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Why Isn't BSD a Desktop Operating System?
An Anonymous Coward in red leather asks: "I mostly use my machine for desktop-user type stuff: web browsing, word processing, game playing, listening to MP3s, and so forth. Out of curiosity and general geekiness, I've tried a fair sampling of Open Source and other alternate OSes just for kicks (SuSe, Red Hat and Slackware Linux, BeOs, FreeBSD). My favorite, so far, has been FreeBSD. It's stable, fast, supports all my hardware (including nifty OSS sound drivers) and the ports tree makes installing new software painless. Yet when I tell my other Open Source type friends (including BSD users and supporters) that FreeBSD is my favorite Desktop operating system, they look at me funny and say, 'FreeBSD is a server operating system, weirdo.' My question is: Why is FreeBSD not considered a valid desktop choice? What would FreeBSD need added to it to make a desktop friendly BSD distribution?" Now I feel that *BSD is as much of a 'desktop system' as Linux. It may not be widely known as such, but still: "Have Desktop. Will Travel", and BSD does have a desktop, right?
(n/t)
It just needs SysV init....
Oh, wait a minute
I beg to differ -- I'm using OpenBSD on my desktop right now... I haven't tried to install Gnome, since I'm pretty happy with X and Blackbox, but I do run some Gtk+ apps.
Ho hum. More idiocy from rabid BSD users (why is it that the users are always so much more rabid than the developers)?
All of the freely available BSDs have exactly 0 UNIX code. That's what all the legal crap and Lite were all about; it all had to be rewritten. So the freely available BSDs are no more UNIX than Linux at this point. Linux had POSIX conformance testing at one point, so its UNIX by the only measure that matters these days.
Secondly, Linux was not based on Minix. Unless you mean "cross compiled from." I suppose I shouldn't expect a clubie user like yourself to know the difference between "uses code from" and "cross compiled from." Even the Linux minixfs driver uses no minix code, for licensing reasons.
But I suppose trying to stamp out myths that rabid BSD zealots spout as truth is a futile exercise.
MacOS X is a BSD Desktop Operating System.
No.
on FreeBSD
I'd guess that your on FreePCP, myself.
Ive got FreeBSD running on a 386sx with 8mb ram, it runs ok. We're just using it for a low powered router though. I imagine Apache would be OK, unless you start running CGI scripts or PHP.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
I totally understand that "FreeBSD elitists" aren't a proper indication of FreeBSD itself. Unfortunately, they tend to be the loudest and a lot of people pick up on. See #FreeBSD on EFNet. It's one of the worst channels I've ever been to.
This entire story exists because FreeBSD elitists probably gave the poster the impression that it was solely a server OS.
What planet are you on? Oh ya, and your web site is down, probably because you're running Apache on Windows 95 :-)
Heh, Oh the irony!. It was down because I installed mod_gzip and told it to use /tmp/mod_gzip for work files. When the system was rebooted (new kernel) the directory was wiped out and Apache failed to start.
I was running Apache on Windows 9x just to prove a point, not to say that everyone would -want- to run it on Windows 9x. A lot of people just believe that it's impossible. The salesman reacting the way he did confirmed it. Personal Web Server wasn't as popular at the time, but even the way they named it "Personal" Web Server says that Microsoft only wants you to think of it in a certain way.
Desktop and Server dedicated systems really have no technical reason to be different, but vendors will make different versions exist, through simply no effort or through direct sabotage of the desktop version.
None of the free operating systems make a significant server/desktop distinction -- since these systems are based more on technical realities than trying to extort money.
Sure, the level of support may be different, the packages they ship with may be different, but in the end they can fit both roles.
Restating my point: There is no technical reason that when developing an OS, it can't be both a server and a desktop OS. If an OS is developed to fit just one of these roles, it was deliberate and not in the consumer's best interests.
Those are stupid distinctions to make
Have you ever noticed that the only people who will sell you targetted versions of the same Operating System do it in order to make money?
Windows NT Server is priced much higher than Workstation, and the only difference is that they were (probably) compiled with different flags. Server would be compiled with flags to allow more than 20 connections, for example.
One of my coworkers (salesman) was blown away when I ran Apache on a Windows 95 box to prove to him that the workstation/server barrier was bullshit. He couldn't believe he was retrieving files via http from a Windows 95 box.
Other than maybe a difference in prepackaged software, a good OS will be able to handle a wide variety of tasks thrown at it.
I think FreeBSD elitists just don't want to believe people use it for things other than mission critical enterprise champion edition servers. (A lot of my coworkers are FreeBSD elitists, I know this first hand. :)
"Linux" is used in two distinct ways:
A) just the kernel
B) The kernel, the bsd utilities, perl, gnu utilities, apache, X, and the other stuff we normally expect on a running system.
