I think, at this stage, I am finally convinced that FreeBSD is not ready for all desktop users.

because the Nvidia nonsense has made my FreeBSD experience a trying one
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Am I doing this right?
 
My advice is, choose the OS you want to use, and then buy the hardware that makes it work. It is a little bit unsatisfactory to think this way, but if something doesn't work; rip it out and replace it with something more appropriate. Second hand hardware in this day and age is almost free.
Thanks and I tried(for IGP, Wireless and Nvidia Graphics), but we need to remember that hardware is not accessible for all users around the world, especially in developing countries. For instance, even today most of the earth's population does not even have a good internet connection(the basic thing for accessing free/libre s/w).
 
Thanks and I tried(for IGP, Wireless and Nvidia Graphics), but we need to remember that hardware is not accessible for all users around the world, especially in developing countries. For instance, even today most of the earth's population does not even have a good internet connection(the basic thing for accessing free/libre s/w).
Very true. That said, I have an old colleague who used to work for a number of charity IT projects out in poorer countries. Apparently because all our ex-business surplus laptops (i.e 2010 ThinkPads) get sent to these countries. He said that ironically they are sometimes in a better boat than us when it comes to sourcing compatible hardware for Linux / BSD!

Also, I suppose FreeBSD beats macOS and Windows 10 by default as a superior desktop solution in those poorer countries where access to modern hardware is awkward.

(the basic thing for accessing free/libre s/w).

I feel this is a flaw of Linux / GNU. Being tied to the internet and slurping from central package managers is a broken design that no-one seems able to fix. At least FreeBSD ports can source distfiles from distributed locations (though unfortunately so many are GitHub these days! :(
 
I saw a thread on here with a link, that a developer for video graphics drivers on FreeBSD was frustrated that his work for it wasn't acknowledged, and how companies that used his improvements made money but didn't give back to the project which made improvements. The person said, I'll work on a project when I feel like it (as if it were a hobby), and not be so eager which companies make a profit from and won't give back. I wasn't able to find this thread or link at a later time. GPL also gets those improvements, and doesn't allow their code back into FreeBSD...
Perhaps of interest:
 
All this FreeBSD not being ready for the desktop talk drives me crazy as one who has used it as such since 2004 including my laptops.
Same here. I am using FreeBSD on desktop as my main OS over a decade. Have gradually upgraded the system as FreeBSD and ports have evolved and today I have several independent installations. No big problems so far and it can only get better from here.
 
Also, I suppose FreeBSD beats macOS and Windows 10 by default as a superior desktop solution in those poorer countries where access to modern hardware is awkward.
The problem is Windows gets used as unlicensed version and that has the effect of others getting introduced and used to Windows. I broke this cycle in my Family, except for some, most of my brothers use GNU/Linux(Some version of *buntu).

Regarding the packages being available offline, I think Debian(with multiple discs), SilTaz(entire repo) and PC-BSD(with PBIs) have solved it to some extent. Things like AppImage resolved this to the end, but the adoption is not much. Sad to see PC-BSD go away, it had good aims.

Btw, AppImage creator has started developing 'hello' based on FreeBSD. :)

 
Interesting thread. I don't care about "bloat": on disk size or memory usage because the hardware I buy is always far greater than I will ever use. I care about functionality. Interestingly enough, On FreeBSD, I always used CWM or Fluxbox because it just felt right. On Linux, I always used KDE because it was a Swiss Army knife.

I no longer use either as a desktop because frankly I need (and want) everything to just work and to have access to cloud data across multiple systems. OCD has a bit to do with this as well and I have solved this by taking my choices away because in the FOSS world, there are too many for me to be "settled". I exclusively use MacOS for desktops and run FreeBSD in a VM for my "lab". This was difficult for me since I have been using FOSS software and operating systems since 1998.

I do use Windows 10 as well, but only as a gaming platform and have a dedicated machine for this. I dislike using it for anything else.

Not saying FreeBSD, or Linux for that matter, are not desktop capable, just that I tired of trying to make disparate platforms talk to each other, dealing with minor breakages of things from time to time and never having data integration between phones and desktops. I know these things can be worked around but I don't want to anymore.
 
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Perhaps of interest:
Thanks yes interesting. No I am no expert but seems like the FreeBSD copyright explains what happens to the code. So to me looks a lot like complaining. I am certainly glad he is smart enough to code. So I am glad he can help himself and others make way in the world. I don't think he needs to explain or complain about anything. It's his right to contribute or not. It his right to find someone who will pay him or not. If he makes code and contributes it he should realize it's not really his anymore. Its like letting go of a balloon you blew your breath into it floats along until someone pops it. Where did your breath go..
Well, the short-hand version is - I used to bend over backwards to try and get stuff in to stable releases of the open source software I once worked on. And that was taken advantage of by a lot of people and companies who turned around to incorporate that work into successful commercial software releases without any useful financial contribution to either myself or the project as a whole.
What did he think would happen? Did he misunderstand Greed and Pride? The other thing is there is another side of the copyright. The legal protection of his code harming someone or something and him getting sued. I could be wrong here but a volunteer is just that a volunteer.

