will freebsd15 have default desktop?

Beastie7 said:
How can we improve FreeBSD-based grassroots efforts like helloSystem?
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I initially dismissed helloSystem because it mentioned FreeBSD as the core (figured I may as well just use the core :p), but describing the situation with Linux and grassroot efforts made it sound way more interesting! I'm already liking what I'm reading about it and will probably install it and try it out in the near future.

On Linux I feel like most forked distros were only created to impose a new view separate from the original distro out of some spite (Ubuntu clones because Canonical), while still piggy-backing off their main work. And then usually offering a sub-par experience (unique issues to that fork even though it's mostly another OS). And that general motivation not overall leading to long-term good results (more breakage, eventual slow updates, dropped/ghosted altogether).

I like FreeBSD way more as a core (devs seem motivated in presenting and providing a good experience, and it shows!), and helloSystem doesn't sound like they're trying to replace FreeBSD, while also offering something that looks unique! And their Why? list looks pretty thorough and irrefutable :p
 
Espionage724 said:
I like FreeBSD way more as a core (devs seem motivated in presenting and providing a good experience, and it shows!),
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And that's fine. But people are missing the forest for the trees in this thread. People use desktops to get work done with GUI applications. NeXTOS wouldn't have been as successful as it was at the time if it didn't have a usable desktop experience (with applications) that inherits all the goodness it's Unix underpinnings provides. You can have tier-1 support for the latest of latest hardware - lightning fast I/O. But if application developers can't leverage that; what's the point? They want a thin barrier-to-entry to facilitate that, so that the general populous (like me and you, or mere mortals), can use it to get work done. IMO projects like helloSystem is key here. Assuming FreeBSD will never ship a default, and stable desktop experience. If it did, i'd have insurmountable implications for the open source desktop. The base system in FreeBSD is incredibly solid. But for now, Apple reigns in that "ethos". In terms of Unix on the desktop. Who knows what might happen though.

Much like when CLI admins get to test out new improvements to the kernel to help their customers. But the outcome is inverted, so to speak.
 
LibreQuest said:
I agree with the idea that a lot of forum users may be happier using another system rather than FreeBSD. Namely those who want the system to be more like a different system.
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Heck, there's even a forum rule & guideline on the subject:
forums.freebsd.org

Why is FreeBSD not (more) like ....

As of today, FreeBSD Forums staff will actively close down (and eventually remove) topics that serve no other purpose than to complain that "FreeBSD is not (like) Linux" (or Windows, or MacOS, or any other operating system), or that "FreeBSD does not use systemd", or that "FreeBSD has no default...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org
 
Was trying to test Ubuntu in a VM, and figured why not helloSystems at the same time!
  • I like the UX and installer (went with the latest official release but not pre-release)
  • I found it interesting post-install it mentioned it knew I was running it virtualized and that it was designed for bare-metal; that's pretty cool attention to detail!
  • Went to System -> Apps -> Under Construction -> Update, (ignored the under construction part), typed my pass and tried to update, and it failed very vaguely with "will not have been corrected."; that'll be pretty cool when it works :p
  • sudo just-worked! pkg update mentioned a mismatch (FreeBSD version of zstd) and I figure there's something helloSystems-specific I'll have to be doing for software
Just a little taste of it, but I'm curious enough to try it more later with a newer release and LiveUSB!
 
cy@ said:
That is if you want to search for apps in a search bar rather than pick them from a menu. I tossed Gnome when it was upgraded from 2 to 3, switching from it to KDE at the time. KDE was better but even more bloated. The Gnome UI on any platform is horrible.
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Honestly, design philosophies of two functional systems, as intended by their creators, are always inherently subjective. I was just correcting the claim that "GNOME experience is identical across both Linux distributions and BSDs" which is not the case. GNOME is specifically designed for Linux, glibc, Dbus, NetworkManager and systemd integration. Even Alpine Linux and Void Linux GNOME ports have numerous patches. DBus port in BSD is a very stripped down version without a lot of security features enabled (because those features need cgroups). Fedora is the flagship GNOME distribution, thus has the best upstream GNOME experience one can get. Firefox has bunch of patches too.

Even other major Desktop Environments (MATE, Xfce4, etc.) require Linux-specific compatibility emulation in FreeBSD to function properly. This suggests that these desktop environments were not designed with *BSDs in mind when they were created. Sure, it's possible to use them on BSDs through porting, but long-term development, stability and maintenance will be challenging (a lot of extra effort is needed).

Anyone who wants to use FreeBSD should acknowledge this in their mind for security and stability reasons.
 
Beastie7 said:
This thread is hilarious. All this talk about upstream Linux projects as if we have any control or influence on the matter. Who cares. The Linux community controls all GUI experiences used on FreeBSD.
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Indeed. A small minority of the Linux community controls all the GUI experiences. I don't think this was ever up for debate.
Beastie7 said:
That project has a better chance of attracting more application (that's the point of a desktop OS, right?) support than pointless bike shedding here.
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I don't think that project has a better chance than us bike shedding here. Neither will result in a fully functional and complete DE experience. At least the bikeshedding gives the new users and idea as to why we don't (and never will) have a default DE in base (as per the topic title).
 
fr0xk said:
...
DBus port in BSD is a very stripped down version without a lot of security features enabled (because those features need cgroups).
...
Even other major Desktop Environments (MATE, Xfce4, etc.) require Linux-specific compatibility emulation in FreeBSD to function properly. This suggests that these desktop environments were not designed with *BSDs in mind when they were created. Sure, it's possible to use them on BSDs through porting, but long-term development, stability and maintenance will be challenging (a lot of extra effort is needed).

