is it true that freebsd15 get kde as default?

Don't bet on it.

KDE is a popular graphical DE, and it's got up-to-date version available in Ports Collection, and it's easy to install (if you follow the instructions as outlined in the User Handbook) - but no, don't count on it being a 'default'.

Same can be said for all other DE's like GNOME, XFCE, Enlightenment, you name it.
 
Alain De Vos said:
It's just an option in the installer. So no big deal ...
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, it is a big deal when the difference is a few GB in download size, and a need for a more powerful processor (and more RAM) to run the graphical installer at all. Yeah, the FreeBSD project does offer small-sized stuff like mini-memstick or bootonly, but it does take paying attention to what you're getting.

Yep, the devil is in the details! 😆
 
Alain De Vos said:
It's just an option in the installer. So no big deal ...
Click to expand...


well, it is still important for me.
more easier, yep.
;)

i really want a stable, free and “whole one” system to run.

not like Linux, so many distribution. (piece by piece)
not like windows, it's capital stuff.


most of people just do office thing with PC.
(this is the normal life.)
 
If fully featured (including BlueTooth supports and any other functionalities that FreeBSD doesn't support and/or not yet good at) KDE is possible, it would be much benefical for other DEs in ports. But really possible in time of 15.0?!
 
Ilovehotdog said:
wow,finally, freebsd will link into nomal guys.
Click to expand...
🤪 ...interesting definition of no(r)mal: KDE unavoidable by default.
If so I prefer to stay an eccentric maniac.

Ilovehotdog said:
i really want a stable, free and “whole one” system to run.
Click to expand...
Then pick one Linux distro - the right one for you. MacOS was also a choice. Or Windows. (It's pretty stable these days; we're not dealing with 95/98 anymore.)

What's wrong with them?
Let me guess: None of those are precisely what you're looking for to the point exactly.
Well, then I have bad news for you, normal one:
Welcome to reality!
You can chose between two options, and two options, only:
1. Customize your individually tailored operating system suit your wishes best - which FreeBSD was for. That means you need to learn how to customize it, and then - yeah - do it yourself. :eek:
Or
2. If you want an operating system everything prechosen, preconfigured, preinstalled, autoinstalling, autoconfiguring, autochosen served on a silver platter, you always have to compromise.
Today there is a large number of choices, you may pick from. And if KDE is so important to you, well, even on several Linux distros without KDE by default, you can chose and install it anyway.

But you cannot have both.
Nobody is going to produce an infinite number of turn-key operating systems (distributions) until by chance there will be one that fit your personal wishes exactly to the point.
Well, at least not the abnormal ones. Because they are not that arrogant to think everybody else have to like their personal favorite flavor.

By all the "specs" you're given her, and by all I know for you best choice was openSUSE
If may not the exact bullseye match (but what was?), but it comes closest to what you're looking for:
It's a whole system in one, also provides all open source packages, comes with all the most popular ones already preinstalled (browser, several mediaplayers, LibreOffice, Gimp, games... a lot of stuff!), its package installer comes with a GUI, comes as turn-key autoinstalling, autoconfiguring, almost all graphic adapters are detected and installed right, KDE is default, others can be also picked from the GUI installation menu, everything by mouse clicky-clicky, it's free, it's really stable, and one of the oldest Linux distros there are (way older than Ubuntu, and more professional), so sophisticated, and mature. 👍

For the "rest" - with one short sentence a normal one can produce the need for one abnormal one's explanation over a long post. *sigh* ...once more - again (I'm getting tired of this):

IF any it will become an option in the installation menu.
FreeBSD will for sure not install a prechosen DE automatically by default.

Explanation:
1. Auto-GUI by default - a most stupid idea.
2. about KDE

1. Auto-GUI by default - a most stupid idea.

FreeBSD is NOT "another kind of a single user desktop turn key Linux distribution", neither wants to become one,
but a multipurpose operating system.
This means it is also for headless servers, and multiuser servers with GUI support, and single user desktops with GUI, and single user desktops without GUI, and multiuser desktops, and embedded systems, and firewalls, and NAS,...and, and, and... - anything you can think of you could run FreeBSD on - with and without GUI.