As near as I know, noone actually ships a GNU/Linux combo (which would be close to useless), but instead include the other things we mean in the second definition.
hawk
Uh, yes it is. The seller quotes a price and the buyer decides whether or not to pay it. If the seller doesn't sell enough to make a profit, the price has to be adjusted if the seller wishes to remain in that business. This is called "price discovery" and it's one of the things that a free market does.
I was going to mod you up, until I read about you switching NT Workstation to NT Server by switching these two registry keys. I very much doubt you've done it.
:-)
The original Dr Dobbs* article where it told you how to do this, points out that NT has some hooks in the registry to detect changes to these keys, which automatically revert them if you try and change them. Now the people who wrote the article actually figured out a way to point those hooks elsewhere, allowing you to change the keys and thus convert your NT Workstation to "NT Server". However MS lawyers didn't like that too much, and performed one of the most amazing cleanups I've ever seen - every link to that utility was removed from the net, to the point where it's no longer possible to find that magic tool (at least last time I checked).
But the point overall is that you pay extra for NT Server because you get the extra tools, plus support for those tools. If you don't pay for Server, you won't be able to get support for the extra tools you managed to get working on your converted copy.
The solution of course is to install a free OS
* I think it was Dr Dobbs, though it may have been Byte, or NTinternals
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
If you're going to pick nits, you ought to at least know what you're talking about before you start picking.
OS X uses a BSD kernel, based on NetBSD code, running on a Mach microkernel. It's not a "BSD emulator", it's a BSD kernel on top of the microkernel. If you don't understand the difference, you certainly shouldn't be shuffling your feet in and out of your mouth, it can't sustatin that I/O rate.
The OS X userland code is based closely on a recent FreeBSD distribution. Apple has, of course, moved a few things around, extended a few things here and there, and made the BSD system fit into their needs, but the system is a BSD system.
Some advantages of *BSD kernels I can think of
- Better reponse under high network load
- Less resource hungry than linux 2.4 kernels (???)
Advantages of the Linux kernel for desktop computers:- Better video support (hardware accelerated graphics, framebuffer device --> important for embedded systems)
- Better audio support with ALSA
- ReiserFS, Macintosh file system support, NTFS read support
- Firewire support, Power Management support, PCMCIA support
I am right that *BSD kernels don't support the above?gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
I think FBSD runs smoother on old hardware. I have an "ancient" 486 25mhz SX machine that will become my router when I get DSL or a Microwave hookup as well as my webserver.
There are 2D drivers of course, and a driver for XFree86 3.3.x series that has been used by the Utah glx project. This Utah glx driver is better than nothing (I fact I used to play Quake with it), but much slower than the binary driver release for XFree86 4.0.x series.
hey not bad! :)
Some kernel hackers will tell you that Posix is broken in that a feature can be better implemented or more functional if the feature is not Posix compliant. Others will tell you that there are some useless Posix features that are not worth implementing (ie the feature is not interesting). Both groups could be right. I don't do kernel design.
Just because you keep posting this dosen't make it correct. *BSD will die the day the last developer dies.
/usr/ports/ trolls go home. /usr/ports is nice. It gets the job done. But it dosen't beat Debain's apt-get install package_name. And yes the Debian packages list is as big as the FreeBSD /usr/ports list.
I am sorry, but I am tired of seeing this /usr/ports argument. It is not a big reason to use FreeBSD over Linux. Most linux distros are huge. Most of the software you could ever want it packaged up and ready to install. I have not had to install from source on my Debian systems in a long time. I understand that Suse has an equally huge list of packages. If you want to promote FreeBSD over a Linux distro look at FreeBSDs real strenghts:
- FreeBSD is a well integrated system not just a kernel.
- /etc/rc.conf is your one stop daemon startup config file
- the man pages are really well done
- the default install comes with everything a Unix system should have, and nothing more.
There are other reasons I am sure. TheTrue. I would like to elaborate on the publicity issue. My bias: I use Debian/Linux on my workstation, and OpenBSD on my servers.
There is a big perception issue. I have found that several Linux distros are designed to be more of a "desktop" OS. They install KDE or Gnome by default. There are fancy gui system admin tools and a million and one IRQ/AIM clients. When I last installed FreeBSD 4.1.1 (one my fileserver[1]) it came installed with fvwm2. I think the bigger Linux distros have the manpower to put more effort towards a desktop then FreeBSD can. It can be the little things that make the difference. For example, when I install a new app under Debian, a new menu item is automatically added to my X menus. I can also quickly install a new binary under Debian with few short apt-get commands.
*BSD is an Admin's Unix. (So is Slackware Linux [2].) The default install is pretty bare by Linux distro standards. It has a lot of nice features so that admins can have their *BSD running exactly as they want it. For servers this is an important feature. For workstations I don't care if I burn a few cpu cycles on a suboptimal configuration. At the end of the day I don't want to have to admin my desktop any more then I have too. I do however want to have the ability to configure a few things as I see fit hence the use of Debian/Linux.
