FuryBSD is dead..

...sport sailing (small sailboats): Not a practical means of transportation, but a great way to...(go) really fast in circles on the weekend, while getting soaking wet and bitterly cold.
I see you've sailed in the Bay Area.
Nearly everyone uses a computer as an appliance: You buy it at a store, it has a working OS on it, it gets upgraded (today that's nearly completely automatic), and there is no need to make decisions. And they work exceedingly well, with very little effort.
I wish that were still true. Macs used to be my go-to for a laptop that Just Worked(tm), but they've become increasingly unreliable with every new Macos release. I used to skip every other release because they alternated primarily bugfix releases with new-feature releases in the Jobs era.

Alas, that is no longer the case. Every new release is chock-full of new "features" I don't want (a "news" app I can't uninstall? WTF?), and breaks basic backwards compatibility.

It's become clear to me that Mac is a legacy product for Apple. They're a phone company now, and they're trying to unify all their products around the same hardware and software platform. I give it 5 years before a Macbook is just an iPad with a keyboard.
 
Yes, we've heard that. I went drinking beer with Linus a few times in the mid- and late 90s (before he moved to the US, before he had kids, matter-of-fact before he even had a steady girlfriend). Just like many others, Linus had hardware that was capable of running a real operating system (a 386), and couldn't find a good free operating system. I was in the same situation in the early 90s; I tried buying BSDi (386BSD was not ready to be installed yet), but there was a series of problems that prevented me getting BSD (biggest one: incompatibility with hardware, both networking and display). So I installed Linux on my server at home around 93 or so.

But you seem to think that the current decision of what direction Linux proceeds in is made by Linus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Linus himself is a minor contributor to the source code. There is 1 Linus Torvalds, and there are thousands of Linux developers who work for Intel or IBM.
I never made the claim that Linux controls the direction of Linux today. I was strictly speaking about that one particular topic -why Linux came into existence.
Sorry, that's bullshit. You seem to think that the direction of Linux is set by individual users. That's utter nonsense. Users use the system, they don't develop it. Some users like it so much, they graduate to be developers and contributors. But those are not really relevant. What really matters is something like the CEO of IBM deciding that Linux is a strategic asset, and investing a few hundred people (a hundred developers and the various support roles) into making Linux more usable for IBM (feel free to substitute Intel or Oracle or ... for IBM in this example). Or a company like RedHat or Suse deciding to take a few dozen M$ of venture capital investment and making a go of being a Linux contributor and distributor. And you can be sure that the CEO of IBM (or Intel or a VC ...) will not be swayed by a more comfortable installer. They have staff, they look at numbers, they look at strategy and market.
Actually, it's not bullshit, because I was speaking towards the reaction of the community from the mere mention of making changes.
Installer and the "stench of the lawsuit" (which BSD won overwhelmingly) have nothing to do with it. Your mistake is that you think that your personal experience (as an individual amateur desktop user) is relevant to the big picture. It is not. 99% of all computers in the world that run Linux do not have a desktop (they are servers!), and the vast majority of Linux desktops are being used in a corporate setting.
Actually, BSD didn't WIN anything. The lawsuit was settled. And yet, the lawsuit absolutely DID have a lot to do with it, because by the time it was all settled, the rest of the industry had moved on to other OSes. Clearly, you know nothing of the big picture. You can't even seem to comprehend how much of an important role that chronology played in the matter. Additionally, screenshot where I mentioned the what most of the Linux machines were using. The entire time, I've been talking about desktop systems, with the exception of the few moments that I mentioned HPC system. At this point, it's obvious that you can't even keep up with the conversation. That's senility kicking in. Go take a nap.
 
If you truly think that my argument is "FBSD isn't like Linux", then you are delusional.
Did you read any further than the first line?
Note that this is a general user and administrator forum, where the community aims to assist those who want to install, run, or upgrade FreeBSD as-is. Discussions about what FreeBSD needs to be, or needs to add, or needs to lose, are pointless on the forums. We do not maintain the operating system here.
 
OK, so FreeBSD is switching from its own ZFS source tree (which is all forked eventually from the core ZFS one) to a new one that is shared with Linux. I don't see that as a problem, I see that as progress.

And I don't care about someone having the lead. The developers know where to get the best quality and best efficiency source code for ZFS for, and I let them make that decision. This is not a race, and sharing source code with Linux is not necessarily a bad thing.

