Using FreeBSD as Desktop OS

Trihexagonal said:
That's exactly what I've been missing in x11-wm/fluxbox.
Damn you, Ubuntu...
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For equal effect, I either just shake my head around as I move a window, or drink a lot of alcohol. Of the two I personally prefer the latter.
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AlexanderProphet said:
As we’re on the subject of macOS generally, I can’t recommend the 12 inch MacBook highly enough. You don’t realise the value of an ultra portable until you’ve owned one. I wish I could install something more Unixy on it, that’s the only thing. But the display is beautiful, the battery lasts about 8 hours, it’s almost silent, and so easy to carry around. I use it for writing and web browsing and some light coding.
I know macOS isn’t “free as in freedom”, but you end up forgiving it because it’s just so good.
I sometimes think how Richard Stallman of GNU, has philosophised himself into a corner. As a geek he must be desperate to get his hands on some Apple tech but he’s just not allowed cos of the ideology. What’s the probability he has an iPad hidden somewhere? :D
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I just sold my MacBook Pro 2017. Yes, initially everything looks great, the integration with iPhone is awesome, I miss that a bit, it's just those little things which make using it not worth the price. Bluetooth simply disconnects (restarts?) in ~30 minutes, interwebs are full of similar reports and nothing is being done about it; you can't use the keyboard volume keys for external output (monitor, tv); (the list can go on, but it's pointless). I guess it's just not that stable (I hate to admit it, but Windows 10 is running much more stable for me), not unixy enough (I just bought Lenovo laptop instead and installed FreeBSD) for me. Just my experience, I'm really glad someone doesn't hit those (or any other) issues.
 
knightjp said:
I sort of feel they lack something that I can't really put into words. I would like to find a way to combine Openbox and Compiz. I'm not a developer. I'm just an average user.
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I suspect the polish you're talking about is the Quartz compositor and Core Animation (as well as Aqua) - as that what drives the UI rendering in macOS. Yes, this is miles ahead of Xorg + (whatever window manager) in open source desktops. Even in KDE i've experienced consistent tearing and glitching. Yuck.

Xorg in an abominable piece of garbage to say the least.
 
Beastie7 said:
Xorg in an abominable piece of garbage to say the least.
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Xorg is working, and it's working pretty well and stable for me
(no tearing, fast, etc), it is much faster than every Crapple or M$ OS,
also it is pretty lightweight. Also personally I don't need any "wobbly windows"
or any other stupid shit, as said before, if someone need such effects, he should use drugs,
and not windows or macos (there is no big difference what popular garbage to use,
experience will be similar, you'll see glitches, pop design and big lack of any customization ability).
 
drhowarddrfine said:
My wife struggles daily with Windows 10. Now that we sold our restaurants--she needs Quickbooks for that--I told her I was putting FreeBSD on it and she'll never have problems again.
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Admit it, that was the idea behind the sale all along ;)
 
Crivens said:
Admit it, that was the idea behind the sale all along ;)
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Daily struggles with five Windows POS systems that tech support can't solve, then having to come home and hear about the home office Windows computer struggling can do that to you. That going into my office with FreeBSD is relaxing gives you a whole different perspective--using a system designed for professionals versus one designed for Mom and her kids games.
 
Beastie7 said:
I suspect the polish you're talking about is the Quartz compositor and Core Animation (as well as Aqua) - as that what drives the UI rendering in macOS. Yes, this is miles ahead of Xorg + (whatever window manager) in open source desktops. Even in KDE i've experienced consistent tearing and glitching. Yuck.
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yes, there is something about the window transitions and tearing that gets to me as well. I think you may have hit the target on that.. however, I kinda feel that there is a bit more to it. I could easily run FreeBSD on my Hackintosh with ease. I could probably find ways to make everything work well in terms of drivers, etc. I did try that for a while actually a few months ago. However I still kept my MacOS installation USB handy just in case I needed to come back. And it didn't take long for me to come back.
For one, it was the sheer amount of choice in terms of desktop environments that staggered me most of all. I knew I wanted something with a similar feel of MacOS, but with its own flavor. Gnome fit the bill, but it wasn't cutting it for me. I thought that I could go KDE, but at the time only KDE4 was supported which IMO is a nightmare on resources. I tried Mate and was pretty happy with it, but it missed something. Compiz wasn't working well and I hated Slim as a login screen. I would rather use xdm.
And I'm not too clued in on the open source software to build a complete desktop environment from Openbox.
The best would be me finding something that gives me the window theme of classic MacOS 9.. If I find that, I'd be golden.
FWIW, Apple has done a lot to make their system interface a masterpiece. I mean, there is a reason why there are hundreds of links stating " how to make (insert OS here) look like Mac OS X"

