Preferred DE of the FreeBSD users

Which is your current DE or WM? If not listed please specify!

  • Total voters
    192
grahamperrin@ said:
I bookmarked the breakdown a few months ago, without attempting to analyse it. For me, the intentions were to discover a little more about:
  • differences between the five distros
  • popularity of KDE Plasma beyond users of FreeBSD.
Until today, I was vaguely aware of only three basics with regard to desktop environments other than Plasma:
  1. Ubuntu uses GNOME
Click to expand...
More precisely: Ubuntu uses GNOME again, because for years Ubuntu was using an own DE called Unity instead. So Ubuntu started with GNOME, switched over to Unity and again now is using GNOME.
 
fvwm2 (tiling? stacking? I don't know)

I very much like FreeBSD NOT having a default DE/WM.

Since there are reasons for having systems without any GUI at all,
if you want one it's way easier to set up the DE/WM of your choice
than to remove a default one, which you may not like, and then install the one you like,
...and may also have the prob the default had installed wayland, but you wanna run X (or vice versa)... ☹️

However:
Instead of getting a system by default flooded with lots of crap you neither need nor want,
removing all that useless, unwanted garbage, and then install the things you want and need (MS Windows),
it's better to only install the things you like and need in the first place (unix, FreeBSD).

I like FreeBSD the way as it is.
The more by default pre-installed stuff the less freedom.

I don't like preconfigured DEs.
Besides most of them are not able to be changed the way I like them to be
I have to think into some-one elses prethought ideas of how things may suite to most others,
but are never tailored exactly to my needs.

That's why I stopped using any DE at all,
and am satisfied with a pure WM, only.

With FreeBSD as it is I have that freedom of my choice.

After all, the more I work with FreeBSD,
the more I get away from this rotten, restless, annoying blinky-blinky windows-concept of
confused, overloaded menu orgies with checkbox landfills,...finally killed by moronic balloon tips... 😵‍💫
and get deeper into the true efficient, powerful, flexible, and way - way - faster usage of computers:
keyboard (shell, programming [scripts])

Once you really start to dig into that,
had a taste of the power of pure keyboard usage
your next choice will be the most simpliest and least annyoing WM.
If even. :cool:

And then you don't care much about it anymore,
as long as the windows containing the shells are configurable and arrangeable the way you want it,
and above all that nobody starts to really think of having FreeBSD any pre-configured DE installed by default.

And you may look back on those bloated DEs,
trying to be a better version of MS Windows, a bad idea missing the point from the start,
like e.g. KDE,
and you think:
That's kindergarden 😁
Stop caring so much about which DE/WM,
how it looks, which wallpaper,...
that's all just pure optical fiddle-faddle!
Learn to use and love the keyboard (get a good one),
dig into shell.
dig into true unix.
join the power.
🤓
 
I must be in a minority here as I've literally never used a standalone window manager. Though I do watch reviews of them on YouTube from time to time with interest. OpenBox looks the most interesting and I'm more than tempted to install ArchCraft on my Intel NUC that was originally earmarked for FreeBSD. (I'm feeling a bit phobic of configuring X for my two monitors and suspect ArchCraft would do it all for me).
I must say, a lot of these window managers seem to have a dreadful branding problem. I mean... "BSPWM"? Just saying that out loud in English it's seven syllables-- ones that are rarely found together moreover. And so forgettable. Even the often out-of-touch GNU folks know the value of a good, snappy acronym.
 
There is one called spectrwm that called itself scrotwm for many years. My joke was that the creators turned 14 and realized how silly that was. Openbox is very nice, though I didn't like it that much on a multimonitor setup. For that I found dwm or spectrwm to be better at it.
 
