Does Desktop have a future on BSD?

RodrigoBSD said:
Could BSDs have any future on the desktop?
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My question is will BSDs can survive enough to see those day? Or it will lie in the ground with us.

RodrigoBSD said:
those people talk about certain basic notions about how a program works, what operating system and what functions it performs What is the GPU, CPU, RAM, HDD, SSD and other electronic devices and how they work as if it were something that only the experts knew.
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In my life, yes often and always, also my school still teach Pascal ...... but it is a clean programming language and is worth for every one (but it is not really effective). Don't care too much about that enjoy what you have "the way you think too much about it the way you make your life hard", playground with FreeBSD learn to love it and explore it instead of hating those annoying stuff. The smart people never telling the thing they know, they just answer when they need like all of us in here.
 
hruodr said:
Das kommt mir spanisch vor.
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Yes, I speak Spanish because it is the language I grew up with but I never liked speaking it. I'm interested in other languages, that's why I never write well (I don't even try in the slightest) and English translations tend to be so bad although translating into languages that if I'm interested in, like Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, all Chinese languages (Mandarin, Min, Yue or cantons, etc.) if I try to write a little better until I learn these languages and what I have in store, which is a long-term project, I will be a perfectionist in my language skills in those languages.

If I know that it is a lot of text and perhaps none of this interests you but I only commented on it, I hope not to disturb.
 
"Contentémonos con lo razonable, no sea que por querer más lo perdamos todo, que quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta." (La Celestina)
 
temmie2511 said:
My question is will BSDs can survive enough to see those day? Or it will lie in the ground with us.
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Only time will tell. If a sizeable number of desktop users finally comes to realize just how disgusting the crap they run on their desktops and call "operating system" really is, there might well be a future. I admit that's a big if, and so far it seems as if a vast majority of desktop users just doesn't care what nasty stuff goes on underneath, as long as it is all colorful, shiny and blinking on the surface.

On my desktops FreeBSD surely has a future... Two Windos 10 installations went into the woods, only one came out. My notebook now happily runs FreeBSD 12.1/KDE plasma 5, and if it wasn't for my love of games, I would stomp the other one right away.
 
Who is this "Desktop" guy and why does everyone keep wondering if he's going to make it with FreeBSD? Has Beastie got something personal against him?

I've got so many screenshots posted with everybody else here who runs FreeBSD it should be a moot question by now IMO.
 
wolffnx said:
is like a dejavu or a glitch in the matrix
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Some people just aren't cut out for the Red Pill...

taketheredpill.png
 
aponomarenko said:
With such FreeBSD derivatives like NomadBSD, GhostBSD and HelloSystem, the desktop has a future on BSD. Just need to slightly improve support for newer Wi-Fi/WWAN cards.
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Just installed GhostBSD on my cheapo PC, running well with some minor glitch. ASRock FM2A68M-DG3+, AMD A6 7400K, DDR3 8GB, SSD 128GB and second hand Radeon R7, put on open case with total cost under $200. What I like from GhostBSD is it can recognize TP-Link USB WiFi dongle and connect automatically.

I was once exploring Free BSD on Thinkpad X250. Have to start WiFi manually. Both system not really smooth when video playing fast moving objects like hands movement. Only this PC is much much better compared to the laptop. But overall it's satisfying, I have something to play with.

Screenshot at 2021-02-19 16-55-02.png
 
One thing I appreciate about GhostBSD is that they've actually adopted OpenRC. It's per-device management capabilities are very useful for a stable desktop. OpenRC practically takes init/rcNG, and takes its to the extreme in simplicity and modernity.
 
soctafianto said:
Just installed GhostBSD on my cheapo PC, running well with some minor glitch. ASRock FM2A68M-DG3+, AMD A6 7400K, DDR3 8GB, SSD 128GB and second hand Radeon R7, put on open case with total cost under $200. What I like from GhostBSD is it can recognize TP-Link USB WiFi dongle and connect automatically.