From a technical point of view I found that as much "desktop" software is developed on Linux (such as large bits of Gnome and other flashy bits) it works better on Linux. This is less of an issue today as Gnome recently announced that FreeBSD was "officially supported".
There is nothing stopping you from using FreeBSD on your desktop. There are no signification techinical issues. Out of the box FreeBSD requires more effort to get a "modern" desktop, then many Linux distros which come with KDE or Gnome. However, the bottom line is FreeBSD has not publicised itself as a desktop Unix. Mandrake, Red Hat, and others have worked to publicise Linux as a desktop Unix.
[1] I had to switch my home fileserver over to OpenBSD to support my OpenBSD firewall. The firewall is too slow and dosen't have enough ram to compile anything important like a new kernel. Going with OpenBSD on both made more sense as I am more familiar with Open than with Free.
[2]I use Slackware in places where I need a generic Linux server. Usually it is due to a piece of hardware only having Linux support, or I need a VMWare machine. I might have used another distro, but I created a custom bootable cdrom that installs all the Slackware bits I want, adds some customization, and does this unattended. It was pretty straight forward to setup Slackware to do this.
... it's just called OS X.
And it runs on PPC hardware made by Apple..
But I can compile install configure and run junkbuster on it by tweaking 2 include lines.. Very nice.
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
and you would do this 'why'????
/ is chmod'd 777 by default.
You're joking, right?
Anyone whos / is drwxrwxrwx deserves all the hell they get.
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Hey, :p
Try reniceing some stuff.. it may help.. IIRC the apple discussion boards and macintouch have pointers
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Simply start your computer and hit some key other than when it start the countdown.
type: boot -s
FreeBSD will drop you to single user mode with only / mounted in ro mode.
From here just type:
tunefs -n enable /
tunefs -n enable
That did it for me anyway.
Incidentally, I love FreeBSD as a workstation. I've found it logical and coherent in a way that my linux boxen just aren't.
I've very lazy about building the latest software. FreeBSD's ports does the heavy lifting. Nothing compares to the BSD package/ports system.
I finally took the time to really learn apt-get on Debian, and I must say it is really great. I like it much better than any other Linux package management. It still pales to BSD's packages/ports. Sorry.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
The reason that freeBSD isn't as accepted as a desktop OS is not one of technical merit at all, just one of Promoton:
It's a desktop OS because the industry promotes it as such. The industry promotes it as such because it has industry support. It has industry support because of it's interesting history, and it's history is interesting because it was first spawned by a college student in Finland, not a large corporation.
FreeBSD, OTOH, is just a really a Port for some corporate code, and doesn't have the 'human intrest' value that Linux does. This doesn't mean one is technically superior to the other, just one catches the imagination of the public more than the other.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
More to the point: since my bosses evaluate the quality of something by its price tag, when will someone generously assemble the CostlyBSD package?
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Yes, the Linux "emulation" is really just a translation of calls to the kernel. There is no speed hit at all other than the initial load time of the LKM (at boot time or whenever you first need it).
You're going to fork over the money because Microsoft wants you to. Is that hard to understand? They are running a business and have decided that a server edition is going to cost more than a desktop edition. I can try to justify that by saying the increased cost is to make up for the more knowledgeable people needed in support for a server (as opposed to a desktop) but in reality it doens't matter what I say - Microsoft has decided that you're going to pay more. Don't like that? Don't run Windows!
And what exactly is wrong with this? Sure it sucks but it is their choice. What are you going to do about it?
Why should I be able to choose if I want to pay Microsoft more money or not? You already realistically do make that choice because if you need support you're going to have to pay for it pretty quickly. I agree that required support is completely bizarre but who cares what we think. We are techies. They aren't marketing us - they are marketing our bosses and ultimately our CEO(s).
So why should Microsoft do this for you? Why not continue charging more for the server edition? You're only arguement is that it sucks because it shouldn't be that way, it should be cheaper, etc. Who cares? Microsoft is a business and the license of their software allows them to sell it as they wish.
That's the ticket - try to quesiton the posters intelligence. Come on now - we all know that these choices can be selected during installation, etc.. But why? Microsoft is doing what they want. If you disagree with their practices use something else. Just because you think it is wrong doesn't mean they are going to change!
Ultimately it boils down to this: the addtional cost of a server license over a desktop license for Windows sucks. Well that is great I think - if you are so concerned about this additional cost than other people will be too and they will realize that perhaps Microsoft isn't looking out for them - it is watching the bottom line and making money. You have a choice! Use something else!
