GNOME on FreeBSD page is useless/dead

Maybe its time to join forces in an OpenZFS fashion, one GNOMEonBSD team to share similar work ... just a thought.
I agree with joining forces but would suggest the focus should be XFCE4 for the following reasons:

1) The latest, stable version of XFCE4 has been ported to OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD; it is basically ready to go.
2) I suspect XFCE4 BSD portability is due to an OpenBSD developer, Landry Breuil, also being a core XFCE4 developer.
3) The basic desktop has its roots in CDE and yet is very configurable, I have no problem mimicking a Windows interface or a OS/X interface.
 
I agree with joining forces but would suggest the focus should be XFCE4 for the following reasons:

1) The latest, stable version of XFCE4 has been ported to OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD
2) I suspect XFCE4 BSD portability is due to an OpenBSD developer, Landry Breuil, also being a core XFCE4 developer.
3) The basic desktop has its roots in CDE and yet is very configurable, I have no problem mimicking a Windows interface or a OS/X interface.
I've good impression which XFCE on GhostBSD. I think you're right.

The Moore brother not only FreeBSD User/Developer but also have their bussiness. Despite going the wrong way, we have no right to judge them, because that is their time, their money, their effort... not us. I think they copied the Apple way, making PCBSD a MACBSD, but finally they will go nowhere.

Uhm, if you can please make something like MXBSD. I'm MXLinux17 user, it uses XFCE too. Noobs like us want something out of the box like that, we never say something can't be customized to be good but we don't want/can't/don't have the ability/time to do that ourselves. Summary, we want it to be delivered to us as good out of the box :D
 
I switched over to XFCE on FreeBSD (as XFCE supports FreeBSD upstream). It was easier to switch to than I thought (the whole process took less than 10 minutes and I didn't have to worry because I made a ZFS snapshot prior to the switch) but it will take a little bit of time for me to get used to the change.
 
I am using Gnome 3 on FreeBSD as a desktop right now with no issues. Why bash FreeBSD by spreading misinformation on a FreeBSD Forum?

You're also wrong about having "Obsolete" ports in the ports tree. They are useful, as they work on the system and can be used as a basis for importing later versions of the software into the system. I am not against further testing but to remove old ports simply because they are old is ridiculous and unjustified.

Right, I can easily recall times when an old port HAD been dropped, and I had to do it from scratch, which was probably more stress on my little brain than what I was looking for.

drhowarddrfine : As far as importing "alpha quality" stuff goes, I've been guilty of that myself, but there's always the hope someone else will pick it up and run with it, when the originator finds he doesn't have the time. Maybe these lesser quality ports could be self-assigned a tag of some sort. That's an idea.
 
If there was to be a project getting together a group of developers to re-activate Gnome 2 (not Gnome 3 or Mate) on FreeBSD and get everything working (network manager, mounting, gdm, everything!) to the level that we would expect from a commercial UNIX, then I would jump onto that like a shot!

It is simply too big of a task for a single person. Splitting tools and dependencies up (i.e maintain 5 per developer) is very feasible however.
 
If there was to be a project getting together a group of developers to re-activate Gnome 2 (not Gnome 3 or Mate) on FreeBSD and get everything working (network manager, mounting, gdm, everything!) to the level that we would expect from a commercial UNIX, then I would jump onto that like a shot!

It is simply too big of a task for a single person. Splitting tools and dependencies up (i.e maintain 5 per developer) is very feasible however.
Why don't modern XFCE4 but the old rusty GNOME2?
 
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If there was to be a project getting together a group of developers to re-activate Gnome 2 (not Gnome 3 or Mate) on FreeBSD and get everything working (network manager, mounting, gdm, everything!) to the level that we would expect from a commercial UNIX, then I would jump onto that like a shot!

It is simply too big of a task for a single person. Splitting tools and dependencies up (i.e maintain 5 per developer) is very feasible however.

I remember Dropline Gnome, which was based on Gnome 2, and used Xorg on Slackware at a time when Slackware was still using Xfree86. It was maintained by a very small group of devs (really primarily one) - and was pared down enough for that small team to handle it. Last release was 2015 IIRC, so getting old. I always liked it, but don't know how well it would port to FreeBSD. These days I've gone the minimal route.
 
