Does Desktop have a future on BSD?

[Beastie7]

Is OpenBSD's Xenocara too locked down to be of use as an Xorg implementation on FreeBSD?

It's a build framework, so it adheres to strict policies that OpenBSD expects of their operation system. But FreeBSD doesn't have to take the same approach. Although I'm sure cruft removal is a highly sought value regardless of the BSDs.

To answer your question, yes.

 

[Deleted member 30996]

Same neophyte comes to the FreeBSD website, again download the biggest image, start to install, and check every boxes.
He reboots the system and will drop in CLI environment. Then he comes to the Forums, opens a threat, so forth and so on.

From neophyte perspective, i.e. download the largest ISO and tick everything, OpenBSD is better for desktop than FreeBSD.

I wasn't sure if you meant to use the word threat purposely or meant thread, so I left it as written.

Since we're debating the future of FreeBSD as a desktop OS and OpenBSD has come into the picture, for evidential purposes only, I'll risk the fires of Hell to post a screenshot of my T43 running OpenBSD 6.2.

Point being with a change to x11/rxvt-unicode, a change of fonts with some tweaking of programs to match, set gKrellm not to show the OS, replace dearly departed XMMS with multimedia/audacious I could make it impossible to tell from the screenshot of my X61 with same screen ratio that follows it shown running FreeBSD at 306 days uptime.




It just takes work to do it with FreeBSD. And it's not like OpenBSD runs itself. There is very little difference in Administration of the two and I can only think of one difference in file hiearchy where OpenBSD does not have a directory FreeBSD has.

I tried to make it easy as possible to get to the desktop and end up with the same thing you do with OpenBSD. Only more because you get the doodads that make my idea of a desktop with it when you land. If they aren't interested in putting in the time to learn how to do that work then OpenBSD might be the answer to their prayers.

Personally, I think FreeBSD is more polished as a desktop and am much more comfortable using it, but that may come from difference in time spent using them. I know I'm going to rebuild my T43 and the next screenshot I post will be of it running FreeBSD.

 

[a6h]

I wasn't sure if you meant to use the word threat purposely or meant thread, so I left it as written.

s/threat/thread. Typo! It often happens, and I have go through my posts and correct it!

 

[Argentum]

Point being with a change to x11/rxvt-unicode, a change of fonts with some tweaking of programs to match, set gKrellm not to show the OS, replace dearly departed XMMS with multimedia/audacious I could make it impossible to tell from the screenshot of my X61 with same screen ratio that follows it shown running FreeBSD at 306 days uptime.

My FreeBSD-s have always worked a long time as long as the hardware has no faults. The best uptime on server I have had 1032 days:

... and it was taken down because of business considerations, not because of any fault...

 

[zirias@]

Cool, guaranteed vulnerabilities.

 

[Mjölnir]

The core team & the devs are well aware of the importance of desktop for the project, for one because FreeBSD is a general purpose OS, but maybe more so because that use case is the door to attract new contributors & developers; last not least they want to run the BeaSD on their own laptops & desks. Just look at the project's main website, desktop is explicitely mentioned there, look into the wiki, desktop related topics take much space.

Yes, it's getting quite vicious around here

Zirias & me recenty had a thread (~16h support session) where we literally had to read the Handbook to an innocent newbie Thanks to the almighty BeaSD s/he finally succeeded. Hey, for some non-techies, the terms used in the Handbook & other docs are just all Greek, so eventually I'm ok with that. Don't need that daily, though.

 

[mark_j]

They can be low-quality but are widely used and it is better to have support/driver in FreeBSD. The integrated NIC in many motherboards is RTL.

This is very true which is why I always put an intel card in to replace it.
(I must admit realtek aren't as bad as qualcomm onboard nic. Just my experience.)

 

[scott_sch]

FreeBSD should just try to be the best version of itself.

 

[lostpacket]

I've used FreeBSD since v4.3 for servers, and still do as preferred server platform. Granted I still have to use Linux for some where required, Openstack, XCP-NG, docker requirements (Bitwarden for example).

