Spreading FreeBSD

[driker]

What ways would you all say would be good to spread the reach of FreeBSD to more users? More users could bring with it more developers and hardware manufacturers. This could mean better hardware support and more software aimed for the OS. Here are my thoughts:

1. Friendlier atmosphere. I've noticed some of the developers and administrators tend to have a negative view and response to users. (You know who you are. ).
2. Something like a settings screen. Even a terminal based one to start. Instead of having to go through configuration files or commands and reading man pages. Settings in one location. I know when I first started this took a lot of trial and error.
3. Faster boot times. I know waiting on dhclient has slowed my boot times down and attempting to switch it to run in the background doesn't always seem to work.

Before I hear something along the lines of "If only someone was intrepid enough to work on these things.". Yes, I am aware they need someone to work on them. My thoughts are, if there's a list, I could work on what I can and maybe others who want to can work on what they can.

 

[W.hâ/t]

I like the FreeBSD niche as it is. What is the purpose of having more people anyway?

 

[Alain De Vos]

I find the atmosphere friendly.
Does Arch-Linux has a more friendly atmosphere ?

Boot times. Yes there is room for improvement. Ie a parallel boot of services. Or detection of hardware.

The man pages are good. one is expected to read them...

 

[drhowarddrfine]

1. Friendlier atmosphere.

What a stupid idea . That wouldn't draw more users. It's the technology that's the draw. Or the cool factor, as in, "my friend and all their friends use it even though we don't know why."

2. Something like a settings screen.

People who are drawn to FreeBSD don't need a settings screen. The Handbook is all you need to get set up easily and quickly.

3. Faster boot times.

No one ever decided on their OS to use based on that. If they do, they are not the type of user to be using FreeBSD.

FreeBSD is not for kids and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[blackbird9]

Make it more attractive to use as a desktop. Servers are fine, but I don't want one on my desk.

Above all, improve the auto-configuration to target hardware. When I install it on a box, I want it to "just work"(tm). I don't want to have to manually port it to my hardware.

For example, I don't want to to have to fudge around reading forums and manpages just to get the speakers and headphones in a laptop to switch over when I plug the phones in and out. Slackware had that working that out of the box back in 1995, freebsd still can't do it now. Even today, I end up trawling through peoples sites (cf vermaden!), lots of tweaks in loader.conf, sysctl.conf, rc.conf, device.hints, etc.

Canonical did a huge pile of work in this area, and it really paid off for them. Install on any box and it comes up with a sane install where just about everything works, without the user having to do any work. Anyone could put the usb stick in, install it, and it would all come up working.
Xorg have also made huge strides in auto-configuring X. No-one bothers about having to work out modelines any more. Imagine what a drag it would be if you had to go back to the old 90's way of configuring X.

IMHO that characteristic is an essential prerequite to make FreeBSD compelling. It's a lot of work, I know.

 

[driker]

I like the FreeBSD niche as it is. What is the purpose of having more people anyway?

It's definitely nice to have a group like it is. Wouldn't want the group too bloated but there's a lot of software that I think would be good to have that, as of yet, is on other OSs but not here. I think having more developers could help. Have you been through the ports threads on the forum? A lot of things that people would find helpful to have but it isn't available.

Most of the program's I've needed I've either been able to get working, foregone or written my own that works well enough. A lot of users just don't have the skills necessary for porting but I've seen admin more or less say do it yourself if you want it. I could see that being discouraging to new users.

 

[driker]

I find the atmosphere friendly.
Does Arch-Linux has a more friendly atmosphere ?

I'm part of a lot of linux groups because my friends are in them. A lot of the time they are more friendly when someone has a question or screws something up.

What a stupid idea . That wouldn't draw more users. It's the technology that's the draw. Or the cool factor, as in, "my friend and all their friends use it even though we don't know why."

I attempted to get into using FreeBSD about 16 years ago. I liked the license more than Linux and would rather have used it. I tried reading the man pages and handbook but for someone who only ever had a Window's system it was a bit daunting. Instead of offering advice anyone I talked to just kept saying "RTFM" and other things like that. It wasn't until I signed up for a Unix class in college, about 2 years after that, that I got a good grasp on it. Any idea why? Because when I had a question about something I didn't understand in the manual the teacher didn't say "RTFM" she said "oh alright, that's common. This is what you do.". After that class I had a good enough grasp to settling in and get to work.

People who are drawn to FreeBSD don't need a settings screen. The Handbook is all you need to get set up easily and quickly.

Maybe not but it could speed up some workflow, give people a common location to find things and prevent people from borking their system. I've had to help people who've misspelled something or put something in the wrong file and couldn't get things to work. I'm currently working on getting the old TrueOS sysadm and sysadm-client up and running again. Had it running about a year ago but after a new install something broke the build I had. Hopefully I can get it going again.

No one ever decided on their OS to use based on that. If they do, they are not the type of user to be using FreeBSD.