A GUI installation by default would kill all that, and reduce FreeBSD to a GUI desktop OS, only.
Especially the GUI-less server application field is a large enchilada for FreeBSD. Some even say FreeBSD was for servers only, which is also wrong.

And this will not be skipped just to free some KDE loving noobs from the unfreaking monstrous hard hackers only burden to install a GUI by themselves, if wanted.

{put on black hat}
{start hardcore hacking /* reading the handbook, and copy-paste from it */}
a) install X:
pkg install xorg
pkg install drm-kmod (the GPU kernel module ("driver", for Windows users))
add a line into /etc/rc.conf to load the right kernel module (see hb)
b) decide for and pick at least one DE/WM (most difficult task, but for you already done: KDE)
c) install it:
pkg install [packagename of your chosen DE/WM]
done.
{remove black hat}

You may bring the point:"Well then all systems not needing a GUI, or don't want KDE, have to deinstall it again."
So, all installations get KDE by default, then deinstall it again?
Besides many systems don't even have a real GPU, which was a requirement for a successful installation with a GUI by default, the majority neither need/want any GUI at all, and especially not KDE!

KDE is the most popular DE. That's right. As far as I know among all desktop environments (DE) with ~20% it's by far the largest slice of all GUIs. Gnome on second place already comes with less than 10% (Don't nail me on the exact numbers. It's just roughly by what I remembered by what I saw in some statistics.) Xfce - also a big one - comes around at maybe 2..3% of all DEs. The percentage for Xfce may differ if you compare the numbers over all open source operating system with the numbers of FreeBSD usage, because under FreeBSD it's more popular than under Linux. It's very good. I used and loved it myself for a couple of years. LXDE is also worth a try, like i3, twm, CDE, fvwm...(and I'm pretty sure I missed THE one 😁 :cool:)
What does this tell you?
1. KDE is largest ✔️
2. There are - way - more than just half a dozen DE/WM. And all are used and loved by some. That's choice. That's real existing individual customazition lived. That's freedom. Only the operating systems not autoinstalling a prechosen DE support that liberty, since it's pointless to write a DE/WM for an operating system whose GUI cannot, or be changed with effort - which most then will not do.
3. But above all 20% for KDE means 80% are not using KDE - and don't want it at all.

Additionally respecting the fact that app. 50% (probably it's even more) of all FreeBSD applications are without any GUI at all (servers, embedded,...) for FreeBSD means you would make ~10% (newcomers AND KDE lovers, not certain if they stay) happy, at the price to piss off ~90% long year trusty users, willing to stay as long as such BS not become reality.
That was a really bad deal. That would almost kill FreeBSD.
So, it's not going to happen.

2. about KDE
I know KDE since its dawn.
KDE's origin idea was to create a most Windows-like GUI for to make users who come from Windows and want to join Linux easier to accustom.
In my eyes a most stupid idea, for two reasons:

a) Changing something to make it easier for newcomers is always too short sighted. Make things easier always means to reduce choices, so lose potential. So, you're going to downgrade your system just to gather newcomers. While sooner or later everbody have to deal with the real thing, anyway. In a very short term it may work. But for sure it will backfire already in the mid term. And in the long term you killed your system. (This post already is too long to give a list of examples. But there are several.)
Postponing learning effort does neither reduce learning effort, nor makes it easier, it simply just postpones it, only.

b) Windows sucks!
I worked with Windows 3.11, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, and 7.
One main crucial core point for me to leave Windows (not to be confused with coming to FreeBSD) was its GUI sucks.
It's weird, illogical, confusing "structured", contains many useless redundances, which make it even more incalculable. By default it's noisy, blinky, looks like somebody threw a handgrenade into a candy shop, and annoys with lots of unasked, unwanted, useless pop-up windows.
From a pure GUI point of view from somebody who learned about UI design at university Windows is the worst crap(!) there is. And when I look at 8, 10, or 11 I'm so happy I left it with 7. Because my fears are proven: It became even worse.