Beastie7 said:
Xorg in an abominable piece of garbage to say the least.
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I'm not sure that Xorg is such a horrible mess. After all, it has brought us this far in terms of open source desktop environments. But what about all the advances in Linux with Wayland, etc.. Is there better out there that we can use?
 
AlexanderProphet said:
I like the clock and the moon phase thing. Useful for werewolves/lunatics etc. What’s the lil music player called in the bottom right?
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The player is multimedia/xmms and there is a collection of over 600 skins for it in multimedia/xmms-skins-huge.

The monitors are sysutils/gkrellm2. I've used it for years and prefer it over sysutils/conky. There is the astro/gkrellmoon2 moonclock and a misc/gkrellweather2 weather plugin that is nice, too. I like to take my screenshots when it shows the moon as full and am waiting to get another one for a Halloween shot of my X61 .mp3 player:

harvesterofeyes.png
 
knightjp said:
I'm not sure that Xorg is such a horrible mess. After all, it has brought us this far in terms of open source desktop environments. But what about all the advances in Linux with Wayland, etc.. Is there better out there that we can use?
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The issue is that Xorg wasn't designed for desktop usage; so over the years various hacks were introduced to shoehorn Xorg into the use case. Secure multi-seating, true anti-aliasing, tear-free frame drawing, etc are what lack in it. Of course it "works", but it sucks, and you'd be damned crazy if anyone deploys this mess on any serious network for a corporate office.

Wayland? Wayland is a pipe dream. It's also birthed from the Linux community; i wouldn't touch it. FreeBSD should really design it's own display server - that it controls, just like most things in base.

knightjp said:
I could go KDE
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KDE is doing a lot of things right. I really applaud their work.
 
Beastie7 said:
KDE is doing a lot of things right. I really applaud their work.
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My issue with KDE on FreeBSD is that it really isn't the latest and greatest. KDE is doing quite a lot of things right these days. For instance, they recognized that their system was becoming far too heavy and if you see the latest release of Kubuntu, it performs far better than stock Gnome on Ubuntu. Kubuntu is also far lighter and better than even Ubuntu Mate.

However I fail to see how that will help FreeBSD when it gives us only the older versions of its software. I think that it is about the same with Gnome as well. In fact, this is one thing about the open source that doesn't sit right with me. It takes quite a while to get the latest and greatest. Since it is a community effort, it depends on someone taking the initiative and many times, individuals become complacent in maintaining or just move on to the next great thing.


Beastie7 said:
Wayland? Wayland is a pipe dream. It's also birthed from the Linux community; i wouldn't touch it. FreeBSD should really design it's own display server - that it controls, just like most things in base.
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I'm not a developer and most likely wouldn't know where to begin to build one. I am wondering why no one else in the FreeBSD development community has seen the need and started work on one yet.
 
IMO KDE or GNOME are both crap for now,
never was a KDE fan, because it is pretty ugly and glitchy IMO,
and GNOME (newer than 3.18) has systemd as a dependency.
It's much better to use some simple WM and other apps,
which you like, than to use any "complete" DE IMO,
because such custom DE will work much faster and more stable.
I use the same applications on Linux as well as on FreeBSD,
and my custom DE works much better, than any "complete" one,
moreover I like it much more, than GNOME, Xfce, KDE, etc.
Possibility to create your own custom DE — is one of biggest pros of free software,
because such DE will work exactly the way you want it to work.
Also such DE will be designed exactly the way you want,
and it won't use any "GNOME team" design, as well as
Crapple or M$ "housewife" design.
 
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