KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment

A

akangusu

I want to clarify something first. I'm not saying that KDE Plasma should be the default desktop environment on FreeBSD nor that it is or it will be the default desktop environment.

But, as part of the laptop initiative, the FreeBSD Foundation selected KDE Plasma as the desktop environment available in the updated installer for the next FreeBSD releases.

Since it is the only option available for installation in the installer, people will assume it is the default, even if it is not officially the default. And I risky to say that people not familiar with FreeBSD can and will suppose it is the only desktop environment available at all.

People always look for blessed or endorsed options, and the Foundation gave Plasma this endorsement when selected Plasma to be the only option in the installer, so again, people will assume it is the default.

But I have a question. Why have the Foundation selected as the default option a desktop environment that makes an explicit statement in its front page that is developed for Linux and set its roadmap to be Linux only?
 
vmb said:
KDE just dumped supporting FreeBSD, systemd only now!

View: https://youtu.be/Td5wq3Qb_RY
Click to expand...
KDE didn't and isn't dumping support for FreeBSD (or other OSes not baesd on Linux), but they are forking SDDM to have a new login manager (PLM) with better integration with Plasma, and support to manage things like screen brightness, audio volume, network connection, and an on-screen keyboard (that AFAIK is not so a trivial thing to do with Wayland) directly from the login manager.

While this doesn't make me happy, I guess that much of thiese objectives could be obtained pretty easily using what systemd offers, and KDE (like others DE) are mainly (but not only) developed on and for Linux-based OSes. These doesn't mean that FreeBSD users can't use/login to KDE anymore or that SDDM can't be used with KDE anymore.

Moreover, a serious and genuine question, since integrating all of that stuff in the login manager seems to require a better integration with what the underlying OS has to offer, how much of the dropped code would have remained?

If deemed necessary, I'm pretty sure FreeBSD developers will make a port of PLM. :)
 
vmb said:
KDE just dumped supporting FreeBSD, systemd only now!

View: https://youtu.be/Td5wq3Qb_RY
Click to expand...

https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/freebsd-closes-the-laptop-gap-year-one-project-update/

Installer​


The installer for FreeBSD has gained a couple of new features that benefit laptop users. In 15.0 the installer now supports downloading and installing firmware packages after the FreeBSD base system installation is complete. Coming in 15.1 it will be possible to install the KDE graphical desktop environment during the installation process. Grateful thanks to Bjoern Zeeb and Alfonso Siciliano respectively.
 
"Why have the Foundation selected as the default option a desktop environment that makes an explicit statement in its front page that is developed for Linux and set its roadmap to be Linux only? "
No idea, their thoughts are as inscrutible to me as the ancient taoist masters, who lived above the floating cloud sea on the mountain tops, drinking dragon well tea amongst the eagles.

1769116445287.png


However, kde plasma does have a few advantages: it's being actively developed, and maintained. It has a development roadmap. It actually works quite well, if you can turn off or ignore some of the bloat. It's not GNOME. It's got a decent-sized developer base, and some commercial backers. It runs on wayland, and X11. It has quite a wide user base in linux land, quite a lot of people have seen it and/or used it. It's not GNOME. It's fairly mature and doesn't crash a lot. It has support for modern graphics things. It more or less works on 4K screens with wayland and still supports a captive X display for backwards compatibility. It's not GNOME. And AFAIK IBM, Microsoft and the rest don't have their claws into it, although don't quote me on that.
 
When i reboot i'll try i3 :)
No, FreeBSD foundation receifed alot of money to deep laptops afloot. So developers will work on wifi-driver , hibernation & kde desktop.
See sddm as a non essential , systemd , loving part of kde, many alternatives
 
Honestly and this has probably been said a bazillion times before:
Whatever option picked is wrong.

Pick KDE? GNOME folk complain. Pick GNOME? KDE complain. Pick TWM and everyone complains. Pick CDE and only 50% complain.

If the installer wound up with:
"Do you want to install a graphical environment Y/N' Where "Y" takes one to:
KDE
GNOME[2|3]
TWM
CDE

That is reasonable from the old graybeard POV. It tracks with historical installer "do you want to install X"

Stick to saying "no I don't want to install any KDE" and set your system up after.
 
gone install gdm now.
PS : Some people want a very simple installer, click , click ,like calamares , the best.
Those users will use freebsd for firefox and libreoffice "excel".
But they will never adopt a port or become a kernel hacker.
It will however give visibility to the OS.
 