So, in my eyes it's a most stupid idea to copy that.
Especially when the underlying operating system is changed.
And particulary when there already are sevral other DE/WM which are exemplary for how it can be done better - even long before Microsoft came with their first GUI at all.

Additionally KDE is a giant package. Besides LibreOffice, which comes with most (all?) KDE installations by default, it's one of the largest things to be installed I know.

Plus a default KDE installation brings a lot of redundancies.
I don't need eight of each desktop calculators, editors, mediaplayers, paint programs,.... I need one each.
And a lot of stuff is installed with KDE by default I don't need, I don't want at all; e.g. the games - minesweeper clone? 😴

I can understand when people like and use KDE. Okay.
But - please - let me (and many others) alone with that.. - it!
 
Keep in mind that GhostBSD already exists, and offers a nice desktop experience. I find myself conflicted in this. I prefer the current setup, I think it takes me 6 minutes to go through the install whereas a GUI installer like Fedora takes longer. (And even with Fedora, I do a minimal install and add X afterwards). I would like FreeBSD to become more popular, because it would mean more hardware and software support. In a way, the fragmentation of Linux helped everyone. Ubuntu came along and was pretty good for a long while, and it really helped raise Linux awareness. IMHO, it's gotten bad in a lot of ways, but that's a different rant.
Anyway, because of its popularity, a lot more hardware and software vendors started paying attention to Linux. At the time, I vaguely remember reading, part of it was due to Shuttleworth's success in other businesses. Anyway, the point is, that due to this, a lot of vendors began adding Linux support, which wound up helping not only Ubuntu, but more minimalist Linuxes (Linii?) like Arch.

That never really happened with PCBSD and whatever its successors were called, but it would be nice if it happened with GhostBSD. That's my ideal, I guess. Let a BSD based thing become trendy, so that FreeBSD, as it is now, gets more vendors supporting it.
 