ProphetOfDoom said:
(I'm feeling a bit phobic of configuring X for my two monitors
Click to expand...
This ain't no rocket science. As described in the hb use xrand.
I have three heterogen monitors (better to have matching ones), and in my ~/.xinitrc the line:
Code: 
xrandr --output DP-5 --mode 1920x1080 --rotate normal --output DP-3 --mode 1920x1200 --rotate left --right-of DP-5 --output HDMI-0 --mode 1920x1080 --rotate normal --right-of DP-3
Depending on your graphics adapter it's a bit trial'n'error to check out, which of the sockets is the primary one, on which screen is the bootmanager shown, but not being #1 for X ...
Of course this is nothing a graphics adapter's producer feels to have documented.
So you have to experiment (tip: mark the plugs and sockets) - it's a bit annoying but easy to do.

I may say something stupid, 'cause you may already be full aware of what I'm saying now,
but I had to learn there is a difference between a windowmanager and a desktopenvironment (coming from Windows I didn't even knew the words. I knew Windows. [and to me it sucks from the start])

I also tested several DEs (KDE, Gnome, LXDE, MATE, XFCE, in that order) until I figured out:
to me this is all not what I want.
They all have in common:
Too much stuff the way I like it not to be (e.g. a filemanager [don't need one, have a shell], wastebasket [what for? I not needed to be protected from extremely moronic stupidity]),
too few, too complex, or no ways change things I like them to be.
And not seldom all config written into confused landfills of XML-files 😤

So I find to use a WM only, and decided for fvwm2.
My decision for fvwm was
I can configure everything, (e.g. I have my own buttons in the window's title bar)
within a single textfile ~/.fvwm/config (there are many templates and examples to be found on the internet)

There are several other wms, also (very) good ones, of course, already mentioned here.

I don't change my setting every couple of weeks.
No need for having config pulldown menus everywhere, with hundreds of setting options, just trashing up the environment, only.
I need one setting.
My settings.
100% tailored to me.
And then it stays.
I want to do things with my machine, which excludes change the look.
I also don't care about if it looks "cool". The system needs to efficient in the usage, how it looks is of no importance. (Efficient systems look automatically elegant btw. [Colani])
Text needs to be as readable as possible. Doesn't matter if others think it's "old school".

So I'm satisfied with doing the settings within a config file.
That's one core point I hated about Windows (and other DE), so much.
With every major update or new version, some or all things are new arranged, and you have to think again into a new look and feel.
And for what? It's not better. Mostly it got worse.

Having several shells arrangeable on several screens I find more efficient for work than using the default terminals.
Especially while it's easier to pick from (way) more choices to pick the perfect shell's font for you.
Example:
Pressing Ctrl-1 on my system opens up a fullscreen shell without any windodecoration.
Having this on a 1920x1200 16:9 Monitor 90° turned ("portrait", not "landscape") is very nice 😎
Ctrl-2 and I have two shells matching my primary screen.
The left one is wider for the texteditor. The right one is a bit more narrow and for compiling and executing.
Ctrl-3 and I get three shells on my 90° turned screen to have several similar jobs run parallel.
-4 also full screen decorless shell on the rotated one, but with a very small font. Good if your doing verbosed things.
....
All those differ slightly in color...

Last tip:
Try not to use a black on white shell.
It also may look "old school" as I once started on a b&w-Monitor in the 80's,
but having a bright text on a dark screen is way less tiring the eyes.
Improve that to not white on black, but a light grey on a dark grey.
Giving that a very small touch of colour is even more improvement:
A very dark (nearly black) blue, green or - tip - violet or brown background,
and a nearly white (very light) pinkish - light grey text is something you should try.
With a serif-font (e.g. courier) you'll agree, it's way less tiring to work within textfiles that way.
 
Setting up a DE is part of the fun, but I'm frankly grateful that Xorg requires minimal setup, and that just following the Handbook gets you a functional Xorg - that's the starting point for having any DE or WM working at all. I'd hate having to spend time figuring out which TTY/VTY to run Xorg on, as root or as regular user, how and where to specify the screen... It can be part of the fun figuring that out, but spending hours on ironing out technical details and getting nowhere, and receiving conflicting advice about troubleshooting - that can sour the experience.