You seem to think that the import thing is "losing" or "not losing". Why do you care whether we los? I care that FreeBSD is a good OS for the purpose I use it for, and it is EXCELLENT. I don't hate Linux ... matter-of-fact, I use tens of thousands of Linux machines every day as part of my job, and I have a handful of them at home too. Linux is also an excellent solution, but for a different set of tasks than FreeBSD. And this is not a "we" thing: I am not a part of the FreeBSD tribe, and I don't see other tribes as the enemy. I am a happy user of FreeBSD (and a happy user of MacOS, and of Linux, and of Windows, and the other OSes have taken a back seat), and I try to help FreeBSD a little bit here and there.
That's a sentiment that people who're comfortable with losing often have. I've used OSes that lost before. It sucks having to go to a new platform.
 
It seems to be the FBSD community's position that rejecting the average user is a successful approach. This is a failed strategy that continues to fail each decade.
Not even close,

"average user"=I want everything easy to use without use my brain and want stars and light over my desktop

"normal user"=not a Nasa astronaut or super genius,
simple install the packages and follows a few steps

if FreeBSD dont want "average" users the comunity not even
mantain the ports for build a desktop(xorg,etc)
and the pakages numbers are very strong and complete
 
Not even close,

"average user"=I want everything easy to use without use my brain and want stars and light over my desktop

"normal user"=not a Nasa astronaut or super genius,
simple install the packages and follows a few steps

if FreeBSD dont want "average" users the comunity not even
mantain the ports for build a desktop(xorg,etc)
and the pakages numbers are very strong and complete
That's not even remotely what an average user is, nor is that what a normal user is. People are simply asking to make the system easier to install & easier to setup without being a damned system admin. That's it. That's all. But the moment anyone asks for that, the community tries to crap all over them. It's not as if they're asking for the world. They're not even asking for anything new to be developed -these things ALREADY EXIST.
 
Even simple things, such as improve their installer. They did nothing to make their system welcoming to new users. As a result, new users went to Linux -which actively recruited users.
I actually installed Freebsd, Slackware, and Redhat in the mid 90s, and I found Freebsd's installer at the time to be the best. Slackware, which was the first distro to gain traction, had no installer at all.
There's nothing bastardized about android.
Android has removed all the standard Unix IPC mechanisms and replaced them with their own systems.

In any case, you're yelling at the wrong people. This forum is mainly for users of Freebsd. We have no influence over the development or direction of the project. Your should take your beef to the Foundation, and maybe to the development mailing lists.
 
I actually installed Freebsd, Slackware, and Redhat in the mid 90s, and I found Freebsd's installer at the time to be the best. Slackware, which was the first distro to gain traction, had no installer at all.
Linux was still a baby in the 90s. We're a few decades beyond that now. At this point, we actually have one of the worst installers now.
Android has removed all the standard Unix IPC mechanisms and replaced them with their own systems.
All of those things were far too heavy & weren't performant enough for a phone.
In any case, you're yelling at the wrong people. This forum is mainly for users of Freebsd. We have no influence over the development or direction of the project. Your should take your beef to the Foundation, and maybe to the development mailing lists.
No, I'm actually yelling at the right people. Why? Because it's the people in this forum that were shooting down the guy who asked about a better installer. In fact, it's ALWAYS the people in forums who jump down the throats of other users who simply start conversations about how things could be better. So, yes, it's the users in this forum who should be yelled at for constantly trying to stifle the voices of others who's only sin were to bring up new topics. My problems aren't with the actual developers. I merely used the developers actions as evidence to prove specific points. This was NEVER about the developers.
 
I never claimed that they did. Why would they have to? I'm sure that their technical experts are fully capable of seeing the same things.
And they did, and they made decisions. For example, I happen to know the CTO of NetApp (now retired), and a few decades ago, he made the decision to use an early FreeBSD version as the embedded OS inside the NetApp servers, and still today, NetApp appliances are built around FreeBSD. Similarly, a few decades ago, when Apple needed to refresh MacOS, they made the decision to use the FreeBSD userland as a starting point (with the Mach kernel); a friend of mine (was a graduate student on a project I worked on) was one of the BSD evangelists at Apple.

On the other hand, companies like Intel, Oracle and IBM decided to throw in their lot with Linux. For good and sensible reasons.