Maturin said:
🤪 ...interesting definition of no(r)mal: KDE unavoidable by default. If so I prefer to stay an eccentric maniac. Then pick one Linux distro - the right one for you. MacOS was also a choice. Or Windows. (It's pretty stable these days; we're not dealing with 95/98 anymore.) What's wrong with them? Let me guess: None of those are precisely what you're looking for to the point exactly. Well, then I have bad news for you, normal one: Welcome to reality! You can chose between two options, and two options, only: 1. Customize your individually tailored operating system suit your wishes best - which FreeBSD was for. That means you need to learn how to customize it, and then - yeah - do it yourself. :eek: Or 2. If you want an operating system everything prechosen, preconfigured, preinstalled, autoinstalling, autoconfiguring, autochosen served on a silver platter, you always have to compromise. Today here is a large numer of choices, you may pick from. And if KDE is so important to you, well, even on several Linux distros without KDE by default, you can chose and install it anyway. But you cannot have both. Nobody is going to produce an infinite number of turn-key operating systems (distributions) until by chance there will be one that fit your personal wishes exactly to the point. Well, at least not the abnormal ones. Because they are not that arrogant to think everybody else have like their personal favorite flavor. By all the "specs" you're given her, and by all I know for you best choice was openSUSE If may not the exact bullseye match (but what was?), but it comes closest to what you're looking for: It's a whole system in one, also provides all open source packages, comes with all the most popular ones already preinstalled (browser, several mediaplayers, LibreOffice, Gimp, games... a lot of stuff!), its package installer comes with a GUI, comes as turn-key autoinstalling, autoconfiguring, almost all graphic adapters are detected and installed right, KDE is default, others can be also picked from the GUI installation menu, everything by mouse clicky-clicky, it's free, it's really stable, and one of the oldest Linux distros there are (way older than Ubuntu, and more professional), so sophisticated, and mature. 👍 For the "rest" - with one short sentence a normal one can produce the need for one abnormal one's explanation over a long post. *sigh* ...once more - again (I'm getting tired of this): IF any it will become an option in the installation menu. FreeBSD will for sure not install a prechosen DE automatically by default. Explanation: 1. Auto-GUI by default - a most stupid idea. 2. about KDE 1. Auto-GUI by default - a most stupid idea. FreeBSD is NOT "another kind of a single user desktop turn key Linux distribution", neither wants to become one, but a multipurpose operating system. This means it is also for headless servers, and multiuser servers with GUI support, and single user desktops with GUI, and single user desktops without GUI, and multiuser desktops, and embedded systems, and firewalls, and NAS,...and, and, and... - anything you can think of you could run FreeBSD on - with and without GUI. A GUI installation by default would kill all that, and reduce FreeBSD to a GUI desktop OS, only. Especially the GUI-less server application field is a large enchilada for FreeBSD. Some even say FreeBSD was for servers only, which is also wrong. And this will not be skipped just to free some KDE loving noobs from the unfreaking monstrous hard hackers only burden to install a GUI by themselves, if wanted. {put on black hat} {start hardcore hacking /* reading the handbook, and copy-paste from it */} a) install X: pkg install xorg pkg install drm-kmod (the GPU kernel module ("driver", for Windows users)) add a line into /etc/rc.conf to load the right kernel module (see hb) b) decide for and pick at least one DE/WM (most difficult task, but for you already done: KDE) c) install it: pkg install [packagename of your chosen DE/WM] done. {remove black hat} You may bring the point:"Well then all systems not needing a GUI, or don't want KDE, have to deinstall it again." So, all installations get KDE by default, then deinstall it again? Besides many systems don't even have a real GPU, which was a requirement for a successful installation with a GUI by default, the majority neither need/want any GUI at all, and especially not KDE! KDE is the most popular DE. That's right. As far as I know among all desktop environments (DE) with ~20% it's by far the largest slice of all GUIs. Gnome on second place already comes with less than 10% (Don't nail me on the exact numbers. It's just roughly by what I remembered by what I saw in some statistics.) Xfce - also a big one - comes around at maybe 2..3% of all DEs. The percentage for Xfce may differ if you compare the numbers over all open source operating system with the numbers of FreeBSD usage, because under FreeBSD it's more popular than under Linux. It's very good. I used and loved it myself for a couple of years. LXDE is also worth a try, like i3, twm, CDE, fvwm...(and I'm pretty sure I missed THE one 😁 :cool:) What does this tell you? 1. KDE is largest ✔️ 2. There are - way - more than just half a dozen DE/WM. And all are used and loved by some. That's choice. That's real existing individual customazition lived. That's freedom. Only the operating systems not autoinstalling a prechosen DE support that liberty, since it's pointless to write a DE/WM for an operating system whose GUI cannot, or be changed with effort - which most then will not do. 3. But above all 20% for KDE means 80% are not using KDE - and don't want it at all. Additionally respecting the fact that app. 50% (probably it's even more) of all FreeBSD applications are without any GUI at all (servers, embedded,...) for FreeBSD means you would make ~10% (newcomers AND KDE lovers, not certain if they stay) happy, at the price to piss off ~90% long year trusty users, willing to stay as long as such BS not become reality. That was a really bad deal. That would almost kill FreeBSD. So, it's not going to happen. 2. about KDE I know KDE since its dawn. KDE's origin idea was to create a most Windows-like GUI for to make users who come from Windows and want to join Linux easier to accustom. In my eyes a most stupid idea, for two reasons: a) Changing something to make it easier for newcomers is always too short sighted. Make things easier always means to reduce choices, so lose potential. So, you're going to downgrade your system just to gather newcomers. While sooner or later everbody have to deal with the real thing, anyway. In a very short term it may work. But for sure it will backfire already in the mid term. And in the long term you killed your system. (This post already is too long to give a list of examples. But there are several.) Postponing learning effort does neither reduce learning effort, nor makes it easier, it simply just postpones it, only. b) Windows sucks! I worked with Windows 3.11, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, and 7. One main crucial core point for me to leave Windows (not to be confused with coming to FreeBSD) was its GUI sucks. It's weird, illogical, confusing "structured", contains many useless redundances, which make it even more incalculable. By default it's noisy, blinky, looks like somebody threw a handgrenade into a candy shop, and annoys with lots of unasked, unwanted, useless pop-up windows. From a pure GUI point of view from somebody who learned about UI design at university Windows is the worst crap(!) there is. And when I look at 8, 10, or 11 I'm so happy I left it with 7. Because my fears are proven: It became even worse. So, in my eyes it's a most stupid idea to copy that. Especially when the underlying operating system is changed. And particulary when there already are sevral other DE/WM which are exemplary for how it can be done better - even long before Microsoft came with their first GUI at all. Additionally KDE is a giant package. Besides LibreOffice, which comes with most (all?) KDE installations by default, it's one of the largest things to be installed I know. Plus a default KDE installation brings a lot of redundancies. I don't need eight of each desktop calculators, editors, mediaplayers, paint programs,.... I need one each. And a lot of stuff is installed with KDE by default I don't need, I don't want at all; e.g. the games - minesweeper clone? 😴 I can understand when people like and use KDE. Okay. But - please - let me alone with that.. - it!
Click to expand...