No but the niceties wouldn't hurt.

Above all, improve the auto-configuration to target hardware. When I install it on a box, I want it to "just work"(tm). I don't want to have to manually port it to my hardware.

This is why after about 10 years of doing a vanilla install I started just using NomadBSD then modifying it to fit my needs. It set up the hardware settings for me and I was good to go. Just the creature comforts that I prefer left for me to modify.

 

[Phishfry]

3. Faster boot times.

We are primarily a server OS that can do desktops.
We like our rc.d system startup system.
Its not perfect but has served us well.

Think of it this way. A chunk of developers use server boards.
These have BMC that take way longer than FreeBSD to boot.
So whats the point. Servers don't boot quick. They only get rebooted maybe 6 times a year.

Not that people have not raised the perceived issue.
I think better wifi support would be better for desktop FreeBSD...

 

[cracauer@]

Canonical did a huge pile of work in this area, and it really paid off for them. Install on any box and it comes up with a sane install where just about everything works, without the user having to do any work. Anyone could put the usb stick in, install it, and it would all come up working.
Xorg have also made huge strides in auto-configuring X. No-one bothers about having to work out modelines any more. Imagine what a drag it would be if you had to go back to the old 90's way of configuring X.

IMHO that characteristic is an essential prerequite to make FreeBSD compelling. It's a lot of work, I know.

Yeah, the amount of work is staggering:
- DRM video drivers
- more elegant multi-monitor handling
- sound
- wireless drivers and wifi config mechanism
- power management in general and suspend-to-disk in particular

That's eating up person-years and does nothing for the server usage (except the power management). For a then still small group of laptop users.

 

[SirDice]

I've noticed some of the developers and administrators tend to have a negative view and response to users. (You know who you are. ).

Don't you know? Dutch people are d*cks.

 

[cracauer@]

Don't you know? Dutch people are d*cks.

You pretend to but I visited several times and people were very nice. Fake rudeness online

 

[driker]

We are primarily a server OS that can do desktops.
We like our rc.d system startup system.
Its not perfect but has served us well.

Think of it this way. A chunk of developers use server boards.
These have BMC that take way longer than FreeBSD to boot.
So whats the point. Servers don't boot quick. They only get rebooted maybe 6 times a year.

Not that people have not raised the perceived issue.
I think better wifi support would be better for desktop FreeBSD...

If your so impatient you can't wait 15 seconds than maybe the problem is not the OS.

"FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms." I understand what you're saying but this is taken directly from the front page of the website. Why ignore 2/3rds of what it's stated to power?

I agree on the wifi support but if it's primarily a server OS then I guess wifi isn't something that needs to be worked on either right? lol

It take's roughly a minute or more due to waiting on dhclient to connect. Everything else seems like it would be quick enough to get me up and running in about 30 seconds max.

Don't you know? Dutch people are d*cks.

You aren't allowed to insult anyone on these forums. Remember?

Yeah, the amount of work is staggering:
- DRM video drivers
- more elegant multi-monitor handling
- sound
- wireless drivers and wifi config mechanism
- power management in general and suspend-to-disk in particular

That's eating up person-years and does nothing for the server usage (except the power management). For a then still small group of laptop users.

Yup, some of those would be nice. There are work around sfor a lot of them but not all and even then the work arounds can be finicky.

 

[Phishfry]

I want to note that FreeBSD 13.2 Is being held to RC6 to try and get suspend right for these same laptop users.
Please don't complain
Test and report.

 

[getopt]

You aren't allowed to insult anyone on these forums. Remember?

The provocateur who tried to insult others just in the thread that had to be closed is calling for more friendliness? Boy, you just did not get it right this day.

 

[blackbird9]

Yeah, the amount of work is staggering:
- DRM video drivers
- more elegant multi-monitor handling
- sound
- wireless drivers and wifi config mechanism
- power management in general and suspend-to-disk in particular

That's eating up person-years and does nothing for the server usage (except the power management). For a then still small group of laptop users.

That's the problem. It might not even be possible without a serious commercial backer. Canonical had a paypal billionaire helping them.

Ix-systems had a go with pc-bsd but threw in the towel. The aim would be to grow the user base, and above all attract more developers, but it's an uphill struggle.

I had this article at the back of my mind. I hope this guy's analysis is wrong. It's true that linux is getting all the money and developers thrown at it though. It will be a sad day if we end up with just linux.

Are the BSDs dying? Some security researchers think so

To few eyeballs on code is a security issue. Can FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD survive?

www.csoonline.com

 

[driker]

I want to note that FreeBSD 13.2 Is being held to RC6 to try and get suspend right for these same laptop users.
Please don't complain
Test and report

I'll try to test it. Is there a thread or somewhere else where people can post things they would like tested? I have an extra system I can try it on. I wouldn't have known that's holding it up if you hadn't posted it here.

The provocateur who tried to insult others just in the thread that had to be closed is calling for more friendliness? Boy got just did not get it right this day.