Anyone who wants to use FreeBSD should acknowledge this in their mind for security and stability reasons.
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All valid points.

With that said, I can testify first hand that the two DEs you mentioned, MATE and Xfce4, work perfectly under FreeBSD despite all the limitations you mentioned, so kudos to the maintainers for that. Yes they were not designed with *BSD in mind but their inherent semplicity makes them work just fine.

Would I love to use CDE on FreeBSD? Sure, I even tried to, but in my experience it's just too limited out of the box and requires a lot of tinkering to make it work like the default Xfce4 installation does for me.

Maybe when I was (much) younger I would have spent a serious amount of time to adapt it to my needs but at 55 I just prefer things to be easy and simple to run.

Side note: my laptop runs a full Xfce4 DE with office apps, a few games and utilities (Virtualbox included) in just 664 packages. This is just mind blowing if I think that a similar Linux install is about 2800 packages (and it doesn't even have ZFS ;) ).

I enjoy FreeBSD more every day, I wish I moved away from Linux earlier.
 
fmc000 said:
fmc000 said:
This is just mind blowing if I think that a similar Linux install is about 2800 packages (and it doesn't even have ZFS ;) ).
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The key thing to understand about the BSD world is that it values meritocracy over personal preferences or opinions. This is because BSDs originated from a research-based operating system and still reflect that approach. Most of us see criticism of systemd or anything like that or claim against Windows /macOS/Linux distributions without solid, reproducible technical evidence as just operating system evangelism. Evangelism is a natural outcome of being overly enthusiastic about almost anything that you put your time, ideology and efforts into and that's fine. They are allowed to discuss.

Now, the number of installed packages shown depends on the Linux distribution. Apt-based distributions show more packages because they often split one package into two or three. Alpine Linux, Arch Linux, Void Linux, and Gentoo Linux can achieve similar package counts as FreeBSD. FreeBSD shows fewer packages because it doesn’t count the binaries pre-installed with the base system, which aren’t managed by ports/pkg. OpenZFS has more contributors from major Linux distributions like Fedora, Arch, Void, Alpine, SUSE, and Debian since it merged with the ZFS on Linux (ZoL) codebase. FreeBSD’s main strengths include pre-configured ZFS on root (well-integrated thanks to the compatibility between the BSD license and CDDL), along with features like PF, IPFW, CARP, and the BSD license itself. FreeBSD also offers simpler jails, and it focuses most of its resources here. Beyond that, it comes down to personal preference—things like the separation of the base system from user-installed packages and consistent command-line tools. FreeBSD doesn’t change as quickly as Linux distributions. The preconceived stability and security is the natural outcome of a well-designed system.
 
Ilovehotdog said:
will freebsd15 have default desktop?
i hear about it.
is it true?
will it be twm , xfce , icewm , mate , kde or other wm?
by the way, i know freebsd have debian compatibility runtime.
so, does it run https://www.spark-app.store/ well which is famous in Chinese open source circle.
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Sure.
It was announced in the latest BSD conference:
“I will build a great great desktop, and nobody builds desktops better than me, believe me. And I will build it very inexpesively. I will build a great great desktop for FreeBSD and I will have GNOME pay for that desktop. Mark my words!”
 
Jose said:
Heck, there's even a forum rule & guideline on the subject:
forums.freebsd.org

Why is FreeBSD not (more) like ....

As of today, FreeBSD Forums staff will actively close down (and eventually remove) topics that serve no other purpose than to complain that "FreeBSD is not (like) Linux" (or Windows, or MacOS, or any other operating system), or that "FreeBSD does not use systemd", or that "FreeBSD has no default...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org
Click to expand...
I have a question. Have you ever wished FreeBSD had a gcc like linux?
 
Rock said:
I read that the goal of clang is to resemble gcc. So is FreeBSD doing the same thing twice?
Click to expand...
Not quite... clang is just a compact compiler for C/C++. Clang is way more compact than GCC, so it was included in FreeBSD's base (instead of GCC) on purely pragmatic grounds. lang/gcc is in the ports collection for users who want GCC to be available on FreeBSD. GCC is not in FreeBSD's base... :rolleyes: GCC is merely another option that is available for install, not provided by default.
 
Jose said:
And Apple engineers have contributed to Clang (and LVM) development to the point where it's now competitive with GCC. I personally can't tell the difference nowadays.
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Indeed, to the point that...

Code: 
[20:17][fmc000@tu45b-freebsd][~]
 ╰─$ gcc -v
bash: gcc: command not found
[20:18][fmc000@tu45b-freebsd][~]
 ╰─$
 
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