Like said I am not a coder I wish I was that smart. I think all coders are great. However if you code something and give it away. Its given away.
 
I don't think (IMHO) "given away" is the right phrase. In the FOSS world, coders work for the greater good of the community. This is why FOSS exists in the first place. It's a successful development model and if you look at server software on a planetary scale, FOSS runs the Internet. No other commercial software even comes close.

Even though I am a commercial OS user, I am still a firm believer in the FOSS development model.
 
I don't think (IMHO) "given away" is the right phrase.
I love FOSS to and agree its a successful development model. So what is FOSS? What does Free Open Source Software mean? Is it Free to see, free to read, free to reuse? Free to steal, free to loan, free to re type. I mean my point is if you choose the BSD Copyright what is prohibited?(more of a rhetorical statement for clarity) I mean you either contributed (gave it away) for the greater good or not?
Even though I am a commercial OS user, I am still a firm believer in the FOSS development model.
Me to. Totally a believer. I just think some people change their mind once money steps in... I also think some forget the community is everyone with a keyboard and Eyes.. which includes people who "used the code for commercial reasons"
 
Let's leave aside the wifi, bluetooth and suspend to ram issues. They are all boring on a desktop that's not a laptop. They are important for desktop on a Laptop, but irrelevant for desktop on my NUC.

The biggest issue for me that keeps me from using FreeBSD even in that environment is the upper layers. It's the same thing that keeps me using MacOS and not Linux or FreeBSD. It starts with the fact that there's no way to have universal cut and past with the same keys like you can on mac. Mac's COMMAND-C/COMMAND-V is universal. No desktop environment I've found has one that's universal. There's no way to globally set a cut and paste key and most of the envs try to follow CONTROL-C / CONTROL-V which is a terrible match for using shells to remove systems (which is why terminal programs change this)... The other commands are a crazy bodged together set of standards (we use ALT For this, but SHIFT-CTRL for that) due to historical (and now largely irrelevant) responsibilities and a strategy of avoiding conflicts by creating hassle. People that have tried to 'fix' this have done great things, but the instructions are always including changing the key bindings on a per-program basis until the problem is solved well enough. Time consuming and fragile....

So I can use my NUC just fine, but it won't replace my Mac as a daily driver because of these sorts of issues. My NUC makes a great console server when I'm popping between systems, doing some light programming or web surfing, but for anything serious the inconsistencies are rage inducing...
 
fact that there's no way to have universal cut and past with the same keys like you can on mac
This is demonstrably not true. I copy-paste in both FreeBSD and Linux without any problem. Between apps, into terminal emulator, back to apps.

If you're saying that the keys are not universal -- meaning ctl-c in Firefox to copy and shift-insert in xterm to paste, for example -- then that's true, but IMO that's far short of a deal breaker. These are just tiny adjustments to muscle-memory. To each their own I suppose.
 
Out of all the desktop issues with free operating systems, I can't say that copy and paste is one of them. If anything, the UNIX-like middle click approach is very reliable.

Contrast this to Windows where it is ctrl-c/v for most things, except the command prompt where it is enter and right mouse. Bizarre. Luckily Microsoft are slowly catching up to modern computing and creating a much more appropriate command prompt that they plan to rent out to us.
 
I never had problems copying or pasting in FreeBSD or Linux. I always used modmap (?) to change the middle click to one of the side buttons on my 200 button mouse 🤣 to paste. Easy to use and worked great.
 
My OpenBSD machines wifi is always sporadic so I often to have to bring the wireless down & back up again.
Unfortunately, there are problems with USB wifi devices in OpenBSD, but there are some few that work good.

I don know what is the case in FreeBSD, I always use the same run device.
 
Generally, I've found FreeBSD wireless to be slower than Linux, but still fast enough to watch youtube videos. with no issue. By the way, to the Original Poster, you might want to edit the title of the thread as you mistyped "think" as "tink".

Anyway, each person has different desktop needs. I have been FreeBSD both as my main work and home desktop without problem for several years.
You can now, (admittedly using linux emulation) watch Netflix and Amazon prime for example, which you couldn't do before.

There's no simple answer. If you're a developer with time, you can look at something that you need that isn't there and try to create it, but for most of us, that's not at all realistic.
 
Xorg up and running using less than 100 MiB of RAM. Does everything a computer can do. Why should I get some bloated DE? This is not a rhetorical question. I really would like to know.
I used to run Xwindows on a 386-40 with 4MB of RAM. It ran very badly. Part of the problem was swapping; part of the problem was lack of FPU, which is needed for font rendering. I fixed that by buying a 387 floating point processor, but the machine was still barely usable due to lack of RAM. So I upgraded to a 486-25 with 16MB, and it worked acceptably. But: At that time, the only three apps that I ran on the desktop were: xclock (so I knew what time it was), xterm (for doing work, reading mail, copying data), and a huge/complex/powerful data analysis package called PAW (it later turned into ROOT, which still exists and is in use). There was no web browser at the time. Matter-of-fact, there were darn few web sites; ftp was still using 100x more traffic than http on the internet. This must have been 1994. The idea of playing live video on a computer was laughable; playing short music clips (.wav files) was at the edge of what was doable.

