NEVER let Freebsd become like Ubuntu

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No, I just asked, because emacs is a typical editor that programmers use.

Yes, something so simple like cli mounting and umounting can be disturbing if one is not used to it.
 
shkhln, emacs has an hexl-mode. Did you try it?

yuripv, if you do not want to use cli and want to have all in GUI, it is perhaps indeed as you say.

I, for example, write text with plain TeX, other may use troff, it is perhaps much more work than to use MS word, but it is the habit of years of writing text in this "complicated way". The same with the cli.
being a tester (with a bit of development) at work, I actually spend 2/3 of the time in CLI, so I'm only talking about my "work" laptop that I'm carrying with me. If I was paid to work on FreeBSD problems, then Windows would go out of it immediately, but as I'm working on illumos, I simply can't spend time on all the issues I'm having using linux "desktop" stuff. As for FreeBSD itself, being a newbie committer, I occasionally do simple fixes; it's just that at the moment I'm so burned out by $work stuff I barely want to look at anything else in free time (forums being exception, I guess :) )
 
Without the desktop, linux is more similar to illumos than to FreeBSD. You could also use illumos for everything ...
 
Ubuntu ceased to be "for humans" ten years ago when I gave it the boot. I say that because I'm human, but I can't vouch for others in that regard.

That said, I remember the only way for "humans" to use Ubuntu was to uninstall networkmanager, since it would invariably fail or simply act in a rude manner - such as default to DHCP. I don't think systemd solved that problem, but I'll probably never know.

I do think that ultimately Ubuntu has done a lot to help Linux move into the mainstream and achieve the high level of usage it sees today.
 
it would be interesting to know, what is in Windows that you miss in FreeBSD. Do you find no alternative?
1) Netflix and Hulu.
2) Connect my iPhone.
3) Connect my Nikon D7000.
4) Connect multiple monitors without having to mess with xrandr or config files.
5) Connect my drawing tablet.

Windows was designed from the beginning to be a desktop and FreeBSD was designed from the beginning to be a server. Can they both function as the other? Sure. You can use your Ford Focus as a pickup by hitching a trailer to it (and ruin your transmission) and you can use your Chevy Colorado as a passenger vehicle to haul 10 people (but they're going to be uncomfortable).
 
Windows was designed from the beginning to be a desktop

While this maybe true for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x/9.x, NT was first designed to run on servers and workstations (MS wouldn't have ported NT 4 and 2000 too to DEC Alpha otherwise):
Windows FAQ: ASCII format said:
2.7. Windows NT 3.1
====================
Microsoft Windows NT, scheduled for release in the first half of 1993, is
Microsoft's platform of choice for high-end systems. It is intended for
use in network servers, workstations and software development machines; it
will not replace Windows for DOS. While Windows NT's user interface is
very similar to that of Windows 3.1, it is based on an entirely new
operating system kernel.

The following are the major changes from Windows 3.1:
* Based on a new microkernel design
* Portable architecture for Intel x86, MIPS R4000 and DEC Alpha processors
* 32-bit addressing for access to up to 4 GB of memory
* Fully protected applications with virtualized hardware access
* Installable APIs for Win32, Win16, MS-DOS, POSIX and OS/2
* Installable file systems, including FAT, HPFS and NTFS
* Built-in networking (LAN Manager and TCP/IP) with remote procedure calls
(RPCs)
* Symmetric multiprocessor support
* Security designed in from start, to be initially C2 certified, with a B-
level kernel design
* API support for unsynchronized message queues, advanced interprocess
communication, registration databases, Bezier curves and graphics
transformations.

NT first really made its way into the desktop business with XP, no sooner did Netburst Pentium IV become cheap enough for the casual user (486[D/SX]/PentiumM-III as opposite was not something you used to see on low-end PCs). It should also be noticed that, unlike FreeBSD, Windows NT Server in late '00s used to run on some top500 supercomputers up until 2015, and that Windows still has a huge server market share (~30% of network traffic); MS wouldn't have made it scriptable with PowerShell, developed Containers, Hyper-V, Azure Cloud, WSL, and ReFS, as well as implement all those exploit mitigations, if that hadn't been the case
 
It's just that windows looks like "complete solution" (I'm well aware of the costs), I don't need any magic for scaling to work on a 4K monitor, I don't need to enter cli commands to connect to another wifi AP (the long list of usability stuff follows) -- now if I try to do the same on FreeBSD, I need a lot of bloat from ports, and it all feels clumsy and amateur compared to windows. You can say that I'm just lazy and spoiled by windows, and that would be correct; sometimes I just hate I don't have any real issues there and there's nothing forcing me to use FreeBSD only.

Sleep tight. Microsoft will take good care of you and make sure you get everything they think you need whether you think so or not.

I prefer to make my own decisions and FreeBSD meets my standards as a complete solution for a desktop OS. I'm not sure what bloat you think is in ports you won't find in any other version of the same program on other platforms but it feeling clumsy and amateurish is your opinion only and not my experience at all.

But to each their own. As long as you're happy that's what matters.
 
What is the problem with the iPhone and Camara? Wlan or USB is not enough? Bluetooth is working in FreeBSD and I use it eventually for a keyboard. Connecting the two monitors is something that is done once, like installing the OS.

Yes, not all hardware will work on every OS. And commercial services tend to offer only for Windows and eventually Mac and ignore others.
 