Considering the fact that they're mostly putting the money into Linux now, it's reasonable to assume that they're seeing FBSD as not being competitive against Linux these days.
For the problems they are trying to solve (millions of servers, tens of thousands of desktops), Linux is the better solution. I don't see this is a problem, but as something good. For example, I go to my little shop in the basement, and hanging on the walls are hammers, screwdrivers, and saws. Sitting on the ground are routers, tablesaws, and drill presses. I would not use a hammer to cut a piece of wood in half, nor a drill press to make a long straight cut. If I want a good integrated desktop, I'll use Windows or MacOS. If I want a server OS to install on a million machines, I'll pick a (highly tuned) version of Linux. If I need a small server OS with highly reliable storage stack, I'll use FreeBSD. If I want to monitor a few pump motors and water pressures on a Raspberry Pi, I install Raspbian. This is not about competition. The world is not a race.

And that sucks, because FBSD used to be so far ahead of Linux.
The last time that BSD was ahead of Linux in terms of installed base must have been around 92 or 93. And that was before FreeBSD even existed, when instead the various forks were called either BSD (if you got it from Berkeley), BSDi or 386BSD.
 
FreeBSD Handbook + Patience = A working desktop.

Let's not feed this troll any longer folks.
Absolutely nothing that I've said was trolling the fact of the matter is that NONE of that has to be done in order to get a working desktop for GhostBSD. It didn't have to be done for PC-BSD, either. So, your classic fallback line of "RTFM" amounts to bullshit in a post-2000 world. No one is going for that anymore, just to get a desktop. At this point, FBSD is nothing more than an ingredient.
 
Linux was still a baby in the 90s. We're a few decades beyond that now. At this point, we actually have one of the worst installers now.
Why didn't Freebsd "win" in the 90s if it had the best installer?
All of those things were far too heavy & weren't performant enough for a phone.
Right, so they bastardized the Linux kernel, just like Kpedersen said.
This was NEVER about the developers.
Steve Ballmer disagrees with you.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMldOiiG1Ko
 
Well, all this is personal opinion and wants and desires of A. D. Sharpe Sr. of what FreeBSD should be doing. The personal opinions of everyone else is elsewhere. You may disagree with this and that's fine but FreeBSD is doing what it can and what it wants to do and you can be happy with that or not.
 
And they did, and they made decisions. For example, I happen to know the CTO of NetApp (now retired), and a few decades ago, he made the decision to use an early FreeBSD version as the embedded OS inside the NetApp servers, and still today, NetApp appliances are built around FreeBSD. Similarly, a few decades ago, when Apple needed to refresh MacOS, they made the decision to use the FreeBSD userland as a starting point (with the Mach kernel); a friend of mine (was a graduate student on a project I worked on) was one of the BSD evangelists at Apple.

On the other hand, companies like Intel, Oracle and IBM decided to throw in their lot with Linux. For good and sensible reasons.
Ok, but if you've got to go to a retired CTO or reference an OS that was created about 2 decades ago, then you've pretty much proved my point. Who's choosing FBSD today? Really, MOST businesses should be. The problem isn't that businesses aren't. The problem is that no one is bothering to find out why businesses aren't, & then correcting the problems.
For the problems they are trying to solve (millions of servers, tens of thousands of desktops), Linux is the better solution. I don't see this is a problem, but as something good. For example, I go to my little shop in the basement, and hanging on the walls are hammers, screwdrivers, and saws. Sitting on the ground are routers, tablesaws, and drill presses. I would not use a hammer to cut a piece of wood in half, nor a drill press to make a long straight cut. If I want a good integrated desktop, I'll use Windows or MacOS. If I want a server OS to install on a million machines, I'll pick a (highly tuned) version of Linux. If I need a small server OS with highly reliable storage stack, I'll use FreeBSD. If I want to monitor a few pump motors and water pressures on a Raspberry Pi, I install Raspbian. This is not about competition. The world is not a race.
Linux didn't actually become a better solution until recently (past decade or so). Before that, it was merely a matter of Linux hype & bandwagoning.
The last time that BSD was ahead of Linux in terms of installed base must have been around 92 or 93. And that was before FreeBSD even existed, when instead the various forks were called either BSD (if you got it from Berkeley), BSDi or 386BSD.
That's not really true. The BSDs were ahead before the distribution model exploded & the number of distributions skyrocketed. Let's not forget that BSDs were being used in commercial products for a very long time, even after Linux started building up steam.
 
Absolutely nothing that I've said was trolling the fact of the matter is that NONE of that has to be done in order to get a working desktop for GhostBSD. It didn't have to be done for PC-BSD, either. So, your classic fallback line of "RTFM" amounts to bullshit in a post-2000 world. No one is going for that anymore, just to get a desktop. At this point, FBSD is nothing more than an ingredient.
*translation*

"I'm too lazy to actually read because Big Redmond and Fruit Co. have held my hands since I first touched a computer."