(oh, and for the record, I've used RedHat 6.2 extensively, 7.0 a bit, and previous versions not so much - I was using Slackware and FreeBSD around then)
To a degree I *am* implying you shouldn't complain. You have a choice. Linux or one of the BSDs makes a *great* server operating system that is much more stable than a Windows based server (we all know that is a subjective arguement because a Windows 2000 based server can be very stable in the hands of someone with knowledge - but even then take a look at how many tasks people run on an average *nix based system versus the number on a Win2k server - hint: win2k: 1, *nix: 1 or more). Unfortunately for you *nix is complex. Tough cookies. In my opinion you should just sit down and spend a couple days to learn the basic system. It isn't as complex as you think it is and in terms of power and stability it is far ahead of Windows.
> Linux has caught up in PnP and USB in 2.4,
.. " than BSD, even the VM is better with 2.2.
> Linux's 2.4 VM may be somewhat faster
I think Linux is great. I use Debian on my main desktop. But MAN!!! When have I heard this argument before?
Seriously, when 2.2 came out everyone said "Now Linux is faster/more stable
Now, it's the same deal with 2.4. Come on...
Linux is great, FreeBSD is great. Both are almost identical from an end-user poitn of view. Linux gets things first, and is generally more supported by corporations, but can anyone seriously argue that Linux is more stable than FreeBSD?
I run BSD on my servers and about half the time on my desktops. It may not always have the newest bells and whistles, but it's always rock-solid stable. I also personally feel that it's faster under heavy loads.
What really gets me is that despite the similarities there's such a nattering back and forth between BSD and Linux.
> I bet if you were really whacko you could set up a freebsd box that was indistinguishable (in terms of user experience... installed packages, file system layout, etc) from a run of the mill Linux box.
/compat/linux/bin/sh your shell. The overlay mounting it does will create some real weirdness, and of course you have a perfectly good userland on the BSD side... Come to think of it, no two Linuxes have the same filesystem either. BSD already looks pretty much like Slackware as it is.
It doesn't require a wacko, it merely requires making
Besides, "desktop operating system" is really too slippery a term. If you mean *home* desktop operating system, Linux isn't there yet either. As a business desktop, people are adaptable -- people who are barely computer literate can and do productively use Solaris with CDE for their desktop (e.g. Sun, not everyone there is an engineer after all).
As for home machines: graphic card support isn't quite as far as linux (since FreeBSD obviously can't use the closed binary-only nVidia drivers) but that's about it. Sound support is available natively and through OSS. Plug-n-play and USB support in FreeBSD has typically been *better*.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Sun and Apollo arguably created the desktop Unix niche by putting BSD Unix on a micro. BSD has always been a "users" unix: that's why it had csh and vi and extended tools: people actually wanted to use it interactively.
Sure, the definition of what it takes to be a "desktop OS" has changed now, and maybe other systems do it better.
I've only ever used BSD desktops myself (SunOS, NetBSD, FreeBSD).
-- Andrew
After I finally burned out on the Amiga scene in 1998, I put together an Intel box with the intention of running Linux. Instead, I ended up with FreeBSD because it's generally a cleaner, more cohesive system. I've run it on my desktop since.
That said, I still don't think FreeBSD is a desktop operating system. Oh sure, a robust kernel and fantastic stability are great things in a desktop OS, but FreeBSD still isn't close on one thing: Hardware.
Grab that snazzy USB and plug it in. But wait, does it work? It wasn't until relatively recently that USB got decent on FreeBSD. Now you can use keyboards, mice, and printers. A few select scanners. Maybe a modem, but when I tripped over the cable and unplugged my USB modem while online, the machine locked solid.
How about Firewire devices? There's a device driver patch that you can add to the kernel, if you know where to find it, and it's only good for downloading video from a camcorder. The core team doesn't seem much interested in Firewire, though there's some outside development going on.
Sound cards? They're supported. Fancy surround-sound and/or 3D sound cards? Nope. Maybe in a few special cases, at best.
As for accelerated 3D video cards, I'm not even sure because I haven't found a definitive guide. It looks like you can do it with 3dfx, Intel i810, and older ATI chipsets.
I stick with FreeBSD even though it lacks these things because I like it and it suits many of my uses for a computer. But as a result, I still wouldn't call it a desktop OS.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ummm, there were very real hardware limitations that brought about the comprimise solutions of Windows 9x and MacOS. It wasn't just developer fuckups.
You do have a point that once everyone is running Windows 2K/XP, MacOS X, or some Unix, the distinction between "server" and "desktop" OS is primarily one of utility, not of design.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Perhaps we need a new category of "User Experiences" - people could write in about their experiences configuring and running various OSes as or for end-users. For example, now that Sun is giving out Solaris CDs for (essentially) nothing, what's it like to use as an end user. Would you really want it on your desktop? What's missing? What really rocks about it?