The Ubuntu bug #1 is the worst mistake IMO in linux land. You don't need or want to be fighting windows, you need to provide usable solutions. Instead of that we have zounds of incompatible UI toolkits, all looking so different, zounds of DEs, a lot of "desktop" bloat just to be like windows.
Yes, freedesktop.org, systemd, etc is just what amounts to bad Windows or macOS reinvention. Many Linux fans just don't see that by embracing crap in order to ape Windows that their chosen OS is becoming more and more like it, more complex and confusing and less "UNIX like" as time goes by.

The people making money out of Linux are generally not making it from any of that stuff. Canonical/Shuttleworth, tried and failed to monetise the Linux desktop. Almost all the homegrown Canonical software has been a failure and/or ditched in favour of free upstream projects (just look at upstart and unity for example).

One could argue that the only company which has successfully monetised "consumer Linux" is google - and they did that by avoiding most of the freedesktop.org crap, systemd, etc... and one can quite easily state that more than 99% of their users don't even know nor care that they're running Linux anyway.

One of the stated goals of Android was to "layer" more permissive licenced software between GPL and proprietary apps to protect proprietary IP. Canonical could not do any of this early on because it enraged their "community".
 
I think it is time to call for a last round of input for this thread.
I will take that opportunity then.

I prefer to make my own decisions

This. Apart from discussions of proprietary and open source, there is one thing I will not tolerate and that is being told what to do. I'm the one that makes the decisions around here and FreeBSD allows me to be me.
 
shkhln, emacs has an hexl-mode. Did you try it?

yuripv, if you do not want to use cli and want to have all in GUI, it is perhaps indeed as you say.

I, for example, write text with plain TeX, other may use troff, it is perhaps much more work than to use MS word, but it is the habit of years of writing text in this "complicated way". The same with the cli.

I use vim for plain text, and I convert it to TeX with a tiny C code.
Usually, and it is always compatible. ;) Ever for ever ;)
 
Spartrekus, I was speaking about a substitute of Word. I leave plain text as ASCII / UTF.

I also wanted to say that bloated OpenOffice or LibreOffice is not the solution, they are perhaps a bad imitate of word and worse that it, as yuripv noted about the desktop features of linux.
 
I also wanted to say that bloated OpenOffice or LibreOffice

I agree. Its sad that Microsoft Office in Wine pulls in less dependencies than these packages. Though yes, x86[_64] only on Wine is quite an annoying dependency ;).

Office 97 running on Windows 95 running inside a DosBox VM is probably the fastest and lightest at starting up, even though it is fully emulated. Again, probably less dependencies too.

But yeah, Abiword, TexLive or Markdown (via discount (https://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/discount/)) is possibly what I would use.
 
Crivens, I do not need abiword or any other word imitate. TeX is much better and simple. troff is an alternative that should be in every Unix/BSD system.

Unfortunately, to compile the meager TeX is a story: it is written in a pascal dialect not supported anymore.

The package texlive is a big bloat, but not the TeX in it.
 
Actually I find the discussion about bloat to be a bit weird. I do a lot of writing in DOS using an editor that's 3K with no dependencies. My second choice is ne running in FreeBSD and it's 300K. Frankly, being a DOS user I think anything else, including FreeBSD, is bloated, because that 100x ratio is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
OpenOffice/LibreOffice isn't in a direct competition with TeX. For example, Writer is totally incapable of placing inline formulas at the same baseline as regular text. IMO, it is perfectly fine if you are not trying to write a paper or a book. (And, anyway, Calc is probably the most important part of the package.)
 
So, this is off-topic but prompted me to build editors/abiword and install, test a *.doc and a *.odt. Visually, there is something very wrong with editors/abiword at present: the screen it displays is black and flickers when you resize. Opening an *.odt caused editors/abiword to promptly core. Opening a *.doc made the editors/abiword screen turn black and the document underneath this to be unreadable except through the flashing screen. Not usable in its present state, in my opinion.

Staying on LO until I am comfortable enough with TeX (LaTeX ?)
 
Visually, there is something very wrong with editors/abiword at present: the screen it displays is black and flickers when you resize. Opening an *.odt caused editors/abiword to promptly core. Opening a *.doc made the editors/abiword screen turn black and the document underneath this to be unreadable except through the flashing screen.

Hardly a surprise. There is always something wrong with Abiword, it's been like that for as long as I can remember (well, roughly 10 years).
 
OJ, I could live with minix or plan9. But is there a modern WEB browser?

Sevendogsbsd, to be comfortable is the problem and we are back to the point of yuripv. It is like programming for writing text. Perhaps is always more comfortable to see what you write, but inspite of it, it is what I use. I have my "templates" for different kind of text for making my life easier, but from time to time I must consult the TeX book.

There is an interesting alternative to TeX and troff: to write directly postscript. Perhaps to have some templates for making it easier? I never tried it, but it should be possible, and practical for drawing.

TeX generates dvi that is much lower level than postscript, then it is normally converted to postscript for printing. By writing directly postscript one can exploit it better.
 
@OJ, I could live with minix or plan9. But is there a modern WEB browser?

No. But you don't need it because you can install a modern web browser on FreeBSD. Networking works fine on a DOS box, even if just running on a single floppy without a HDD, so your files can go back and forth like with anything else.

Yes, I know there is a whole crowd of one bowl, one laptop, thinkers. I personally run a bunch of machines, each for a different purpose. That's one of the advantages of not living in a van. :)
 
Well, abiword once saved my behind by being able to load .doc files and exporting to LaTeX. But that is a long time ago. No idea how it is today, I'll need to check.
 
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