in fact, even debian are pieces.:-/( or, one true thing, all Linux distribution are pieces.)

normal guy just need a choice to get official GUI.
well, if “Stuff like plugging in an external drive r/w, phone MTP, and wifi connections.”, it be much better.
 
Gentoo has some weird ways in their OS install philosophy, but I think that their way with profile list, choosing one that suits you and then eselect profile set [number_of_your_choice] before emerge --update * @world is actually smart and a fair one.

I’m not saying that FreeBSD installer should do it that way, but maybe after installing network and bringing it up, installer could offer number of choices (display server, compositor, WM/DE) to download from the pkg repo and install them (with needed changes in various config files, as per choice). If install is on machine that will not go to the internet, good chance is that DE is not needed.

IMHO that will be more ‘democratic’; personally, I do like X11/KDE, but many don’t, and besides this way install image will not grow to ridicules size.
 
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Ilovehotdog said:
normal guy just need a choice to get official GUI.
well, if “Stuff like plugging in an external drive r/w, phone MTP, and wifi connections.”, it be much better.
Click to expand...
Linux is more than debian (-based distros), or Ubuntu, only! A lot more. (Several, Gentoo, Fedora, Mint, are named here, but by far not all.)
Best chance you get best what you are looking for is at Linux, but for sure not here.
Really, try openSUSE!
It's not debian based, comes with KDE by default (as I already said), autodetecting/mounting external drives, bluethooth... all you want.
 
More important than the DE will be the various KDE apps and plugins, Fingers crossed it will be full featured desktop. I like XFCE but it is incomplete - unmounting NTFS drives needs cli and many other features do not work out of the box or at all or get broken at random intervals.

Having said that, FreeBSDs future is most likely not in Desktop. It has a chance to, in the meantime, as Linux bloats and clutters on system level (systemd, package management, snaps, flatpacks). But ultimately client/end device future belongs to microkernels - if only for ease of using myriad of drivers.
Server will belong to FreeBSD....once the Docker phase implodes, thanks to it's poor security design.
 