I eventually switched desktop from Windows due to updates becoming painful and constantly breaking things, working in an IT support environment I also get to see how often Windows breaks, and what a pain in the arse it can be to sort. I started looking for an alternative desktop environment and tried most including Pop!_OS and Manjaro. Not being a fan of Gnome I went with Manjaro first which is not a bad Linux distro, then finally settled on vanilla Arch for the reason it doesn't have all the bloat, sure you can use the Anarchy installer for Arch but may as well just go with Vanilla Arch. Out of the box Arch also doesn't have a desktop option.

After getting new hardware (AMD Ryzen 3900X, Asus Rog Crosshair and 64GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 2060) I decided to see how FreeBSD works as a desktop environment again, it's been awhile seen I tried FreeBSD as a desktop; and it has come on leaps and bounds! Installing the desktop environment (KDE) is quite painless and very quick using packages if that's your preference.

Most things seem to work fine under KDE, automounting USB devices I remember being a pain put that seems resolved. Wifi functionality is still strange compared to how convenient it is on Windows or Linux but wpa gui is manageable.

From a desktop for an office pc (mainly used for development) perspective it's runs quite well. LibreOffice works fine (after getting used to it from Word) for writing a lot of the documentation we do, connecting to printers around the office is fine. PHPStorm works fine which is what I mainly need along with apache/php/sass etc. Gimp works fine (mostly) for image manipulation, inkscape, kdenlive for video editing, audacity, OBS is fine for YouTube stuff, draw.io obviously usable for network diagrams etc. Browser wise I use firefox so that works well, seems to be some browsers disappearing such as Chromium, Google-Chrome etc which would be useful to have for testing websites from different browsers. Our RMM (Take Control) remote access doesn't work under FreeBSD (but it doesn't work under Linux either). Screenconnect works well for remotely connecting to other PCs to help users as it's java based anyhow, the self-hosed ScreenConnect work's on Linux but updates are scarce and they are moving more towards Windows (or their cloud offering) with that anyway.

I still have to run virtualbox anyhow for certain Windows based stuff we use so any browser issues are overcome using them there. Windows works fine on virtualbox with dynamic scaling etc.

There are a couple of things lacking such as native Slack client (not sure why this couldn't be ported since it's written in Electron, same as MS teams). These work just fine from browser though, same as Zoom.

Wine is a different matter and trying to get some 64-bit Windows game working, which runs fine under Linux, work-in-progress atm.

All in all FreeBSD as a desktop works quite well, and it's stable. Some GUI options in the installer might make it viable for newer users.

 

[zirias@]

not sure why this couldn't be ported since it's written in Electron

Behold a representative electron port: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/editors/vscode/Makefile?view=markup

Yep, electron is a major PITA. Under my dictatorship over the world, it would be strictly forbidden ?

(oh, and, I also doubt slack and teams are opensource...)

 

[Mjölnir]

/usr/ports/editors/vscode/pkg-descr reads:

VS Code is a type of tool that combines the simplicity of a code
editor with what developers need for their core edit-build-debug
cycle. It provides comprehensive editing and debugging support, an
extensibility model, and lightweight integration with existing tools.

WWW: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Wow, an an editor claiming it "combines the simplicity of a code editor...", with runtime-dependency on a sound library (ALSA). We have to tell Phishfry, maybe he wants to include that genious peace of SW into one of his mini-BSD projects.

 

[zirias@]

Well, for a certain type of dev, electron is THE "hot shit" right now. I agree on the shit part…
As if the flood of pointless SPAs where a clean, lean and compatible web app would have achieved the same, wasn't enough. Now, these fanatics think it's a good idea to introduce the same (or: worse) hell for desktop apps. ?‍

Interestingly, I've seen a similar mistake a long time ago the other way around. Anyone remembers "ASP.NET Web Forms"? Of course, MS ... back then, the "awesome" idea was "build a web app as if you were building a desktop app". Sounds familiar? Sure, citing the electron project page:

If you can build a website, you can build a desktop app. Electron is a framework for creating native applications with web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

(Disclaimer: Sure, electron wasn't a MS idea, but at least they quickly jumped on THAT bandwagon with excitement…)

 

[Deleted member 56028]

/usr/ports/editors/vscode/pkg-descr reads:

VS Code is a type of tool that combines the simplicity of a code
editor with what developers need for their core edit-build-debug
cycle. It provides comprehensive editing and debugging support, an
extensibility model, and lightweight integration with existing tools.