I wish I could say that I have not had a server or desktop crash, but I have unfortunately crashed eveything including FreeBSD, and Win and Solaris, and Linux.
The real question is why is FreeBSD not a desktop OS? That is because FreeBSD is more typically considered UNIX and UNIX is not considered a desktop OS it is a server OS. That is just the way it is. Windows and Mac started out as desktop OSes. They are now both trying to move to more of the server arena, but they include as a basis all the desktop features which makes them bloated for a server. Think of it this way if you run W2k or Mac OS X you need 64 meg of RAM for teh OS itself, where with FreeBSD, Linux, or Solaris you don't need that much for the OS.
FreeBSD was originally designed as a server operating system. It was based on BSD and while it does have access to all the basic items for a desktop it just seems that becuase it was designed as a server OS it has never really tried to get away from that. Yes you can use it as a desktop but it just does not promote itself as that type of OS.
I disagree though that is cannot be used as a good desktop. I used to work with people who used FreeBSD as there main machine and they hated Linux becuase of the package system and becuase the Linux upgrades are not standard. One person told me that when you upgrade a FreeBSD kernel you don't ahve to recompile any of your programs. They also said that when you upgrade your services or any of that all your settings are saved. Unlike Redhat where they keep moving things around. (Redhat 6.2 vs 7.0 is a good example.)
I also disagree with the 'console vs mouse' argument as you can run X with BSD and use kde or GNOME whcih also both encourage the more use of the mouse.
Personally I think that the GUI has to be redeveloped anyway. It needs to have voice to text as ANOTHER standard way of inputting. As well stylus pens and such need to be encouraged. Sony is moving in this direction as they created a new computer flat panel display that is also a touch pad that is used as both a screen and an input device. It would be nice to have an OS that I could talk to muy computer (AT HOME mind you) in a quite room by myself and speak my thoughts rather than type them all.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Huh? Maybe W2K but 95 crashes on a regular basis as does win 95. The memory allocation is all wrong in that OS.
MAC OS X might as well consider itself BSD as it is based on BSD and it will show people that BSD is not just for the server anymore.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
/stand/sysinstall on FreeBSD needs to be whacked with an ugly stick. It works for installation, but its been stretched beyond imagination to encompass all weird manner of install schemes (cd, nfs, ftp, etc etc) and the huge collection of hardware.
Unfortunately its often used for other things, like some post-install configs (which can be done another way, but are done in a menu-driven, easy-to-understand fashion from sysinstall).
I'd like to see sysinstall modernized -- not graphical, necessarily -- but made more coherent and reliable. It'd probably drive FreeBSD to three install disks, but I think it'd be worth it from an end-user usability perspective.
No problem installing over FTP at all. I typically do half my installations this way.
However, each additional installation method adds some complexity to the application. Since application complexity is proportional to application size, and size is limited, it takes away from the ability of the user utilities to be coherent.
BSD/OS is quite expensive - I guess it would look like a reasonable choice to your boss.
Oh, I feel pitty for you.
It took 1/2 a day.
No init levels (I've used those about 4 times in the last 11 years of Unix admin), but start/stop scripts are simple.
Perhaps Sun offers a site with lots and lots of connectivity for free.
Oh really, and just how did those XP screenshots indicate that extensive mouse usage is required? That's just inane. Why don't you just open a run box and do the exact same thing you were doing before?
Cheers,
Yeah, the MacOS developers purposely kept the OS lightweight by not bloating it up with things like, say, oh...preemptive multitasking or memory protection. That's thinking different, baby! :)
Cheers,
So where did you see this 500K theme graphic for the Run box in the screenshots? Where did the screenshots show it taking 7 mouse clicks to get there instead of using WinKey+R?
You know, I used to be so infatuated with the fact that I could code a Quake-style console, but then I stopped to think if I should. I realized that I shouldn't.
Cheers,
For my personal usage I can use FreeBSD just like linux as a desktop. It get's however difficult in a business environment where everyone uses microsoft products. I think what holds FreeBSD back is the same thing that holds linux back and that's the lack of serious applications. I know there's a lot of good alternatives already but when everyone at work is using MS Office, Outlook and internet explorer it becomes hard to justify in using FreeBSD or linux as a desktop.
I still beg for a linux or any unix desktop at my work but I continue to be denied. As long as microsoft products continue to reign both FreeBSD and linux have a long way to go before they both become viable desktops in a business environment. (sorry for the run on sentences.)
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
...at least for servers. FreeBSD still doesn't have the kind of text mode console support I use heavily on Linux. One reason I tend to like *BSD for a server is that it simplifies much of the system administration. That comes down to SysV style vs BSD style init stuff, and how some distributions like Redhat have thorough corrupted SysV. If everything I wanted to do was on one menu that would be great. It isn't even close, so I have to sysadmin via my favorite editor (guess which one). That's when BSD init style makes life a lot easier than SysV. That's probably why Slackware is my favorite Linux distribution.