Alain De Vos said:
It will however give visibility to the OS.
Click to expand...
That's the thing. You have to reach the 'ordinary' folks who just want to run open office or look at some photos or browse the web, if you want to get a wider user base. People who never want to venture near writing a shell script, let alone any other type of programming. People who don't know what 'man' is, and who don't want to know what 'man' is. As the holy mystic Jobs realised, many years ago.
 
mer said:
Honestly and this has probably been said a bazillion times before:
Whatever option picked is wrong.

Pick KDE? GNOME folk complain. Pick GNOME? KDE complain. Pick TWM and everyone complains. Pick CDE and only 50% complain.

If the installer wound up with:
"Do you want to install a graphical environment Y/N' Where "Y" takes one to:
KDE
GNOME[2|3]
TWM
CDE

That is reasonable from the old graybeard POV. It tracks with historical installer "do you want to install X"

Stick to saying "no I don't want to install any KDE" and set your system up after.
Click to expand...
GNOME2 should be Mate now. GNOME2 on FreeBSD is already gone from ports tree and Mate, the maintained fork of GNOME2, is in-tree instead.;)
And if the intention is to attract Linux Mint users, why not Mate the default?
If I understand / recall correctly, Mate upstream is maintained mostly by Linux Mint guys.

And maybe TWM is too spaltan for newbies. 😁
 
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hardworkingnewbie said:
KDE is not safe under FreeBSD any longer... they dropped support for FreeBSD in their login manager last month with the reason that they do rely on systemd/logind.

This makes me wonder if they will do start to remove further support, or not.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2014042307926913432
View: https://twitter.com/LundukeJournal/status/2014042307926913432
Click to expand...
FYI: What's dropped supporting FreeBSD is login manager only.
It's Plasma Login Manager (PLM), which is newly added forking sddm, that dropped FreeBSD support and existing sddm would keep on supporting non-systemd / non-logind OS'es including FreeBSD according to the dev.
 
Personally, I'll use whatever DE works on FreeBSD. Plasma works. I'm using it. I like it. If I had to use any other DE or WM, I'd still use FreeBSD.

In general, I want the most people to use FreeBSD so the world is a better place (I said this in another thread).

Edit: The default DE should be chosen thinking about noobs. Experts will do the non default thing anyway.
 
vmb said:
KDE just dumped supporting FreeBSD, systemd only now!

View: https://youtu.be/Td5wq3Qb_RY
Click to expand...
I was going to ask about that. I had heard that going forward Gnome would be requiring SystemD for full support. And SystemD as a practical matter has 0 value outside of Linux. Inside of Linux it seems like it was mostly a tool to get Poettering a job at MS as that's where he works now. I haven't heard about anything that SystemD does that's both helpful and not available in any of the other systems that could slot into the old system's spot.
AlfredoLlaquet said:
Personally, I'll use whatever DE works on FreeBSD. Plasma works. I'm using it. I like it. If I had to use any other DE or WM, I'd still use FreeBSD.

In general, I want the most people to use FreeBSD so the world is a better place (I said this in another thread).

Edit: The default DE should be chosen thinking about noobs. Experts will do the non default thing anyway.
Click to expand...
Fortunately, there's still a ton of options that work without either SystemD or Wayland, and probably a fair number that could or do work with Wayland and without SystemD. Personally, I tend to think most of the modern DEs are terrible anyways, so this doesn't really impact me. I'm not really sure this is going to hurt *BSD or non-Linux opensource OSes as they don't have the same sort of mindshare that Linux does and if somebody is going to try one of them, then they're probably either more technical to begin with or have somebody helping working things out. I'd be more worried about this for *BSD OSes that ship with a GUI as a selling point.

EDIT: As a side note, I personally like XFCE, but there's a bunch of good choices depending on personal preferences. I wouldn't expect that XFCE will ever require SystemD, and the more basic options, especially the ones that bill themselves as being window managers rather than DEs are probably in a similar position.
 
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