Maturin said:
Really, try openSUSE!
It's not debian based, comes with KDE by default (as I already said), autodetecting/mounting external drives, bluethooth... all you want.
Click to expand...
I had bad experience with openSUSE (luckily, just testing in VM) – I admit, entirely my fault. It was my first contact with btrfs, I knew jack about it, snapshots filled up vmdk, and I stupidly used regular rm to make some space, not knowing that btrfs is like zfs in that regard, so I successfully brickified that VM 🤦‍♂️

Personally, 3rd OS on my desktop is Alt Sisyphus (X11/KDE, btrfs, apt-get/rpm based), running it for ~6 months now and its rock stable, easy to maintain and upgrade, but there will be no support if user is not from .ru (as I’m not).

Fedora also looks like good choice, especially for building software, their rpmbuild macros for .spec can be considered as standard for rpm distros. That’s also reason I don’t like Debian, what’s built on Debian will work only there and eventually on Ubuntu and nowhere else, they have very strange policy about which and how to link libs.

And, at the end, my advice to OP: invest some time to learn about FreeBSD, it’s not that hard and it will make your life much better in the long run 😁
 
vmisev said:
I had bad experience with openSUSE
Click to expand...
By all my experience I had with it, and by all I understand what the OP is looking for, I'd say for the OP it was best choice, at least to take a closer closer at it.

SUSE Linux - back then there was just SUSE, long before it was splitted into a commercial tree, and the free version became openSUSE - was my first real contact with any other OS besides Windows (after I switched from my Amiga 2000 to it, and the university shut down the dozen public Sun Solaris stations they provided. Well, also DOS in the 1980s, just to be complete. But does this really count? 😁) Parallel (before? can't remember anymore) I had bought a cardboard box full of 3,5"-diskettes of Red Hat Linux. With those private internet accesses of these days normal - sorry, abnormal persons like me could afford, you didn't download such large amounts of data. Better, quicker, easier, and often even cheaper was it to buy such things as diskettes. After many days slaving over the crappy documentation, not getting it installed at all, I tossed that into the garbage. Since then because of that "documentation" Red Hat still to me is a detestation. And it made me to react allergic to any sloppy documention, especially in Linux world.
When it's well documented, but I am just lazy to read, then it's my fault.
But leave customers/users in endless loops of trial, and error without any logic comprehendable success, or error messages is not the user's fault, but the laziness of those who think they are too good for doing documentation. I don't know, and I don't care for who they write software for besides themselves, but it's for sure not for me.

I also actually tried FreeBSD 4pointsomething back then - for app. 10 minutes. It came without a GUI installed by default 😂 I was young, stupid, impatient, had a lot of issues, but above all I knew nobody else using it, and the world-wide-web wasn't like it is today, and I wasn't really into that, so there was nobody who could tell me better, correct my mistakes, and encourage me - like this forums.

So, SUSE for me was my long year second OS, dual boot installation. But it never became #1. It never had a chance. I never got really warm with it. The main reason was KDE. As I already elaborated above it simply made no sense to me at all whatsover to flee from hated Windows to a Linux that tries to look, and feel the same.
Okay, there also was debian at that time. Sure, also already pretty mature (technically, for a Linux), the base for almost all Linux distros taken to be seriously. But debian... well,... besides several flaws, it ain't no newcomer's distro. You already have to bring a lot with you, to successfully get in. Again I faced many "documenation issues", not to say: for many crucial things there are no docu at all. And the community seemed just waiting for some "new idiots" those congenial hackers can make fun of, so stupid not grasping their genial system by native skills. Of course that was my personal experience twenty years ago. Maybe the debian community changed by now, or I simply got to the wrong people back then, and got it all wrong. May be. But to me debian is dead. It doesn't need me. And for sure I don't need it! fu, debian!
So, SUSE, again. As second choice. Never got really lucky with it. Then later Ubuntu came. I spare my rant about Ubuntu. It for sure has actually its rightful place. And as far as I may judge it's the best documented Linux distro, ever. Exemplary! (maybe SUSE, and others caught up. But I didn't took a closer look into any other Linux distro for almost ten years.) It's good Ubuntu is there - for others. But for me it's by far not what I was looking for.