FreeBSD has lived through the demise of many companies. You can make better use of the energy you're putting out here.
 
Linux didn't actually become a better solution until recently (past decade or so). Before that, it was merely a matter of Linux hype & bandwagoning.
So what Freebsd needs is hype and bandwagoning? Where do the installers and GUIs you've been ranting about fit in?
 
Why didn't Freebsd "win" in the 90s if it had the best installer?
The installer wasn't great back then, it was just better. But we already talked about why BSD didn't win in the 90s -you're simply not paying attention.
Right, so they bastardized the Linux kernel, just like Kpedersen said.
That's not bastardizing the kernel, it's upgrading & improving subsystems. Try again.
Disagreeing with me doesn't make a person right, any more than agreeing with me would. This is a forum. Topics are supposed to be discussed. If everyone agreed, then there wouldn't be anything to discuss.
 
*translation*

"I'm too lazy to actually read because Big Redmond and Fruit Co. have held my hands since I first touched a computer."

FreeBSD has lived through the demise of many companies. You can make better use of the energy you're putting out here.
Actually, I haven't been a windows user in decades. If you're not capable of having an actual discussion & are only capable of just talking shit, then just say that.
 
The installer wasn't great back then, it was just better. But we already talked about why BSD didn't win in the 90s -you're simply not paying attention.
Hype and bandwagoning? But that was later, I thought.
That's not bastardizing the kernel, it's upgrading & improving subsystems. Try again.
Since these are "improvements" they've been accepted by the upstream Linux kernel, right?
Disagreeing with me doesn't make a person right, any more than agreeing with me would. This is a forum. Topics are supposed to be discussed. If everyone agreed, then there wouldn't be anything to discuss.
I don't see a lot of discussion here. I see you shouting angrily at people who disagree with you. I'm not sure what's making you so angry. If Linux has "won" with installers or GUIs or hype or whatever, just go use Linux. Why are you here shouting at us?
 
So what Freebsd needs is hype and bandwagoning? Where do the installers and GUIs you've been ranting about fit in?
I never said that FBSD needed hype nor bandwagoning. You're intentionally missing the point. Users have simply been asking for better installers & for the installer to install a system that boots into a desktop. That's what they've been asking for. None of you have been able to give a real reason for why those things shouldn't be provided. Instead, you keep bringing up bullshit that have absolutely nothing to do with what those users have been asking for.
 
I never said that FBSD needed hype nor bandwagoning. You're intentionally missing the point. Users have simply been asking for better installers & for the installer to install a system that boots into a desktop. That's what they've been asking for. None of you have been able to give a real reason for why those things shouldn't be provided. Instead, you keep bringing up bullshit that have absolutely nothing to do with what those users have been asking for.
We've established that a superior installer is not how Linux "won". According to you, it "won" because of hype and bandwagoning. By your own logic, the users who are asking for a better installer and a default desktop are wrong.
 
Hype and bandwagoning? But that was later, I thought.
You are now making up arguments.
Since these are "improvements" they've been accepted by the upstream Linux kernel, right?
Lots of improvements never make it to upstream. This isn't a solid argument.
I don't see a lot of discussion here. I see you shouting angrily at people who disagree with you. I'm not sure what's making you so angry. If Linux has "won" with installers or GUIs or hype or whatever, just go use Linux. Why are you here shouting at us?
I haven't yelled at anyone. At no point did I type an all caps sentence, nor did I start piling on exclamation marks. Try again. Additionally, if your argument is "go use something else", then that's also a trash argument. The fact of the matter is that you aren't capable of presenting a technical reason why what people have been asking for is a bad thing. You simply want me to stop talking about it, so that I don't continue to expose the fact that you don't have a valid reason for trying to stifle other users.
 
We've established that a superior installer is not how Linux "won". According to you, it "won" because of hype and bandwagoning. By your own logic, the users who are asking for a better installer and a default desktop are wrong.
Actually, in terms of the desktop, those thing are why Linux is "winning". Saying that they've "won" means that the fight is over. The point is that things can always be improved. Your argument amounts to little more than "we don't want things to improve for other users, because it's just fine for us right now". That's a bullshit argument. Telling people to go use something else is crap.
 
Users have simply been asking for better installers & for the installer to install a system that boots into a desktop.

Again, if you understood the implications of doing such a thing; you'd understand why this doesn't exist yet. The FreeBSD Handbook acts as an appropriate mediation between use case scenarios. Let me know when you need a shovel to get your head out.
 
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