WWW: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Wow, an an editor claiming it "combines the simplicity of a code editor...", with runtime-dependency on a sound library (ALSA). We have to tell Phishfry, maybe he wants to include that genious peace of SW into one of his mini-BSD projects.

Actually I'm more impressed of saying that a software using something like electron could be used as an example of "simplicity", specially about a code editor.

 

[Barney]

If you don't think it has any future why you are using it and why you are here? Or you are here only to rant and actually not using it? Why don't just go with Linux since it's the ultimate operating system?

This kind of chatter is counter-productive. We use what we're familiar with.

I would LOVE to use FreeBSD for my touch projects, but FreeBSD is driven by where the money comes from. It's unfortunately not being developed for the user base, it's being developed for the companies paying the consulting fees of the developers. I tried to get involved with PC-BSD years ago but the guys there were not only stupid they were incredible A-holes. They simply didn't want to do the things that would have made the project a long term success. They didn't understand that you have to be really good at *something* to build a base.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

FreeBSD is driven by where the money comes from. It's unfortunately not being developed for the user base, it's being developed for the companies paying the consulting fees of the developers.

Huh? What money? This statement is laughable.

 

[mark_j]

This kind of chatter is counter-productive. We use what we're familiar with.

I would LOVE to use FreeBSD for my touch projects, but FreeBSD is driven by where the money comes from. It's unfortunately not being developed for the user base, it's being developed for the companies paying the consulting fees of the developers. I tried to get involved with PC-BSD years ago but the guys there were not only stupid they were incredible A-holes. They simply didn't want to do the things that would have made the project a long term success. They didn't understand that you have to be really good at *something* to build a base.

To a degree you're correct, I believe, in that corporate dollars do flow to specific projects, but this is no different than other open source OS. It's natural that FreeBSD might focus more on servers, which are run by people like Netflix, which in turn fund server-focussed development. They're unlikely to put big funding into touch screens, are they not?

You are wrong to assume this is the reason for not supporting YOUR touch projects. Have you the skill, time (& money) to do such a project? Assuming a reply of 'no', then have you considered this is true of the developers working on FreeBSD? It's extremely disingenuous to think otherwise.
This is not to say I think the foundation, set up to fund the project, has not dropped the ball for a long time. For example, it took it years to fund 'ac' support. They have the money but they do seem focussed on the server 'market' with blinders/blinkers to the plight of the desktop users. (That's my perception, in reality I might be totally wrong).

But, to argue against myself it is hard to pick something that everyone needs: touch screen, HID devices, USBv4, sleep etc. That's why they have these surveys, should they act on the results, we might get better outcomes for 'niche' projects.

 

[Mjölnir]

The community survey is the topic of tomorrow's Office Hours, and FMLU the project & the companies leveraging FreeBSD are well aware of the importance of the desktop use case, simply because that's the door to appeal new, young developers.

 

[Deleted member 30996]

This kind of chatter is counter-productive. We use what we're familiar with.

I would LOVE to use FreeBSD for my touch projects, but FretBSD is driven by where the money comes from. It's unfortunately not being developed for the user base, it's being developed for the companies paying the consulting fees of the developers.

You couldn't drive all that baloney away in a semi-truck if it had an Oscar Meyer logo on the side.

You've done nothing but whine, complain and find blame with FreeBSD for your lack of skill since you've been here. Statements made in light of your inexperience using FreeBSD. Mr. Barney "Big" Wheel, self-proclaimed Administer of a non-de-script "Company".

I'm going to contact the maker of MultiProxy myself and see what he says about making it available in ports. He was a nice guy and I'm sure he would be thrilled, if I have to learn to do it myself.

The question is no longer "Does Desktop have a future on BSD?". That question is moot. It has now been turned on the user. "Do you have a future on FreeBSD Desktop?" Here's the evidence to back it up, twice:

You are wrong to assume this is the reason for not supporting YOUR touch projects. Have you the skill, time (& money) to do such a project? Assuming a reply of 'no', then have you considered this is true of the developers working on FreeBSD? It's extremely disingenuous to think otherwise.
This is not to say I think the foundation, set up to fund the project, has not dropped the ball for a long time. For example, it took it years to fund 'ac' support. They have the money but they do seem focussed on the server 'market' with blinders/blinkers to the plight of the desktop users. (That's my perception, in reality I might be totally wrong).