I was once exploring Free BSD on Thinkpad X250. Have to start WiFi manually. Both system not really smooth when video playing fast moving objects like hands movement. Only this PC is much much better compared to the laptop. But overall it's satisfying, I have something to play with.
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My idea of a cheapo machine was the first laptop I bought, a Gateway Solo 1450. It comes standard with a 1.2-GHz single core Intel Celeron processor, 512MB RAM, 20GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive, and a LCD screen with a resolution of 1024x768.

I had a Gateway PC with an Intel 500MHz Katmai (the one the NSA supposedly backdoored) with 512MB RAM, and monster 13GB HDD, But it had a 100MB Zip Drive. So this was an upgrade for me because I upgraded it to 1GB RAM myself.

That's what I had to work with when I started using PC-BSD and that came standard at the time with KDE3(?) so mine was doing good to run it.

That's when I started looking into ways to conserve resources, started using x11-wm/fluxbox and taking PC-BSD apart to make it more like FreeBSD by using apps of my choosing to make the most out of what I had to work with.

One of the Moore Bros. asked why, is how I became the black sheep and the rest is history many times told.

FreeBSD was the future I had in that laptop and started using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE with it. I had a minimal number of programs running but learned which apps suited my needs and used the least resources and it got me here.

I run Thinkpads now with resources to spare but still use most off the same apps I did back then, am very happy with FreeBSD as a desktop and all I use. Online anyway. I just bought a W520 with WIN10PRO on it I'll keep offline to play Oblivion on.

But it's a toy compared to my boxen and nothing more than a toy for me. I can do anything on the W520 running FreeBSD with same specs as the W520 running WIN10PRO online of off. Only I wouldn't feel subject to online exploit at any second on my FreeBSD boxen like I would Windows.

I've had OpenBSD boxen and if you can run FreeBSD you can run OpenBSD. But FreeBSD feels more polished as a desktop to me and I'm very comfortable using it. That may be from having more experience with it.

I have 5 laptops up and running FreeBSD in the room I'm sitting in, the W520 currently serving as my .mp3 player. One T61 shut down with Kali Linux on it used for Entertainment Purposes Only. A T43 running an older version of OpenBSD I'm going to turn into a FreeBSD box using pkg to preserve my Precious and the Windows box my bedside to listen to tunes through headphones to count sheep by.

FreeBSD meets all my general desktop use needs and I have a plethora of screenshots posted using it to do various things or serve various tasks. I taught myself how to use it and learned the hard way by not consulting the handbook. But I never gave up and rose up to meet the task.

Now I've written a Beginners Tutorial for people that can use Windows, except my Sister, should be able to follow to get to a fully functional FreeBSD desktop. It's a learning experience from that point on and if you're trying there will always be someone willing to help that can figure out what you can't from experience.

But not everyone is cut out for it. Plain and simple. Many Linux people have tried, failed, blamed FreeBSD for it, gone back to Linux and whined about how FreeBSD wasn't ready for the desktop.

I feel sorry for them so from time to time do some image manipulation or write a little poem to make them feel better. Because I care.
 
mickey said:
Every computer, regardless of operating system, requires at least a minimal set of skills to put it to some use. People with no computer skills whatsoever SHOULD NOT be using computers in the first place, just like people without driving skills should not steer a vehicle of any kind. The kind of attitude that operating systems should make computers useable for everyone is what brought us Windows in the first place. Just my $0.05.
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Here's the change you've got coming from five cents.

I'm a 64 year old 10th Grade dropout with a GED who taught myself to use every computer and Operating System I have ever touched or used through experience using it. In 1993 was given a floppy for an AppleII that took me 3 days to master and on to a future of multiple Thinkpads running SysV, FreeBSD and OpenBSD by ability gained through experience alone.

I struggled a bit learning FreeBSD, possibly more than if I had read the Handbook, but I heard the call of Ma Bell and answered it. Then wrote a Beginners Tutorial with the intended audience of someone who has never used the commandline and teach them to build a desktop ground up using ports so they wouldn't have to struggle like I did.