Far from a provocateur. I respond in kind. Mainly seems that more people dislike the USA than like it. So they band together. This was geared more towards asking for assistance, suggesting ports, etc. Those types of things seem to earn people rude/uncaring sounding responses. Sometimes on par with how I've seen people respond to developers on stack overflow. I used to help people on there but once I saw how some of these guys treated people authentically asking for help I left and I know people just leave communities like that.

That's the problem. It might not even be possible without a serious commercial backer. Canonical had a paypal billionaire helping them.

Ix-systems had a go with pc-bsd but threw in the towel. The aim would be to grow the user base, and above all attract more developers, but it's an uphill struggle.

I had this article at the back of my mind. I hope this guy's analysis is wrong. It's true that linux is getting all the money and developers thrown at it though. It will be a sad day if we end up with just linux.

I haven't seen that article yet. I was there for the PC-BSD to TrueOS days then the TrueOS/Project Trident on BSD moving to Linux switch. I used PC-BSD then TrueOS then came to vanilla BSD once they switched to Linux. Then moved to NomadBSD when I had to switch to a new laptop. Didn't feel like running the setup again. They had to ditch BSD because they felt it was better for their user base.

 

[yuripv79]

The "BSD is dying" is there for decades, and the "There's a lot of FreeBSD code in Mac OS X, and the FreeBSD security team coordinates disclosure with Apple, van Sprundel says." says it all about that article (no, you can't treat grep and awk bugs as security vulnerabilities).

 

[ProphetOfDoom]

To me there's nothing anathema about having a settings GUI. I've not used OpenSUSE but apparently they have one that's spoken highly of.

 

[cracauer@]

The problem is also that an operating system with certain strengths attracts those workers that value those strengths and work on them. Not on the weaknesses. The weaknesses are obviously not very important to them, otherwise they wouldn't choose that OS in the first place.

An example is the NFS which was better than Linux' for a very long time. In the beginning of Linux and FreeBSD nobody who needed good NFS would choose Linux. So it stayed a weakness for long because it attracted no NFS experts and commercial entities didn't pick Linux as a base for a NFS product.

 

[cracauer@]

To me there's nothing anathema about having a settings GUI. I've not used OpenSUSE but apparently they have one that's spoken highly of.

FreeBSD has much of its configuration concentrated in a config file that is very easy to parse and write back from a (GUI) program. It is just a simple matter of programming

 

[blackbird9]

The "BSD is dying" is there for decades, and the "There's a lot of FreeBSD code in Mac OS X, and the FreeBSD security team coordinates disclosure with Apple, van Sprundel says." says it all about that article (no, you can't treat grep and awk bugs as security vulnerabilities).

I think the main thing I picked up from it was just the huge disparity in amount of money and developers being chucked at linux compared to *bsd. Yeah I'm not too worried about what he says about security. And yes, it's an old story ;-)

 

[ProphetOfDoom]

I would code it myself but as Oasis said, "The years are falling by like the rain"...

 

[driker]

The "BSD is dying" is there for decades, and the "There's a lot of FreeBSD code in Mac OS X, and the FreeBSD security team coordinates disclosure with Apple, van Sprundel says." says it all about that article (no, you can't treat grep and awk bugs as security vulnerabilities).

I think there's always improvements that could be made. From what I hear HardenedBSD is making good headway in this. Tried installing it once but something in their setup wouldn't let my wifi connect.

The problem is also that an operating system with certain strengths attracts those workers that value those strengths and work on them. Not on the weaknesses. The weaknesses are obviously not very important to them, otherwise they wouldn't choose that OS in the first place.

I agree but I also look at it as having more developers in those areas may free up some developers to move to other areas.

FreeBSD has much of its configuration concentrated in a config file that is very easy to parse and write back from a (GUI) program. It is just a simple matter of programming

This is why I'm trying to get sysadm up and running. I think with some tweaks it could be pretty good for this purpose. It's set to run on openrc which I'm not too familiar with switching configuration files between but I'm also getting an overflow from libressl, it seems. Hopefully tonight or the next few days I can work out the kinks.

 

[getopt]

I respond in kind.

From your postings so far this day a thread had to be closed. You are a troublemaker. Instead of wasting others time here go learn coding.

 

[BaronBS]

Friendlier atmosphere. I've noticed some of the developers and administrators tend to have a negative view and response to users.

I know this is a matter of perspective, but in my exp this is one of the most open community I saw. Even the RTFM culture here it is pretty polite.

Something like a settings screen. Even a terminal based one to start. Instead of having to go through configuration files or commands and reading man pages. Settings in one location. I know when I first started this took a lot of trial and error.

there is one:
bsdconfig(8)

Faster boot times. I know waiting on dhclient has slowed my boot times down and attempting to switch it to run in the background doesn't always seem to work.

I suggest that you take a look at This awesome guide on how to simplify the boot process.