If I see that I'm getting somewhere, then yeah, I can muster the motivation to keep going.
 
I notice that blackbox was not mentioned. But it is also a good window manager. About 8 years ago I ran blackbox with the cairo dock. It was pretty snappy back then on my slow hardware. There used to be a window manager called sawfish too that was not too bad. It wasn't that great. And I noticed that cde is available as well. :D
 
x11-wm/fluxbox is my go to, although I do also like blackbox. Fluxbox is fast, easy to use and has minimal requirements, not that I care about system resource usage given my hardware, but I like that it goes along with FreeBSD's general simplicity. For some silly reason, when using Linux, I prefer KDE (plasma), but on FreeBSD, I only like minimal window managers.
 
Sevendogsbsd said:
For some silly reason, when using Linux, I prefer KDE (plasma), but on FreeBSD, I only like minimal window managers.
Click to expand...
Same here but a bit different:
Code: 
|-----------+-----------+-------+-------------|
| OS        | DE/WM     | Shell | File System |
|-----------+-----------+-------+-------------|
| OpenBSD   | CWM       | KSH   | FFS2        |
| FreeBSD   | XFCE      | ZSH   | ZFS         |
| Slackware | Plasma    | bash  | ext4        |
| Gentoo    | Ratpoison | ZSH   | btrfs       |
|-----------+-----------+-------+-------------|
 
Every time I see a mention of the ratpoison WM, I think of Nick Saban...
1680389751590.png
 
I use x11-wm/fvwm2. If Donald Knuth uses it, it should be o.k. for a guy like me.

Serious answer: FVWM is configurable and well documented. I miss the “works out of the box just right”, though. Used x11-wm/windowmaker for a long time, but the bugs and inconsistent way of configuring it finally moved me to FVWM.
 
Alain De Vos said:
I recently switched from "fvwm3" to "enlightenment,e16"
Click to expand...
From the homepage: ”Enlightenment is a Window Manager, Compositor and Minimal Desktop for Linux (the primary platform), BSD and any other compatible UNIX system.” (emphasis by me).

Dear Alain, how good is the BSD-support? For example, if I plug in an USB-stick, do the devices appear properly somewhere on the desktop, etc.?
 
Holger said:
From the homepage: ”Enlightenment is a Window Manager, Compositor and Minimal Desktop for Linux (the primary platform), BSD and any other compatible UNIX system.” (emphasis by me).

Dear Alain, how good is the BSD-support? For example, if I plug in an USB-stick, do the devices appear properly somewhere on the desktop, etc.?
Click to expand...
I don't know it is in general, but on my T430 (with integrated gpu) it is buggy, slow and a bit weird to use. But IDK how would be if I used some linux distro, so IDK if it is like this because I use FBSD or because I don't have a proper gpu (or both).
 
But I think for a default install, to attract new users to freebsd, I would suggest sddm plus kde plasma 5. Plasma is pretty nice, I installed it recently out of curiosity. It's come on a lot over the last few years. Since you didn't list wmaker, I put my vote in for kde.
 
itsthosestonesman said:
But I think for a default install, to attract new users to freebsd, I would suggest sddm plus kde plasma 5.
Click to expand...
Personally I think something so bloated will scare people away! Or at the very least, not offer anything more streamlined than Windows.

Ironically, I believe WindowMaker / GNUStep is years ahead of KDE these days. In terms of tooling, stability and optimization. Lets hope the Wayland kids don't damage it.
 
Plasma didn't seem very bloated on my X201 with 8GB ram. It all ran nice and snappy, I was pleasantly surprised. I agree that wmaker is the best, it's what I personally use. I'm just thinking of what might attract new people who are used to a mac or windows. A lot of people using a mac aren't really exposed to the unix core.
 
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