It was featured in articles twice by freebsdnews.com and their first article picked up and carried by the English and Arabic Facebook pages of bsdmag.com. It's helped some people and who knows what their future holds from learning FreeBSD?

I didn't want to use Windows and it wasn't all that easy to teach myself to use that. The only thing I knew about a PC was if you push this button it powered up and everything about it from that point on was something Ii had never seen before.

Didn't like Windows or Linux. I wanted to use that arcane in appearance terminal as seen on TV and movie screens. That was my idea of a real computer and using one consisted of and Windows users didn't have cool pocket protectors. They had Windows and it came with solitaire, virus, trojans, and naky pix of Britney to click for easy installation.

If they don't use a computer how are they supposed to develop those skills? Pocket calculators had just been introduced when I quit school. Where would I be today if not for my fingers taking a liking to a computer keyboard? Divorced from Britney and dating Scarlett Johansson, maybe?
 
Trihexagonal said:
If they don't use a computer how are they supposed to develop those skills? Pocket calculators had just been introduced when I quit school. Where would I be today if not for my fingers taking a liking to a computer keyboard? Divorced from Britney and dating Scarlett Johansson, maybe?
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Many people are not actually using computers, but they are just using Web Browsers these days. In the same way, they are not using electric motors, but washing machines and vacuum cleaners instead. In this regard, IMHO, the FreeBSD as a platform is just doing fine. All of my 3 web browsers are running very well on this FreeBSD machine...
 
soctafianto said:
Just installed GhostBSD on my cheapo PC, running well with some minor glitch. ASRock FM2A68M-DG3+, AMD A6 7400K, DDR3 8GB, SSD 128GB and second hand Radeon R7, put on open case with total cost under $200.
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? (except for the open housing. Don't. 1. radio waves 2. cooling can be worse 3. dirt, dust & noise)
soctafianto said:
What I like from GhostBSD is it can recognize TP-Link USB WiFi dongle and connect automatically.
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You could kindly ask them to file in a patch back upstream. That'd be fair, wouldn't it?
soctafianto said:
I was once exploring Free BSD on Thinkpad X250. Have to start WiFi manually. Both system not really smooth when video playing fast moving objects like hands movement. Only this PC is much much better compared to the laptop. But overall it's satisfying, I have something to play with.
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Video-decoders in hardware or at least some special CPU instructions to support this, naturally can make a notable difference.
 
Argentum said:
Many people are not actually using computers, but they are just using Web Browsers these days. In the same way, they are not using electric motors, but washing machines and vacuum cleaners instead. In this regard, IMHO, the FreeBSD as a platform is just doing fine. All of my 3 web browsers are running very well on this FreeBSD machine...
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I have a similar story when I wanted to relearn bash 15 years ago. I asked a silly question in IRC wanting to use "Linux", when I meant using terminal applications instead of X. Computing fundamentals must be separated from ordinary use of the equation. You don't use the system, you use applications.
An OS is as good as the apps it runs and as popular as it's easy.
 
Argentum said:
Many people are not actually using computers, but they are just using Web Browsers these days...
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I wish this were true. Mobile phones are wrecking the Web. It's basically unusable because the bloated browsers are more focused on showing you huge video ads than they are in showing you content. This is why everyone wants you to install their crappy, spyware infested app.
I'm swimming against this current, of course, but I'm finding more and more sites that don't work on Firefox Klar.
 
Back on topic: I'd guess the vast majority of FreeBSD developers uses it as their daily desktop driver. Thus we can expect a working desktop foundation for a very long time. Am I wrong here?
 
Freebsd will always be 3 years behind Linux. Freebsd is great if you don't need to do anything, like build a touch application.
 
Barney said:
Freebsd will always be 3 years behind Linux. Freebsd is great if you don't need to do anything, like build a touch application.
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Boy, if there was only something existing like wmt(4)

Of course, you could always do what this guy did back in 2009 for touch support on his HTC Shift. Not sure how far behind Linux that was.