Linux still seems to be best for the home desktop due to lots more applications (FreeBSD on its heels) and lots more device support (FreeBSD is getting better, too). FreeBSD seems to be best for the server on a high speed net. OpenBSD seems to be best for the firewall. But the thing is, any one of them can do all three functions quite well. If you know one better than the others, just use it. If you want to learn, start with all of them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think that it's all a matter of publicity. Two years ago, the same people would probably have said the same thing about Linux or any other unix flavor. FreeBSD isn't a term heard very much in the mainstream, and I think that's the only reason for this. I personally use FreeBSD on my main workstation as well, for the exact same reasons.
I'm sure that as soon as more people here about FreeBSD, it won't be as strange to be running it on the desktop. Right now, Linux is a major buzzword, and that's the only reason why it's more "acceptable" to have it on the desktop.
It has NOTHING to do with "fear" as you so self-rightously put it.
It has everything to do with what you use a computer for.
Illustrator and Photoshop don't run in a CLI, so why the hell would I need one?
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
People always refer to their desktop machines as "boxen". If it's not a "box", it's a server.
;)
The OS itself is moot
when will people learn that FreeBSD scales, while open sits there picking it's nose?
:)
all of those admittedly nice security features don't help much when you can't drop 8 procs into a box and make it work
EOM
are you retarded?
:)
are you familiar at ALL with the work that theo has done with netBSD/OpenBSD? almost all of that code was (originally) written for sun/m68k/vax boxes, and he's got a pile of suns in his house. why would it be surprising for him to leave solaris on some of them? or decide to use that as a platform? he's definitely an odd duck but don't act like netcraft results somehow prove a secret lust for sun software
EOM
I personally have always found text mode installs a lot easier, whether I knew what I was doing or not. I'm not fond of graphical install tools, and I would hate to see freebsd devolve to that level of usage.
that being said, maybe a slightly nicer way to choose the 80000000 prepackaged apps would be good, since not everyone enjoys spending a day making ports on a large scale to plug the holes.
either that, or maybe I should stick to installing stable, and avoid the bleeding edge. hehehe.
EOM
I love freebsd on my laptops, but to say the support is great is kind of stretching it. support is great without using any cardbus devices, which limits perfomance for things like usb/high speed serial/scsi/network etc... not all that bad, since these are laptops after all, but still.
I know everyone is eagerly awaiting 5.0 to approach a more stable level; quite a few folks on the freebsd-mobile list are running it with great success for some cardbus devices.
all that being said, support for non-cardbus PCMCIA devices is very good, and seems a bit more stable than linux ever was with that. that might have something to do with all those linux distros putting stuff everywhere and never being able to know which libs went where, etc. how infuriating is that?
EOM
I can't speak for others but I know that I use FreeBSD on laptops for the tools that it makes available to me. I also use win2k advanced server, but that still doesn't provide everything i need, even with third party (and costly, i might add) tools.
:)
my pentium 3 based laptop has that speedstep nonsense in it, which works decently. of course modifying processor speed in laptops is nothing new, so I fail to see why intel pushes it as some kind of fascinating addition, but it works nonetheless.
as far as APM, that works, especially on my vaio- things spin down, backlight dims, goes off, etc. this is of course a bios function as you say, but then again so is ACPI, so the analogy fails somewhat. for my wintel laptop usage I've always turned off power management and just made an effort to plan things accordingly, but then again I probably use my laptops for different reasons than you do (which also helps explain why I use a unix based laptop solution.)
So just remember, while you're busy surfing the web or watching a dvd or whatever at the airport, I'll be the one with the tiny little unix box sniffing your 802.11b traffic and reading all your email
*COUGH*COUGH*SINGAPORE*
EOM
Is *BSD, or Linux distributions such as Slackware, Suse or Madrake for that matter, ready for the desktop at all?
How you approach this question really depends on who you are. For a normal everyday user I would say that none of the Open Source Operating Systems (OSOS) are really ready for normal desktop use.
Yet for the type of person who likes to open up their boxes, do their own upgrades, compile their own software and fiddle with the kernel then the chances are that these OSOS are ideal for them.
Gnome and KDE are, I'm sure, making great ground in making the desktop a reality for the average user on an OSOS machine. But, to be honest both these projects are so riddled with bugs that it's not going to take long before the average user returns to the (not necessary better) familiar Windows or MacOS look and feel.
Just my thoughts, on-topic, not-flamebait, and really not trying to troll... may be full of lack of insight and completely uninsteresting, but there you go.
It depends upon how you define an operating system. According to my dictionary, the bare Linux kernel meets every point.