PC-BSD Admins love for money took prescience over reason and character once Xsystems became involved and the focus changed from doing what's best for their users to what would go along with Xsystems way of running things. I was there for a couple years before they took over, cougar catflipped the fence for the forest fights, and shed that titchy wool disguise like the Obake I am.

When I snuck back in 2 years later Xsystems had moved in, bankrolled it and the forums were now only a means of silent information gathering to keep problems quiet that might make Corporate bottom lines go into the red zone..

Like adding WindowMaker WM to the base install because I posted to the forums saying I was using it and liked it at the time. But totally ignoring my bug report about how their implementation of the FireWall Manager GUO n Isotope 9.0 broke pf. Not to mention rants and raves falling on deaf ears for 2-3 months without as much as one word to acknowledge they had heard every word I said starting at Day 2.

Hunk a junk Windowmaker and PC-BSD were destined to become and they played a key role in it through beng made to take responsibility for their own Unethical and Inappropriate Behavior.

Viddy well, little brother, and ye shall hear the story of Weixiong the Ikiryo.

Now Ghosted from Existence along with everything PC-BSD, but me. And that''s where continued Negative Reinforcement comes in at Weixiongs word

 

[eternal_noob]

The question is no longer "Does Desktop have a future on BSD?". That question is moot. It has now been turned on the user. "Do you have a future on FreeBSD Desktop?"

I like this. FreeBSD chooses its users, not the other way round.

 

[Snurg]

PC-BSD Admins love for money took prescience over reason and character once Xsystems became involved and the focus changed from doing what's best for their users to what would go along with Xsystems way of running things. ... 2 years later Xsystems had moved in, bankrolled it and the forums were now only a means of silent information gathering to keep problems quiet that might make Corporate bottom lines go into the red zone..

So PC-BSD was not always involved with ixsystems?
Did it start as independent project?

 

[Deleted member 30996]

So PC-BSD was not always involved with ixsystems?
Did it start as independent project?

Yes. Xsystems did not become involved till sometime around or shortly after 2007. I joined in 2005, was around forum member #60, learned for a while and took aff time to learn in the trenches. When I came back approx. 2 years later Xsystems was already in full swing.

The Moore Bros used to respond to posts and were pretty friendly. After I returned the whole atmosphere was different, The forum became an information gaining system for them, very rarely did anyone ever answer a post, attitudes had changed and Dru Levine was now part of the team.

I had never met Dru and have only spoken to her once. She was very polite but only answered one of two posts I made about the situation with pf to make sure it didn't slip by unnoticed. After I had already done my Black Sheep thing and posted at Wilsers Security Forun. I'm kind of hard to ignore for two months and even harder to ingore if I want to get noticed.

One of the Moore Bros answered the other post after she answered the first one I was done with PC-BSD politics, had More than enough of the Moore Bros. High and Mightly outlook and told him it was about time he responded to my post. Now that I had to post it at Wilders to get any response out of them, and it came post haste.

Then when they figured what I had not said a word about in the 7 years since would come out and tarnish their silver-plated reputation, They went to the extreme measures to Ghost me and everything PC-BSD with it. Forums, WiKi, etc. all vanished,

I can pin it down by dates between two weeks time of it happening since I looked at the forums before the Firestorm and looking at it after a PC-BSD/FreeBSD flamewar where I let it be know Trihexagaonal and Weixiong are one person.

The Machiavellian Mastermind Moron of the Preposterous Plan will never stop paying. Until he publicly apologizes to me here for the mistake of underestimating me. First in thinking he could get away with Ghosting 7 years of my life and overestimating himself in thinking he could outsmart me in doing it and leave me with nothing I could do about it.

I don't think Dru is that stupid, don't think she did it, respect her even if I don't really know here, and blame Xsystems for her part in it. That narrows it down nicely from 2 people to 1 person.

There can only be one popcorn shrimp that has the power to do that, ego to believe he could pull if off and get away with it and I've burned up many a box of shrimp in the oven or deep fryer in my time.

 

[Barney]

To a degree you're correct, I believe, in that corporate dollars do flow to specific projects, but this is no different than other open source OS. It's natural that FreeBSD might focus more on servers, which are run by people like Netflix, which in turn fund server-focussed development. They're unlikely to put big funding into touch screens, are they not?

