It is very tortuous install FreeBSD desktop

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This is against my better judgement, as it is getting a bit 'arguing on the internet'

You were quoting my post that was a comment to a user negatively generalizing about Linux by reading some title in some forum somewhere, and not speaking from personal experience. That was your first mistake if you don't want to "argue over the Internet". :confused:


It's definitely not a reach to suggest some things in Linux land aren't terribly reliable - it has always been the place where better can be the enemy of good.

Well, blanket statements that GRUB breaks too often in Linux, without saying it breaks in a bleeding edge rolling release distribution which is by design in constant state of semi-broken (especially from the standpoint of someone using FreeBSD because of its stability etc.), is just FUD. See, one argument in "*BSD vs Linux" (and the "vs" thing seems to be prevalent in this thread so it's pretty much relevant) is that the said *BSD is just one distribution and Linuxes are many. Funny how that argument conveniently disappears when a problem in ONE of the Linuxes (especially in an unstable-by-design one) is being generalized to all of them.
 
I'm not sure whether the recent discussion contributes to the original question, in particular as that user seems to have some experience with Linux (or at least with his distribution) anyway.

While I can understand the occasional (halfway friendly grinning) sniping at Linux this FreeBSD forum should (in my minds eye, anyway) not be a tribunal accusing or defending Linux. In the end it's not helpful anyway because neither is it FreeBSD's desire to keep anyone away from other operating systems nor can anyone be convinced by accusation-defense to and fro.

It is my understanding that FreeBSD's guiding principle is to stay sharp and to get even better; the major motivation is not to be better than xyz but rather to be the best FreeBSD can be, we act for FreeBSD and not against xyz.

I personally don't like Linux. But I see perfectly well that there are many things for which we should be grateful toward Linux. Having lots of insight into many hardware devices that we had to painfully reverse engineer previously comes to mind as an example. Or, even better, having many hardware companies actually thinking about other systems than Windows only. Even the pool of people interested in Unixoids or, even better, capable of contributing has very significantly increased thanks to Linux.

Linux, like everything, has its brighter and its darker sides (and so does FreeBSD). And it's certainly one of the more interesting and potent players on the field. In the end the best OS is the one that serves you well.
 
...the major motivation is not to be better than xyz but rather to be the best FreeBSD can be, we act for FreeBSD and not against xyz.

A frequent aphorism on this board is 'FreeBSD is not Linux'. It is usually written in a seemingly offhand, abrasive context, but there is an almost Zen-like wisdom to it.

When you come to FreeBSD from Linux, the problem (I think) is a tendency to want it to be the same, or to try and make it feel the same, and it is tempting because much of it feels so familiar to a Linux user. In reality you need to treat it like a new city, a new home. It's only superficially similar.

Interestingly I think the same thinking inhabits Windows refugees and this is plaguing Linux development right now; it's an idea that has come up a few times on the Gentoo boards. Recent and future developments (systemd's strong desktop focus and binary black-box approach) is perhaps the unwitting recreation of Windows, or at least Windows culture.

It's curious how we subconsciously re-invent the wheel.
 
While I can understand the occasional (halfway friendly grinning) sniping at linux this FreeBSD forum should (in my minds eye, anyway) not be a tribunal accusing or defending linux.

I don't mind when Linux is getting flak, there are a lot of things in the GNU/Linux ecosystem that deserves a lot of it. But it grinds my gears when that flak is cherry picked or made up just to attack Linux and make FreeBSD any other system look better based on that, without any real merit. You know, like "AboutTheBSDs" does in the other direction and we all know how bad that looks. It absolutely doesn't serve the community, that's what bothers me.
 
Well, as an ex-ArchLinux five-years user I can say I had problems with GRUB as well. Rock & Roll!

Boot loaders are a kind of magic that drives me crazy.
 
FreeBSD as a desktop for years has run a lot smoother than Linux, even if it does take a lot of work to configure and lacks features.
 
A frequent aphorism on this board is 'FreeBSD is not Linux'. It is usually written in a seemingly offhand, abrasive context, but there is an almost Zen-like wisdom to it.

When you come to FreeBSD from Linux, the problem (I think) is a tendency to want it to be the same, or to try and make it feel the same, and it is tempting because much of it feels so familiar to a Linux user. In reality you need to treat it like a new city, a new home. It's only superficially similar.

Interestingly I think the same thinking inhabits Windows refugees and this is plaguing Linux development right now; it's an idea that has come up a few times on the Gentoo boards. Recent and future developments (systemd's strong desktop focus and binary black-box approach) is perhaps the unwitting recreation of Windows, or at least Windows culture.

It's curious how we subconsciously re-invent the wheel.

Yup, and it's only getting worse.

Also, it's ironic that Windows refugees seem to think Linux is any different in terms of "Freedom". It's pretty clear RedHat owns GNU/Linux at this point.
 
I hate Desktop Environment. I am using x11-wm/fvwm2 since 1996, firstly on Linux until 1999 and then on FreeBSD, and I am happy with that. I have sometime tried DE (KDE, Gnome, Xfce) and always returned to Fvwm.
Thanks to that, my desktop computer is fast and light. It takes less than 5Gb on disk.
And for things I can't do on FreeBSD, I am running Windows XP as guest in emulators/virtualbox-ose.
 
