GhostBSD jumps ship; Drops FreeBSD to use TrueOS (PC-BSD)

macondo said:
Every mind is a different world, to each its own: desktop environments and display managers,
if you don't use it, you are not as advanced as Windows.

I believe in K.I.S.S. , window managers and startx , keep it simple, let it work.

The other day I installed KDE5 Plasma for kicks, wanted to know the big fuss about it: 573 packages! (gotta be nuts ! (in my book) and ssdm.
It took me 62 minutes to download it, at the end there were some packages with problems or so (i did not dwell on it) , rebooted and it worked smooth and pretty as ever.

Not for me, icewm and .xinitrc (exec icewm), but like I said: to each his own.
Click to expand...
Why don't you use jwm? jwm is lighter and more elegant as far as you can see than icewm.
 
macondo said:
… like I said: to each his own.
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?

… Plasma for kicks, … 573 packages! (gotta be nuts ! (in my book) …
Click to expand...

Someone else might express surprise at the 357 packages that currently form the base OS :cool:

That's the same three digits, in a different order. I'm not only a BSD, I'm also a BND.

Whatever the numbers of packages that form an operating system or desktop environment: the user experience is more important than a number, and KDE Plasma helps to keep things simple for me on FreeBSD. YMMV, To Each His Own, etcetera etcetera etcetera
 
teo said:
Why don't you use jwm? jwm is lighter and more elegant as far as you can see than icewm.
Click to expand...
You are right. But I like icewm looks, besides I started with icewm when I was more of a newbie, I got the same keybindings on both, except 'win key + space bar' to type commands,I lkie icewm's better, muscle memory I guess.
Something simple I guess. Jwm is easier to configure... works as fast, uses less memory. What do I know?
 
grahamperrin said:
Bastard Sentence Dissectors.

(Most of us, at some time or another.)
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Oh, like when you dissected this sentence:
"There are consequences for your actions".

Out of this one:
"There are consequences for your actions and you're going to take responsibility for them."


Branded Someone Dishonest
 
Now I have read the entire thread, I am going to drop in with my two cents.

Firstly, I am a FreeBSD desktop user. The main thing I immediately care about is that I can get it to do what I need it to do on the desktop.

I do think creating all these desktop based forks is harmful, if things are less fragmented and in turn there is less duplication, it makes it more practical to ensure the core code base is maintained to the best possible standard (less repetition, less labour wasted).

That said, I am not keen on seeing a general flurry of "average" desktop users. Quite simply, if to some extent FreeBSD is an OS for people who really know what they doing, it means that there is less risk of situations where the BSD community is grappling with people who have their own ideas but (however well intentioned they are) don't necessarily fully understand what they are doing, something that I could ultimately envisage leading to an inherent deterioration in the quality of the FreeBSD code base.

In summary: part of the reason I use FreeBSD generally is I feel as if is more of an attractive option to be people who are inherently more technically competent and I can get it to do what I need it to do.
 
Alexander88207 said:
This thread seems to have gone off the rails.
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You don't say? :)

No offence to the opening poster – in 2018, Chris_H could not have predicted this – but the historic jumping ship to TrueOS, a fairly huge thing at the time, recently became somewhat irrelevant:
  1. What init system would you prefer to use under GhostBSD? | GhostBSD
  2. <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/66877/post-528347> ▶ The switch to FreeBSD rc.d is coming | GhostBSD ◀ <https://old.reddit.com/comments/pedr6b/-/>
  3. GhostBSD 21.09.06 ISO's now available | GhostBSD

… switch from OpenRC to FreeBSD rc.d and numerous fixes and improvements. …
Click to expand...


jammied said:
… I do think creating all these desktop based forks is harmful, if things are less fragmented and in turn there is less duplication, it makes it more practical to ensure the core code base is maintained to the best possible standard (less repetition, less labour wasted). …
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old.reddit.com

Please stop FreeBSD fragmentation

One of the biggest set backs to Linux is people that instead of putting their effort in to making one distro better they take and spend...
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

… "Stop" is not the way.
 