You are wrong to assume this is the reason for not supporting YOUR touch projects. Have you the skill, time (& money) to do such a project? Assuming a reply of 'no', then have you considered this is true of the developers working on FreeBSD? It's extremely disingenuous to think otherwise.
This is not to say I think the foundation, set up to fund the project, has not dropped the ball for a long time. For example, it took it years to fund 'ac' support. They have the money but they do seem focussed on the server 'market' with blinders/blinkers to the plight of the desktop users. (That's my perception, in reality I might be totally wrong).

But, to argue against myself it is hard to pick something that everyone needs: touch screen, HID devices, USBv4, sleep etc. That's why they have these surveys, should they act on the results, we might get better outcomes for 'niche' projects.

"Time" is the key. You can be Matthew Dillon and spend 10 years writing your own OS because you don't like the way FreeBSD is going, or you can use some other OS that has the functions you need. These people who insist on using a particular OS to browse the web are just not mentally stable. I don't need FreeBSD to write code or to buy stuff on amazon. And I'm not going to spend 100 hours building a freebsd desktop when I can go on ebay and buy a used iMAC for $700.

 

[Deleted member 30996]

These people who insist on using a particular OS to browse the web are just not mentally stable. I don't need FreeBSD to write code or to buy stuff on amazon. And I'm not going to spend 100 hours building a freebsd desktop when I can go on ebay and buy a used iMAC for $700.

The Company that hired you as Administrator is to be commended for employing the Developmentally Disabled in such a high-ranking position.

 

[Barney]

You couldn't drive all that baloney away in a semi-truck if it had an Oscar Meyer logo on the side.

You've done nothing but whine, complain and find blame with FreeBSD for your lack of skill since you've been here. Statements made in light of your inexperience using FreeBSD. Mr. Barney "Big" Wheel, self-proclaimed Administer of a non-de-script "Company".

I'm going to contact the maker of MultiProxy myself and see what he says about making it available in ports. He was a nice guy and I'm sure he would be thrilled, if I have to learn to do it myself.

The question is no longer "Does Desktop have a future on BSD?". That question is moot. It has now been turned on the user. "Do you have a future on FreeBSD Desktop?" Here's the evidence to back it up, twice:

View attachment 9400



PC-BSD Admins love for money took prescience over reason and character once Xsystems became involved and the focus changed from doing what's best for their users to what would go along with Xsystems way of running things. I was there for a couple years before they took over, cougar catflipped the fence for the forest fights, and shed that titchy wool disguise like the Obake I am.

When I snuck back in 2 years later Xsystems had moved in, bankrolled it and the forums were now only a means of silent information gathering to keep problems quiet that might make Corporate bottom lines go into the red zone..

Like adding WindowMaker WM to the base install because I posted to the forums saying I was using it and liked it at the time. But totally ignoring my bug report about how their implementation of the FireWall Manager GUO n Isotope 9.0 broke pf. Not to mention rants and raves falling on deaf ears for 2-3 months without as much as one word to acknowledge they had heard every word I said starting at Day 2.

Hunk a junk Windowmaker and PC-BSD were destined to become and they played a key role in it through beng made to take responsibility for their own Unethical and Inappropriate Behavior.

Viddy well, little brother, and ye shall hear the story of Weixiong the Ikiryo.

Now Ghosted from Existence along with everything PC-BSD, but me. And that''s where continued Negative Reinforcement comes in at Weixiongs word

FreeBSD was so much better when you didn't have to interact with the gamers and weirdos.

 

[mark_j]

"Time" is the key. You can be Matthew Dillon and spend 10 years writing your own OS because you don't like the way FreeBSD is going, or you can use some other OS that has the functions you need. These people who insist on using a particular OS to browse the web are just not mentally stable. I don't need FreeBSD to write code or to buy stuff on amazon. And I'm not going to spend 100 hours building a freebsd desktop when I can go on ebay and buy a used iMAC for $700.

Ok, so you're criticism of FreeBSD not funding your requirements was unwarranted? By your own admission you should have moved on and purchased something else.

I understand you. No one is forcing anyone to use FreeBSD, least of all me, so buy an iMac and use it. If it does what you need, hell, buy a Commodore 64.

Whatever gets the job done.