So what is the "real" story here, vis a vis, systemd? Is FreeBSD and possibly OpenBSD going to have to embrace systemd?

http://lwn.net/Articles/524606/
On November 6, longtime OpenBSD hacker Marc Espie complained to the OpenBSD project's "tech" list about behavior from "upstream vendors" that, in his view, is proving harmful to the OpenBSD project. In short, projects like desktop environments are increasingly adding dependencies on changes being made at other levels of the (Linux) systems on which they are developed. That makes it harder for OpenBSD to port and support that code, to the point that "if you don't have tens of people, it becomes more and more of a losing battle". The OpenBSD project doesn't have those people, so it is hurting. Marc continued, saying:
It's also quickly turning Posix and Unix into a travesty: either you have the linux goodies, or you don't. And if you don't, you can forget anything modern...
I'm pretty sure there's a lot of good intention behind the "progress" in recent desktops. But this is turning the field of OS distributions into a wasteland. Either you're a modern linux with pulseaudio and pam and systemd, or you're dying. So much for the pioneer spirit of opensource, where you were free to innovate and do cool things, and more or less have interesting software able to run on your machine...
 
So what is the "real" story here, vis a vis, systemd? Is FreeBSd and possibly OpenBSD going to have to embrace systemd?

I think systemd is the 'real' story, in as much as I believe that is what this quote refers to:

in some cases, you even have some people, who are PAID by some vendors,
agressively pushing GRATUITOUS, non compatible changes. I won't say names,
but you guys can fill the blanks in.

This isn't just a problem for the *BSDs to worry about; it is an ongoing worry in Linux land outside of the Poettering collective, specifically Gentoo and Slackware are having to navigate an increasingly difficult sea.

This is not conspiracy theory territory; it is going to get worse. However, things change fast in software. I have a feeling we will always be here.
 
I think the problem is two fold;

1) one side of the problem is the issue of GNU centrism, and it's attitude that lingers around the community, coupled with a copy-left license; this behavior is reinforced. Linux side pragmatism be gone.

2) the lack of focus and involvement from the BSD community at large with the upstream vendors for desktop related stuff. The focus simply isn't the desktop, it's other (and more important) things.

The latter is probably in large part because a solution (OS X) to the problem (A Unix Desktop) already exists. Whether you agree with Apple or not; the solution is there. It's a useful one, and to many a great user experience. So why re-invent the wheel?
 
The latter is probably in large part because a solution (OS X) to the problem (A Unix Desktop) already exists. Whether you agree with Apple or not; the solution is there. It's a useful one, and to many a great user experience. So why re-invent the wheel?
Simply because you can and there are plenty of FreeBSD users that would like the option available, so why not?
 
A lot of things aren't open source; hardly relevant.
I'm not following your logic. :)

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant in the first place. I require an OS that has choices because I have an intense and overwhelming dislike for being told what to do by any kind of company, although I can accept what I get from a random and motley group of open source committers. I know that's personal, but it's not going to change. Another requirement is that there is no commercial license attached because I don't want to spend the time and effort to read and understand it and if I did it would probably say things I don't want to hear - especially regarding telling me what I can and cannot do (which as I explained above rubs me the wrong way.) And then there is the money aspect. I don't have a lot of that, so anything more than a few bucks for unlimited use is out of the question. To me, proprietary operating systems are not relevant.
 
The latter is probably in large part because a solution (OS X) to the problem (A Unix Desktop) already exists.

Not really.OS X does not run on my PC, nor does it run on 93% of the PCs out there. I don't see how that is a solution for anything?
 
Simply because you can and there are plenty of FreeBSD users that would like the option available, so why not?
As long as I am to choose which of those wheels I want - and do not find myself with some rectangular things glued on with chewing gum on any suitable, and unsuitable, surface of my system - I'm fine with lots and lots of wheels to pick from.

But with regard to POSIX/Unix/... I think this Linux-centrism is going to turn out to be the big asteroid hurling down onto some unsuspecting critters thinking they rule the place. I'll do my best not to be among the ones being concerned by that.
 
The latter is probably in large part because a solution (OS X) to the problem (A Unix Desktop) already exists. Whether you agree with Apple or not; the solution is there. It's a useful one, and to many a great user experience. So why re-invent the wheel?

These particular apples don't grow on trees.
 
I'm sure that's enough for the core committers to care otherwise.
The core committers don't span the entire community. As long as there are able and willing developers to work on the desktop as well as users that want it, it will continue to exist and improve.

Not everyone wants to use OS X as their choice of UNIX operating system for many reasons. ~7% or so market share in the desktop space despite apple being one of, if not the richest company in the world, supports this.

By the way, how's Haswell support?
It's being worked on, and things should go much smoother in the future once it arrives.
 
The core committers don't span the entire community. As long as there are able and willing developers to work on the desktop as well as users that want it, it will continue to exist and improve.

Not everyone wants to use OS X as their choice of UNIX operating system for many reasons. ~7% or so market share in the desktop space despite apple being one of, if not the richest company in the world, supports this.

It's being worked on, and things should go much smoother in the future once it arrives.

But it's the core committers (and somewhat the Foundation) that influence the direction of the Project. By all means, use what you want to use. I'm not suggesting not to use FreeBSD as a desktop. In fact, I wouldn't mind if the Lumina Project in particular received a little more love and support from the greater community. I'm just giving credence to why things have been the way they are. People who lurk the forums and complain (and don't do anything either) aren't seeing the forest for the trees. For example, just look at all the Foundation sponsored projects within the last 5 years; very few of them has to do with improving FreeBSD as a desktop.

If you truly want an open source desktop, for the sake of it being open source; you're better off (hate to say it) with Linux. GNU owns the open source desktop, no matter how you slice it. If you want a good BSD Unix desktop, such one already exists.

I'm not trying to be an ass here, it's just annoying seeing "FREEBSD SUCKS! WHY NO WORK ON DESKTOP?!"-like posts when the situation isn't just "Linux and vendors focusing on Linux only". It's simply not a focus, and for good reason.
 
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