So: It is perfectly possible to run one or a few graphical applications that are written for a narrow use case on a small machine. The problem is that today's DEs have a much higher workload, and that is for good reason. For example, the machine I'm typing this on has 16Gig, but it also has about 50 tabs open in two web browsers (most tasks like e-mail, chat, communication are now done in web browsers), it's running a database client, a big data/analytics program, I'm monitoring a few dozen batch jobs (which are running on tens of thousands of CPUs in some data center), plus I have a youtube window in some corner for my music enjoyment.

In fact, macOS probably wouldn't even boot on that machine. and yet it is very popular as a consumer desktop operating system.

Yes, it may seem obvious as to why (Apple wants money) ...
You don't understand Apple. They don't sell you a laptop (like the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on). They also don't sell you an OS (like the MacOS I'm typing this on). Nor a telephone or tablet (which I don't use) and the associated OS, nor a cloud service for serving music or storing data. What they sell you is the complete package of many (or all) of these things. If you could buy MacOS as a separate product, and run it on arbitrary hardware, then you'd be right to complain that it wouldn't even boot. Similarly, MacBooks are not intended to be run with other OSes (even though it is technically possible). If you stay in the "walled garden" of using the Apple ecosystem, then you will have a really good computing experience (at least I think so). If that walled garden is not what you want, or you need/want/desire stuff that's outside the walled garden, then you are not the appropriate customer for Apple's mindset.

You misunderstand. There's a difference between simply asking for donations or contributed work, and doing work with the expectation that people should give back or give you money for it. The FreeBSD Foundation does none of the latter. There is a clause in the BSD license that states those who use BSD licensed software to acknowledge the author of the original work involved. That is all someone needs.
The BSD license is not what holds back the usability of FreeBSD on the desktop. I think the reason is lack of investment. Building a seamless desktop/laptop system, from hardware support through user interface standards and a large stable of useful and usable applications takes an enormous amount of manpower. Hundreds or thousands or perhaps tenthousand people in engineering and engineering management. Microsoft and Apple have those people, and use the profits from selling it to pay for the staff. Linux has that to a smaller extent, the best example being RedHat (which has thousands of engineers working to make Linux better).

One thing we must not forget: The vast majority of engineering that happens for Linux is done by paid staff. People who work fulltime and get a paycheck to make Linux better. Many of them work for RedHat, Suse and so on. Some are paid by the various foundations and non-profits (like the Linux Foundation). But the bulk of them work for companies such as Intel, IBM, Oracle, ... who use Linux, and need to see it function. As an example, look at the Wikipedia page for "Linux Technology Center": Already in 2006 (15 years ago), IBM had 300 people working full-time on Linux development, and already by 2000 (about 8 or 9 years after Linux was born), it had invested a billion (not million) $ into Linux improvements. Amateurs, hobbyists and enthusiasts are a tiny or irrelevant part of the Linux ecosystem.

Obviously, the situation for FreeBSD is different. How many hundreds or thousands of people get a fulltime paycheck for working on the FreeBSD desktop environment? Duh, zero.

In my biased opinion open source in general isn't ready for the desktop.

Simply because it requires you - as a programmer - to think outside your own bubble and try to imagine what others might want from it.
Absolutely correct. Many engineering decisions in open source (even in commercially paid open source) are driven by engineers: I want to build this, I want to work on that. This is particularly true for efforts (such as the BSDs) that rely mostly on volunteers. At companies like Apple or Microsoft (or IBM or Oracle) the decision making is completely different: What do our users = customers want? How can we make our users happy? How can we get them to love our product so much that they will buy it again and again? This means a lot of decisions will be made by user interface researchers, by marketing people who tend to understand the users (and their personal and business needs and wants), by product managers. The individual engineer implements what they are ordered to implement.

Wait a second... Revenue and open source? ;)
There is lots of revenue and profit in open source. Exhibit 1: Look at IBM buying RedHat for many billions. But you don't get revenue nor profit by giving the source code away and selling nothing else. RedHat sold support, and made a huge amount of money. IBM sells support, hardware, the whole computing ecosystem; giving a few million lines of Linux source code away per year doesn't change that business model.

Personally I highly value 2 kinds of environments. I'll take FreeBSD over Windows as a server any day of the week, but having said that I also heavily prefer Windows 10 over FreeBSD (or any other X based desktop) as a client OS just as strongly.
Agree, except that I happen to prefer MacOS as a laptop OS. But I ran with Windows on my work laptop for about 15 years, and I wasn't terribly unhappy. And I can totally see that other people find Windows a good choice for their preferences, habits, and workflows.
 
The problem is that today's DEs have a much higher workload, and that is for good reason.
What has DE to do with workload? My machine has also 16 GB of RAM, it runs virtual machines and web browsers. I do not need a bloated DE for this.
 
Sorry, the term "workload" was wrong. Today's DE have much more complexity, and they have to run many more things simultaneously.
 
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