On the other extreme, you have the MS definition of OS as being everything shipped on the CD. I'm sorry, but IE is not a component of the OS.
What most people think of as an OS is three distinct components. The "operating system", the "operating environment" and the applications. The OS is just the kernel and the bare infrastructure (init, etc).The operating environment is everything from the shell on down to the kernel. It's otherwise known as userspace. One distinguishing feature of an operating environment is that components can be switched in and out without changing the OS. And the applications are just that, applications. X11 fits into application space, because you certainly don't need it for a working system.
In BSD, the kernel and the environment are maintained as a whole. Under Linux, a large portion of the operating environment is GNU, with significant pieces native to Linux, or from BSD and elsewhere.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
No, FreeBSD doesn't ship with 7,000 precompiled ports. But then again, neither does Debian. There's a reason why SuSE comes with six (is it seven now?) CDs.
From experience in helping people set up their systems, having 7,000 packages to choose from during installation (your first hour of exposure) is extremely overwhelming. Sure, go ahead and ship those precompiled binaries. But let the user install them *after* installation is complete.
As for ports versus apt-get. So what? I consider them roughly equal. FreeBSD doesn't include the option to specify a binary instead of building from source, but it's not that big of a deal, IMO. There's no reason to pick sides over the package/source installers. Choose the OS you want. If it happens to be Linux, then perhaps take a much closer look at Debian. If it's FreeBSD, go ahead and use the ports.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
sysinstall is being redesigned as we speak. So don't fret it.
By the way, what's the problem with installing over ftp? Download two floppy images and everything else is down during the install. Some Linux distros do this as well. IMHO, this is a very important install option. If you don't want to go through all of the various install options, then just choose "CD-ROM"!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Have you ever seen BSD mentioned in a trade magazine?
Yes, PCM.
In a programmer's journal?
Yes, CUJ and DD.
Is it offered by hardware vendors as a pre-installed Operating System?
Yes. Dozens of them. No Dell or Gateway, but who cares?
"BSD" isn't a buzzword, and the hype surrounding it pales in comparison to Linux.
I couldn't give a rat's ass about buzzwords. And if you want hype, then check out the valuations of the dot.coms that where hyped to hell and back last year.
If you want an OS that hyped by the media, is in all the trade and developer's journals, and preinstalled on all the hardware, then stick with Windows.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That's why you don't want ftp installs, because additional functinoality adds complexity? Okay fine. Dump bash and stick with sh, dump GNOME and KDE and stick with twm, and while you're at it, dump lpr and cat everthing to /dev/lp0.
Cheers!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
- A brower. (Netscape, Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, Lynx.)
- An office suite. (Applixware)
- A financials package. (Moneydance)
- A graphics package (GIMP)
- Gamage (the FreeBSD games ports page is huge)
The fact that things are a little slow to trickle into the tree is no handicap to most folk, unless somebody insists that RTF or straight text isn't good enough, they must be running the One True Microsoft Office Three Million (insert banishing pentagram here), at which point it's just time to shake your head and walk away. But I digress....A lot of people go off whining about the install. Yeah, yeah. How many people actually install their own WINDOWS? That's what an installfest is for. Get somebody professional or semi-pro to set it up the way you like it, get their business card, and go home happy. No, you can't buy it off the shelf. But then that's kinda the point of the exercize, no?
And as for this server v. desktop bovine scatology.... has Gnome or KDE suffered because they're doing things like Beowulf and Pirhana? Hell no, it's probably gotten MORE support. You need a (n+1)th machine with a fancy-ass console to support that cluster, no? As for NVidia having their heads where the sun don't shine, well, so do a lot of companies. Vote with your feet.
Besides, this won't be the first operating system I've personally as both a desktop and a server. Way back in 1991 I had Word Perfect running on the Motif desktop on my AIX 300-series machines in the professors' offices, while down the hall in the machine room the 500 series minicomps were grinding away at FORTRAN, and the 900-series mainframe class boxen were pulling router duty over in the next building feeding a T-3 line. They ALL ran AIX 3.x. We just changed what processes ran on each box. So THERE.
--
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a real damn good decoy.
Sorry, but I have recently installed brand new ATA100 IDE controllers on 5 different FreeBSD systems. No problems at all. Works great right out of the box.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
I've seen this same message from you about 15 times. It's totally untrue. You must be using some of "Dubya's Fuzzy Math".
FreeBSD has been around for 20 years, and hasn't died yet. And I promise you the red ink has flown deeper and brighter during those 20 years, then in the past 2 years.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
The original poster didn't say OS X was FreeBSD. He said it was a BSD Desktop Operating System, which it is.
Kevin Fox
--
Kevin Fox
You say 'why isn't it considered a desktop choice?'. Considered by whom?