Then it was clear Windows 7 will be shut down soon. I refused to take the free upgrade to 10, that was offered by Microsoft. I wanted to have as much time to stay with 7 as remain. Also to me that smelled like a trap. Microsoft never offered free upgrades to newer versions - at least not to common customers like me. And even if it was no trap, I was convinced by all my Windows experience so far, the next version will become even worse - by my standards. Which, in my eyes, became true (I'm so glad I switched in time! 🥳 🤞 - well, to be fair, I am also in the comfortable situation that I can chose my OS freely, not being forced by my employer to use it anymore.)
However, to me it was the motivation to finally start to leave Windows once and for all, which I hated since my first 95 machine.

So, I did some research to find one I would really start to dig in deeper. Which provides me what I was really looking for. GUI, yes please, of course. But for sure neither KDE, nor Gnome, nor Ubuntu's thing.
But above all a system I can "build" by myself by scratch anyway. Only what I need I install. The rest stays in some kind of repository until I chose to install it. And it has to be close to original Unix as possible. Because by my experience with my Amiga 2000, the Sun stations at U, and I all learned about OS so far, to me Unix is reference.
So, what alternatives there were? Linux, of course. But by all my personal experience I felt not that happy to chose that to dig in, unless I couldn't find something else.
Then I found: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, and NetBSD, and decided to gave them a closer look.
After a short evaluation process I decided according to my personal skills at that time, and wishes I had then, FreeBSD to me was the best choice.
So, I decided to dig in. Myself. Looking how far I will come with the documentation there is. And it is.
I already was using FreeBSD for three years before I registered the first time to this forums.
Partially I moved more and more production to FreeBSD, until it became my first boot drive, and Windows 7 became second. Then I removed my Windows 7 Pro drive from my computer. And as the last bastion the Windows 7 Home drive fell, that I had for games, only.
There comes the point when one has to be consequent, that may include sacrifices. 😎

For six years - besides a XP image within VB for some 90's games (if you must know: post #44 in "which O.S. do you use ?") - I run FreeBSD only, on my desktop tower, my laptop, and my self built NAS in the attic.
And as long as FreeBSD will not come up with some BS, like installing KDE, or any GUI by default, I don't see why this will change.

If one says: "Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, and VLC player under KDE is all I need." Than this is Okay. Really!
But for that you also don't need to care about the underlying operating system. There are so many choices you can simply have this with less effort - just pick a turn-key OS that comes with KDE by default, and - voilá - there it is, all you want! There is no shame in it.
But if you are interested in the system - you wanna learn, understand, what's going on under all of it, you wanna configure everything into the very last detail yourself - at least have the opportunity in theory 🤓,... well, then this becomes a process. You don't only need, but freely, and unavoidably change your points of view, your wishes, interests, needs, requirements... your thinking about computers, and their usage in general will change over time. It's a development.
I started on FreeBSD with LXDE, then changed to Xfce, now I'm running fvwm2, and currently I'm thinking of switching to twm, i3, herbstluft, or spectrewm. I removed my last filemanager several years ago, and soon will stop my Thunderbird usage as my e-mail client and calendar after twentyfive years. Besides the firefox browser, I move more and more into the shell. Deinstall more GUI apps as I install such.
For Windows- or hardcore GUI-only users this may look like I'm downgrading. But I'm not. I never learned, and knew so much about computers as in the last years, since I use FreeBSD.
I just have other needs now. If I wanna know what 4 times 4 is I simply need to know it's 16. If the shell prints me that number with bc, wcalc, or any other shell-calculator, which btw. are way more powerful than any desktop calculator, I don't care if it's not in some fancy graphics, looking like some LCD. That's a silly toys to me. Today. Thirty years ago I saw it quite the opposite way. :cool:
It's a personal process, it's actually progress.

To me FreeBSD is a system you need to be interested in operating systems, be willing, and ready for personal progress, which means learning, which means change of requirements. Be open to learn not to put too much value into expendable, pure optical things. Priorities will change.
FreeBSD already may feel as a large step, if one ain't not really ready for what awaits her or him on this journey.

