yet another Linux-only WM?

UNIXgod said:
What other options are there over gtk and qt?
Neither GTK nor QT have anything to do with this "Linux-only" stuff.

In case of Gnome it's the (proposed) dependency on systemd that would make Gnome Linux-only, not it's use of GTK.
 
There are plenty other widget sets. However, GTK and/or QT seem the most complete. But also overkill for a lightweight WM/DE. In any case, I'm highly interested in this story (making something FreeBSD specific so we get easier desktop usage).
 
I see this as a major advantage for *BSD purely since it means development will stop on gnome and we will be frozen with an older version of Gnome. It means we can make it really stable and not have to worry about playing catchup.

Also, I see the route Gnome is now taking as being quite insane so it will be great to get away from that.

The only issue I see is making sure that updates to ports (gtk 5?) don't break our version of Gnome.
 
NOT wm but DE.
Thread name was interesting (linux only window manager - crap I can not even imagine that); while inside the thread there is nothing that I did not know. :(


P.s.
1) Also OpenSource nowadays in mind of all of the mainstream developers (read: corporative slaves that write the 'FreeCode' not for fun and themselves but mostly for profit and the boss) is not 'Open Source world', but is 'Linux-centric world, full of linux-only crap to support and develop'. That is a shame not on OpenSource, in fact, that is not a 'shame': its, err, buisness :)

2) As I understand, it is not like its too hard to support both BSD, Solaris and Linux, but what for should Linux companies support their potentive rival? Who of them wants to develop something that will be used not even by people who MAY BE some days later would buy their product, but by people who will never even want to come close to the world of their product?

3) (flame-mode:)) As for me, KDE3 this time is one and only really usefull, full and good DE. May be (and only _may_be_) KDE4 will be like that some time later.
 
2) As I understand, it is not like its too hard to support both BSD, Solaris and Linux

No it isn't. However, Linux circles are set to replace traditional BSD or SysV scripts. Ubuntu is pushing for upstart while Red Hat wants to use systemd, and Red Hat contributes huge chunks of code to GNOME project.

But the valid question is, why should a X11 based desktop environment do anything with system scripts? I mean, you need to run a, b, and c, in that order, for the desktop to initialize, and the mechanism that's going to run them should be irrelevant.

Perhaps Red Hat wants internal GNOME services to run under systemd, opposed to traditional way of detaching (daemonizing) process, or using a custom supervisor program.

It all depends on the code. If they play nice, and separate systemd code while maintaining a clean and documented interface with rest of the GNOME stuff, then they've done their work nicely and it's up to operating system porters to integrate it with specific OS service framework.
 
nekoexmachina said:
As for me, KDE3 this time is one and only really usefull, full and good DE.

Make the most of it whilst you can. I don't imagine this will be around too much longer since ol' bloated KDE4 is around.

Perhaps about 3 years tops and then you will be forced to make do with slow bloated "modern" desktop environments.
 
First of all GNOME is not a WM(window manager) it is a DE(desktop environment). DE is a compilation of programs designed to form basis for a work environment. That will consist of: window manager, file manager, desktop manager, task-bar manager, some short of a menu manager and some basic tools like text editor and so on.

In last couple of years Linux community became really fat with users and a lot of commercial projects and companies sprang up to accommodate them. Even the biggest opensource projects like GNOME are getting financed by these commercial 3rd parties to keep the gears rolling. And its pretty easy to understand that its not worth supporting (financially) other platforms than the ones that most of your users are using.

People will always find way to make money, even from GNU guys. Kinda ironic.
 
Perhaps about 3 years tops and then you will be forced to make do with slow bloated "modern" desktop environments.
I plan to be on the programming level right enough to have KDE3 working till the giant changes will go into the FBSD source tree (which I do not believe).
Also there is trinity-desktop, which claims to make the best of KDE3, and I hope Timoty will give up the idea of QT4 porting OR will make it look and work good.
Also Im half-tiling user, so KDE3 on the desk is much more like nostalgia: the things I use are amarok via hotkeys, terminal with tmux and Firefox with vimperator :)
 
expl said:
In last couple of years Linux community became really fat with users and a lot of commercial projects and companies sprang up to accommodate them. Even the biggest opensource projects like GNOME are getting financed by these commercial 3rd parties to keep the gears rolling. And its pretty easy to understand that its not worth supporting (financially) other platforms than the ones that most of your users are using.

You couldn't have said it better. Maybe the platonic era of free software is coming to an end since projects get bigger and bigger needs funding.

Look at the recent example of open solaris, sacrificed by its new foster parents. Also, if you see where linux is heading it is not surprising that sponsors want to protect their Frankenstein kernel by assimilating most WM/DE into their blindness.

However, I can still see the light in the tunnel because its development, production, release cycle doesn't differ so much from microsoft windows anymore. Have your customers debug the software for you.
 