The reality is, you can complain about something not working, or you can actually do the work to try to get it working. If you aren't willing to put in the work, don't complain. Sure, make polite requests for features, but when they are framed from ignorance and with a condescending tone, you won't get far.

Now I don't use touch applications (I only use a smart phone because there really isn't any other good choice for cell phones these days), but I sure do a lot of stuff with FreeBSD, like music, photo and video editing. I can play some games with it too. Unfortunately Libre/Open Office can't even compare to the features I get with MS Word and Excel, but that's what Virtualbox is for.
 
Argentum said:
Many people are not actually using computers, but they are just using Web Browsers these days. In the same way, they are not using electric motors, but washing machines and vacuum cleaners instead. In this regard, IMHO, the FreeBSD as a platform is just doing fine. All of my 3 web browsers are running very well on this FreeBSD machine...
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I have to agree with you on that point. My sister works at a State Facility at a computer all day and has for years but the only thing she knows about computers is the program she runs. When it crashes or whatever it's somebody from their IT Dept. like us that she calls to come over and fix it.

She's openly admitted after seeing it she couldn't follow the Beginners Tutorial I wrote, or her Hubby. The guy who lives upstairs from me has a Degree in Computer Science Comunications but uses Windows now and could only follow some of the more simple terminology spoken here,

I don't bother with the rest. They have their SmartyPhones and Facebook in their faces most of the time but you're right. It's browsing they do most.
 
I have a couple of reasons I want to become much better than I am now with FreeBSD. First of all, it was an early version, somewhere around 2.5, or something like that, that I used to set up an e-mail server and web server for the College at the University of Idaho at which I was working at the time. Installation was so easy I couldn't believe it, and the result was very, very reliable. The College used it for some years until the University caught up. Then the College switched to Computer Services' offerings, which made me happy that I didn't have to support it any longer.

I had tried Linux Ver. 0.99 at the time, and didn't care for it.

In the meantime, I learned BASH and some UNIX commands, but was never really very good at SYSADing. I also ran an HP-UX server for the staff and faculty at our College. Whenever I ran into a problem I couldn't solve, I asked the other tech on campus who had been through about $30K of training on UNIX. He was very good.

I also set up a small LAN for a professor for his classes, and at one time, had to call a friend of mine who worked at Computer Services for some small help with an issue I was having with it. His reply was, "Well, Ken, I don't think I can help you. Your network is the only one on campus that works." I said, "Oh", and eventually fixed the problem myself. All the above was a number of years ago, of course, since I retired from that job several years ago. As I mentioned elsewhere here, I am 78 now.

The other reason I want to become better at using FreeBSD is that I am totally fed up with Billy Gates' offering. Therefore I want to dump Windows from all our computers here, 6 of them at last count. And this means that I have to come up with a desktop for the compto-klutzes in my family to use which will be familiar enough to them that getting them to learn to use it will present a minimal effort on my part.

So far, I have tried at least 3 "packaged" desktop systems: one I can't remember the name of, the second one was FuryBSD (which is no longer supported), and most recently GhostBSD. I liked FuryBSD. I liked the xfce desktop too. I am not too pleased with GhostBSD since all the root stuff I commonly use is not really available in that system.

It is looking as though my best solution is a full FreeBSD install, and for me to build my own desktop for the other members of my family. So, I have a lot to learn yet about that too.

And whoever mentioned that most users do mainly web-surfing, e-mail, and some word processing is, in my opinion, absolutely correct. To most computer users, a computer is simply an appliance, and they could care less than less about how it works. That is left to us "techs".

And this is another reason I am a member of this forum. I really appreciate the expertise and overall kindness to noobs like me that I find here.

Anyway, I think this is enough gabbing. Now I have to go to work.

Ken Gordon
 
Well, Jose, although I agree with you in principle, I guess what I am doing by the above is, more or less, asking where I must start in order to build an effective and reliable desktop.

And thank you for the words of encouragement. :) You're a good fellow.

Ken Gordon
 
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