grahamperrin said:
You don't say? :)

No offence to the opening poster – in 2018, Chris_H could not have predicted this – but the historic jumping ship to TrueOS, a fairly huge thing at the time, recently became somewhat irrelevant:
  1. What init system would you prefer to use under GhostBSD? | GhostBSD
  2. <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/66877/post-528347> ▶ The switch to FreeBSD rc.d is coming | GhostBSD ◀ <https://old.reddit.com/comments/pedr6b/-/>
  3. GhostBSD 21.09.06 ISO's now available | GhostBSD






old.reddit.com

Please stop FreeBSD fragmentation

One of the biggest set backs to Linux is people that instead of putting their effort in to making one distro better they take and spend...
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

… "Stop" is not the way.
Click to expand...
I did do a quick bit of research after my last post. The main BSD where I can see distinct merit to its existence as separate build is that of OpenBSD. This is because I feel it genuinely achieves something that requires a separate BSD build for. Essentially, OpenBSDs additional emphasis on security and being formed of entirely "open code" that is consistently licenced in the way Theo has defined is what warrants the existence of said distinct BSD variant. To do this within the original FreeBSD project may unavoidably cause FreeBSD to be less useful to some users.

However, I think a lot of other objectives could and should be achieved by just creating new FreeBSD packages that tailor a significant part of its functionality for specific use cases. For instances, lets consider the code that handles FreeBSD bootup. I am not as familiar with that currently as I would like to be but I think I can safely say that different components of that code could if need be broken down into distinct packages. If needbe, you could then create packages that create special boot code to better suit desktop use cases and then create a special FreeBSD installer for desktop uses that installs packages specifically for desktop use and sets up your installation in a way that is specifically tailored for desktop use.

The point has already been made about the existence of the package "desktop-installer", if you want a build of BSD tailored for desktop use cases, it would make considerable sense to just build upon the work the maintainers of said package have started.
 
grahamperrin said:
It's great, but no substitute for a live DVD/USB.
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Agreed, and when I talk about building upon the work of desktop-installer, I am specifically thinking of doing things like integrating the functionality of desktop-installer into an ISO that is still a FreeBSD iso but one that includes a installer for desktop use and setup to install desktop software packages by default.

I think it is worth thinking about Ubuntu, what they initially did for desktop use is create a CD for specifically installing a desktop build of Ubuntu. The ISO basically provided a GUI interface for the Debian installer. Underneath the GUI installer was still the same basic code that was used in a server install of Ubuntu (or Debian), however, it had a more user friendly interface put on top of it.
 
jammied said:
The main BSD where I can see distinct merit to its existence as separate build is that of OpenBSD. This is because I feel it genuinely achieves something that requires a separate BSD build for. Essentially, OpenBSDs additional emphasis on security and being formed of entirely "open code" that is consistently licenced in the way Theo has defined is what warrants the existence of said distinct BSD variant. To do this within the original FreeBSD project may unavoidably cause FreeBSD to be less useful to some users.
Click to expand...
You're talking of a "separate build" like if OpenBSD and FreeBSD were alternative versions of the same OS. They're not! Both are quite different operating systems, and none is "the original" in regard to the other.

Both FreeBSD and NetBSD are direct descendants of the original Berkeley BSD that were first released in 1993, and OpenBSD was forked from NetBSD only two years later. Although retaining common features and sharing code now and then, the three have vastly diverged since then.

DragonFly, which was forked from FreeBSD in 2003, is still closer to its parent (they still use FreeBSD ports for example), but I think it has undergone too many changes to be considered an alternative build either.

What I would call separate builds are GhostBSD, pfSense, TrueNAS, etc.
 
jammied said:
?… like integrating the functionality of desktop-installer into an ISO that is still a FreeBSD iso but one that includes a installer for desktop use and setup to install desktop software packages by default. …
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Smart ☑

Still: GhostBSD live has the distinction of a desktop environment from the outset. An excellent first impression, from a UX perspective.

GhostBSD is, I believe, also remarkable for its use of ports to build the base OS; <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/pkgbase.79917/post-536054>
 
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