A bit of clarity (the quote is from the 2nd link below specifically):

This "GNOME to drop non-Linux support" sensationalism on the net is ridiculous. There has been no such proposal! Yes, I RTFA and the full mailing list discussions.
The proposal in GNOME's desktop-devel-list was by the author and maintainer of systemd to let GNOME adopt systemd as the mechanism to configure certain system-wide settings, like locale and timezone data. This would be implemented as a dbus interface which would spawn a mini-daemon via systemd when that was required. This would solve the age old problem of every distro having their own slight variation on how to configure these things.
Notice the key part of the proposal: the dbus interface. This is the proposed dependency, and not the whole of systemd which, yes is Linux only, but in reality is just a reference implementation for this dbus interface which can be VERY easily reimplemented on any system (the minidaemons themselves are very trivial, porting systemd to other platforms however is not).
What this proposal ACTUALLY means: (a) Non Linux platforms, or Linux distros not yet using systemd, would initially have grayed out certain configuration options in the control center, like locale for example. (b) These settings can be made available just by implementing a trivial dbus interface.
Nothing of this dropping non-Linux OS support nonsense. Hope this clears up the nonsense somewhat

http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-a...me-change-proposal-much-smoke-no-fire?start=1

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2169770&cid=36180504

Btw, I'm primarily a Linux user at the moment but recently installed FreeBSD 8.2 + GNOME on one of my home machines. My first post had to be about something obviously so I thought it might as well be this...
 
bbzz said:
I think FreeBSD developers should concentrate their powers on making FreeBSD system useful and functional. New DE should be last priority.

On the creation FreeBSD DE - C/C++ (gtk/QT) developers not is mandatory can be required now. Look around at tendency of WEB OS.
There can be now suitable time to write FreeBSD DE, but it will be HTML5-based? HTML5+JS - it is first of all standards, which may not affect for some view of Linux-MacOSX-Windows-only peoples. I think it makes sense when FreeBSD boot, starts micro-HTTPD server (or via inetd ;), X-server + WEB browser - and at least FreeBSD has a personal, independent and cross-platform DE. Better than nothing.
And the much bigger number of people can take part in this project - HTML/WEB programmers among fans FreeBSD will be much
 
What this proposal ACTUALLY means: (a) Non Linux platforms, or Linux distros not yet using systemd, would initially have grayed out certain configuration options in the control center, like locale for example. (b) These settings can be made available just by implementing a trivial dbus interface.
Nothing of this dropping non-Linux OS support nonsense. Hope this clears up the nonsense somewhat

"By implementing a trivial dbus interface"... Oh! you mean like the one that the gnome project dropped.

I am sorry, but how dropped is his meaning of dropped... Any more dropped and it will appear on the other side of the earth.

Luckily they have made gnome3 so unusable that it makes it easier to ween users of other OSes off... While they drop support for all OSes other than linux.

This is kinda like Microsoft saying that they are going to support Windows XP for another 20 years but the activation server will no longer work.
Perhaps we can "implement a trivial activation server" ;)

I think what could be an idea is if the FreeBSD community maintained an old version of Gnome in the same way as on AIX (~Gnome 2.14). I tried to a while back but it just depends on too much sh*t for one man to cope with alone lol.
 
expl said:
People will always find way to make money, even from GNU guys. Kinda ironic.

gkontos said:
You couldn't have said it better. Maybe the platonic era of free software is coming to an end since projects get bigger and bigger needs funding.

Obviously. That is the whole point. GNU was never about being free, in the sense of free beer. How is the development supposed to be funded? People need to eat and pay their bills. Development isn't free, again in the sense of free beer. Just look at how much money the FreeBSD development people go through in a year: sponsoring development, travel grants etc etc.

The more money that flows into the eco-system the better. What needs to be pushed though should be interoperability and adherence to existing standards (defining new standards doesn't count).

Lots of products arise because someone sees a need for them, develops them internally for the sake of making money, often reducing costs, and the releases them. So then someone else comes along, takes that product, makes more money on it ... and then does what? What is the proper solution? In my mind the best thing would be for them to give some of the profit back to the project so that it can continue to grow, to thrive and to be developed.


Look at the recent example of open solaris, sacrificed by its new foster parents.
So Oracle decided that they no longer wanted to have their internal DEVELOPMENT branch, which is what OSOL was, open to the public for obvious reasons. Problem being? They have promised, albeit still need to live up to this promise, to open up the code at a later date. If you were a car-maker would you let all your competitors see the detailed design material for your new models before they were published?
Solaris lives on, so it has not been sacrificed.
 
rockworldmi said:
:) there really should be free bsd DE....and all BSD projects work together making one ...:)

Damn, I need some new reply to such suggestions which does not involve Duke Nukem or HURD... :p

How about:
We will have a go at that right after we created world peace, got rid of religious bigots and provided adeqate housing for everyone (including bikesheds).
 
Crivens said:
Damn, I need some new reply to such suggestions which does not involve Duke Nukem or HURD... :p

How about:
We will have a go at that right after we created world peace, got rid of religious bigots and provided adeqate housing for everyone (including bikesheds).

I would like to start a discussion to paint the bikeshed red. This is in accordance with the FreeBSD color scheme and matches McKusick's BSD Daemon.

Bsd_daemon.jpg
 
rockworldmi said:
there really should be free bsd DE....
Okay, so can somebody attach the nickname DE to the upcoming 9.0-RELEASE? That way we can have "FreeBSD (*) DE" but not a whole lot of time needs to be wasted x(

Fonz

Ad (*): At the very least try to get the spelling right please...
 
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