If there was to be a project getting together a group of developers to re-activate Gnome 2 (not Gnome 3 or Mate) on FreeBSD and get everything working (network manager, mounting, gdm, everything!) to the level that we would expect from a commercial UNIX, then I would jump onto that like a shot!

It is simply too big of a task for a single person. Splitting tools and dependencies up (i.e maintain 5 per developer) is very feasible however.

For me KDE 3 was the best one and I am sorry that is gone.
 
For me KDE 3 was the best one and I am sorry that is gone.

I have fond memories of KDE 3 (actually 3.5). I notice that OpenBSD seems to still have a supported port of it. I have yet to try it out however but it will be cool if it is fully working.

I remember Dropline Gnome, which was based on Gnome 2, and used Xorg on Slackware at a time when Slackware was still using Xfree86.

Heh, I remember that. Actually, I remember it stored it's files and dependencies in a self contained folder (/usr/gnome2?) since it was maintained seperately. I found this really clean since it didn't spam /usr/local with Gnome related cruft. Kinda like /usr/dt or how Solaris <= 10 managed things like SFW or Blastwave.
 
Haha. Perhaps tell that to these guys: https://mate-desktop.org. I am sure they would like to be notified of their metal problems too ;)

If I had my way, I would go for CDE. Have you ever heard of that?
I know and used Ubuntu Mate before. They're slowly migrate to Gtk3, too. Then why stick with it but now go for XFCE4? It's already GTK3 and can be configured to look like GNOME2.
 
I know and used Ubuntu Mate before. They're slowly migrate to Gtk3, too. Then why stick with it but now go for XFCE4? It's already GTK3 and can be configured to look like GNOME2.

Updating to Gtk3 is probably a good thing. It will allow for integration with Wayland if it ever comes along to FreeBSD.

On my desktop machines I use Xfce4 but why I am recommending Gnome 2 instead of Xfce4 is simply because it currently provides much more of a full fat desktop experience (at least on Linux. Much of it has always been broken on FreeBSD). Xfce4 is still missing a few things (because they strive to stay lighter than full fat desktops like Gnome and KDE).

Though in many ways, Xfce4 being lighter would certainly make it easier to maintain on FreeBSD if the Xfce4 developers ever go the weird and wonderful ways of Tablets and Gnome 3. And to be fair, it might be an easier task to write the additional desktop utilities from scratch for Xfce4 rather than trying to port the existing Gnome 2 ones full of linuxisms. :)

That said, the PCBSD guys seem to be doing good things with Lumina so we could just make sure that the port for that remains up to date with the upstream FreeBSD project.
 
Updating to Gtk3 is probably a good thing. It will allow for integration with Wayland if it ever comes along to FreeBSD.

On my desktop machines I use Xfce4 but why I am recommending Gnome 2 instead of Xfce4 is simply because it currently provides much more of a full fat desktop experience (at least on Linux. Much of it has always been broken on FreeBSD). Xfce4 is still missing a few things (because they strive to stay lighter than full fat desktops like Gnome and KDE).

Though in many ways, Xfce4 being lighter would certainly make it easier to maintain on FreeBSD if the Xfce4 developers ever go the weird and wonderful ways of Tablets and Gnome 3. And to be fair, it might be an easier task to write the additional desktop utilities from scratch for Xfce4 rather than trying to port the existing Gnome 2 ones full of linuxisms. :)

That said, the PCBSD guys seem to be doing good things with Lumina so we could just make sure that the port for that remains up to date with the upstream FreeBSD project.
Yes, it's a good thing. But why wasting so much time and resource just to do something useless/meaningless? XFCE4 already GTK3 ready. GNOME2 provide a bigger set of apps but most of it broken or outdated, comparing to the modern GNOME3 ones, for example Pluma vs Gedit.

About Lumina, it's too ugly. Perhaps acceptable for someone hardcore with i3, fluxbox... for a long time, with normal user, it sucks.
 
For me KDE 3 was the best one and I am sorry that is gone.
I'm younger but have a chance to use KDE3 and I'm liked it. I still alive as a fork named Trinity, their homepage is inaccessible and google report it's hacked. I tried through a Linux distro named Q4OS and it's rocks, except some minor issues caused me switch to MXLinux :)
 
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