login on FreeBSD. It boots directly to the terminal, once you log in all there is to do is run startx and you're at the desktop.

My university had some Linux machines running that you could also pick in the xdm chooser, on these you got a KDE session .. which was IMHO a lot nicer than CDE even back then :eek:

Desktop Environments remind me of Windows, as do icons, but that's just me. :)

I used KDE 3(?) when I started using PC-BSD but soon changed to Fluxbox and have always done it this way. I've used Gnome and Mate with Solaris and OpenSolaris but prefer Fluxbox and the terminal login.
 
You can prefer whatever you like ;) But it's not like Windows "invented" Desktops, Icons etc. The first "Desktop" I personally used was good old GEOS on the C64 ;)

And then, I also don't see too much sense in disliking something, just because Windows has it. To me personally, KDE is not only a lot more comfortable than CDE, but also than any version of the Windows desktop.

On an older machine, I used fvwm2 for a long time, because it performed a lot better (of course), and if you want to do "unconventional" things with your window manager, it might make sense to pick a highly configurable one (like fvwm2, I assume fluxbox might be kind of similar?).

A full DE on the other hand gives you tools like a "systray", taskbar, start menu, audio mixer, keyboard layout switcher, screen locker, printer queue control, etc. pp, all nicely integrated and working together. CDE was the "commercial Unix" attempt to provide a full DE, which I never liked. But yes, you pick whatever you want, and that's cool -- Unix systems have always been very modular in design.

I'd personally never go without a display manager on a desktop or notebook. Even if all I need is a shell (which is quite often), I often want to see several of them at the same time, which is arguably the most important use-case of an X session for many ;) So I'd end up starting an X session anyways. Why bother with a console login then?
 
Likewise I tend to associate FreeBSD and UNIX with text logins. When I first installed Red Hat Linux using CDs in the 1990s, it also had a text login with no built-in desktop, and we never tried to install one.

Nevertheless, when I first installed FreeBSD using CDs, at around the same time in the mid to late 1990s, it already supported X11R6 with an Intel hardware focused port named XFree86, and KDE. I of course had to try it on for size, and almost burnt out my monitor doing so.

SCO Openserver 5 was yet another licensed commercial UNIX from the '90s which had the "built-in" CDE login and desktop front-end, and this was all part of its standard default out-of-the-box configuration.
 
On an older machine, I used fvwm2 for a long time, because it performed a lot better (of course), and if you want to do "unconventional" things with your window manager, it might make sense to pick a highly configurable one (like fvwm2, I assume fluxbox might be kind of similar?).

That's why I switched to Fluxbox. I had a low-end machine and it was the WM I settled on. I don't need it to be highly configurable as some of the other WM. With the exception of menu and right-click options don't do further customization other than use my mono2 theme and set the fonts for all apps to match.

A full DE on the other hand gives you tools like a "systray", taskbar, start menu, audio mixer, keyboard layout switcher, screen locker, printer queue control, etc. pp, all nicely integrated and working together.

Exactly what I don't want. Somebody else choosing which programs they think I need like you get with a DE and one reason it reminds me of Windows. I've used Gnome and LXDE on Linux but none of it compares to the simplicity and minimalization of Fluxbox.

Even if all I need is a shell (which is quite often), I often want to see several of them at the same time, which is arguably the most important use-case of an X session for many ;) So I'd end up starting an X session anyways. Why bother with a console login then?

I do have occasion to use more than one terminal at once and why I like keeping two open. If I need to work as root from XFE in one to transfer files I can still run df -h in the other.

If I compile ports I want to do it from the login terminal so there's no point in starting an X session unless I need to when I boot up.
 
Openbox on my desktop PC with x11/polybar, x11-wm/plank and jgmenu. The longer I use polybar the more I like it.
Wallpaper and xrdb colors are changing every 15 min using pywal.

6473
 
Whaaat ? i can't belive my eyes, you Spartrekus, advocate of pure C, resurrector of Ed, antagonist of Waylan, and proponant of X less live in a pure and simple textual console, well, you, login to your system in a GUI ? No! i can't belive it, i don't want to. 😉
I was just asking.

I use the startx, but I guess that many many Unix users prefer today to use a login manager. That's normal and common sense to use X login manager (wdm, xdm, slim, ... kde kddm,...)
 
Here's my desktop on my T61: Freebsd 12.0, 8GB ram, T7300, sata 2 ssd, middleton BIOS. Running windowmaker with 8 virtual desktops. The dockapps shown are: wmcalclock, wmcpuload, wmbsdbatt, wmnd, wmeyes, and then we have firefox, gtk-youtube-viewer and mplayer. Music currently playing is by the 64bits band from Germany: http://www.64bits.de/ The background image is "The Von Neumann Machine" by Don Lawrence.
 

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