And, again, nobody has to take this journey anyway.
At FreeBSD are many greybeards, even if they are almost twenty years old, and have no gey hair at all, yet. They almost all are willing to help on swimming classes. But for sure no greybeard throws it all away, and steps back into the shallow warm urine soaked non-swimmers basin, just because for some noobs the water seems too deep, and cold.😁

(well, this post had been better under Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you chose FreeBSD but then the OP had probably missed it. 😁)
 
I like to install a clean system, as the current bsdinstall does. Then I like to install my favorite graphical environment, and then fine-tune the system to my liking in text configuration files. The GUI option in the installer is unnecessary.
 
Yampress said:
I like to install a clean system, as the current bsdinstall does. Then I like to install my favorite graphical environment, and then fine-tune the system to my liking in text configuration files. The GUI option in the installer is unnecessary.
Click to expand...
A lot of us have been doing that for a very long time. Presenting the option to install a desktop actually has historical precedent in the FreeBSD installer.
Me personally? I don't care if the option is there as long as the default is NO.

There are valid arguments as to "adding this makes the installer bigger" which is reasonable if one is burning installer to CD (size roughly 640MB if I'm remembering correctly), not a USB drive (Walmart has 64GB USB2.0 drives for $15 USD), so the size argument may not be completely accurate anymore.
But, if your bandwidth to the servers isn't great, then increasing the size matters.

More than a couple threads here on this topic
 
well,well,well.

i think it is the basis question at the root.

do freebsd want to run into normal guys or just live in “hacker” circle?

(i really install freebsd 5.4 before. and i also can do these thing with handbook again. but, i have no such time to do it again. yeah, i am 40 years old ，not 18 years old. )

mmm， let's see what happens in freebsd15.
i hear it be coming. (waiting for 3 months?)
 
Ilovehotdog said:
do freebsd want to run into normal guys or just live in “hacker” circle?
Click to expand...
False premise. Nothing proposed for 15 prevents either.
The installer presenting an option to install KDE? At worst annoying to the greybeards that know what they want.
To a newcomer? Oh let me try that maybe I can start being useful quicker.

The two are not mutually exclusive, it's not a zero sum game.
Why present it as such? That discredits everything.
 
vmisev said:
I had bad experience with openSUSE (luckily, just testing in VM) – I admit, entirely my fault. It was my first contact with btrfs, I knew jack about it, snapshots filled up vmdk, and I stupidly used regular rm to make some space, not knowing that btrfs is like zfs in that regard, so I successfully brickified that VM 🤦‍♂️
Click to expand...
openSUSE is what I use with Linux!
  • Their Leap LiveUSB has automatic persistence and works nice for wiping drives before OS wipes, Windows registry editing/recovery, etc
  • Tumbleweed rolls with an easy set-up, GUI options (GNOME, Plasma/KDE, Xfce, minimal), and I can still do single-partition root ext4
  • I used the Leap LiveUSB to mount FreeBSD UFS no problem
I use GNOME on Tumbleweed; Xfce's more fun to set-up from scratch on FreeBSD :p
 
I kind of feel like some folks are getting unnecessarily irked. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a LinuxMint-ish experience with FreeBSD, but I also don't think, considering resources available, that it's going to happen. I think that it seems as if some folks have decided to put together a KDE option, and that if that is the case (I've only downloaded boot iso's and haven't seen it in snapshots), that it will be another option that won't hurt those of us who like a minimal install and like to build from there. I mean, that's what I do, when available, with the various distros of Linux that I play with, choose minimal install and then add on afterwards.
If the folks who want a Mint-ish Linux FreeBSD were forcing their views upon those who like the, err.. .traditional? FreeBSD, then I could see getting angry, but it doesn't seem to be that way. They're expressing what they think would be nice and I don't get the impression they're trying to force it on others, unless I've missed something--I haven't deeply read each post in the thread.
 
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