OSS bandwagoners? People who have never really used anything but linux (other than windows)?
Some people will tell you Linux is not a choice. Some will tell you MacOS is the *only* choice... etc... ad nauseum.
I use OpenBSD on my desktop.. why? Because.. it's the best match for what I need/want. Which may or may not be anything like what you need/want. I want simplistic, traditional unix. I don't want fancy package management. I want consistency. I tried OpenBSD, and it suited me perfectly.
Is it a choice for my mom? No. A mac, or perhaps Windows is good for my mom. Is it good for a comp. sci student? Perhaps linux is better.. more multimedia type apps and other neat bleeding edge stuff to play with.
Also.. why do you seek to have others acknowledge your OS as a good choice? I don't understand this... use what you use for your own reasons... and don't worry about what other's think. That's just plain silly. I use what I use with great conviction (even if that conviction is that I'm using it because it happens to do the job, and even though 10 other products might do the same job, I JUST DON'T CARE). Let your own experience dictate such things for you.
I used FreeBSD as my main desktop system, but after realizing I really wanted _all_ the hardware support from my nVidia card, I switched to linux on my desktop (but I'm still running FreeBSD on my general server box).
:/
So it's all nVidias fault
> ALso I winder postgress will ever be ported or even compile.
Yesterday I installed OpenBSD and there was an actual postgres 7.0.2-package (and port). So I'm highly convinced there is also a package for FreeBSD.
I hate to break it to you, but QNX had a true multi-tasking OS running on the orginal IBM PC. There are no technical limitations when it comes to UNIX and UNIX-like OSes...
The best docs available are the hardware compatibility guides included with each release's Release Notes. Check this out before posting to the mailing lists.
Some links to compilers and virtual machines can be found here. The BSDi JDK is supposed to work with FreeBSD in the future, according to this news item.
Wow...I just posted something similar in the Linux 2.5.x thread, but whatever ;-)
Unix (in any flavor) is a server. I consider Linux as much as a server as *BSD.
Desktop OSes, however (I'm thinking BeOS, MacOS, WinNT) don't have the same layering scheme as *nix "desktops." The operating system is the graphical environment, something which *nix differentiates into an application.
Good to hear that FreeBSD runs things as well as Linux, though...I'll have to give it a try sometime...
(As a random, only sorta offtopic note, how well does FreeBSD run on 486's w/ 20 MB ram? I'm running Linux 2.2 on one right now, and apache is dog slow)
--------------------------
All they are doing is displaying their own ignorance. FreeBSD is not a server OS, and it is not a desktop OS. It is simply a unix variant that is capable of playing multiple roles. FreeBSD is used in server configurations, but then so is Linux. Its also used in desktop configurations, just like Linux.
The bottom line is, if it works for you and you like it then to hell with what your friends say.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
As a sysadmin for countless sites, I've always used RedHat on my desktop and FreeBSD on my servers. I've long felt that RedHat makes a better desktop operating system... the commercial support is there, the applications are written for it, and it's easy as heck to use.
That was until I upgraded my system to RedHat 7.0. OK, so I should have waited until 7.1 (still waiting guys!!), my fault... but it shouldn't have been that bad.
I installed 7.0, and my system became a graveyard. I found myself using other systems more and more frequently, much to my dismay. Eventually, I couldn't stand the instability and unreliability of the system. I dumped it.
I considered several of the other distributions. On a whim, I thought "well gee, I use FreeBSD on all my servers, I might as well see how it does on my desktop." So I installed the latest distribution of FreeBSD on my desktop.
I'll never go back. This has been by far the most reliable, stable system I've ever used. I've yet to see Netscape crash once. It's slim, fast. Uses almost no RAM or or CPU time to do the same thing that RedHat 7 did. I can run KDE or Gnome. For all intensive purposes, it feels and looks exactly like RedHat 7 did... except the damn thing never crashes.
I'm as much a Linux advocate as anyone else here, and I hope nobody misinterprets what I've said here, but I'm speaking from a great deal of experience. I manage several hundred servers, Solaris, Linux, BSD, etc..., and I must say that I've never had a better desktop operating system than what I've got now.
Grant
--globalnap.net, product of pure caffeine--
i was under the impression that linux had alot more support for low end hardware. so people who purchased the cheap windows boxes from bestbuy, etal. are able to get linux working without having to worry about specific hardware issues. just a thought.
personally i like the gpl as opposed to the bsd license, but thats a holy war all by itself.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
You seem to be "misconfusing" your spelling..
NeXT never used microkernel Mach. That was one of the things Apple did, to move from Mach 2.5, which was a monolithic kernel.
They don't have POSIX.4 extensions yet, and I am waiting for them because SYS V IPC's are pathetic, and don't work well with the everything is a file paradigm. Mind you, POSIX.4 is not all that good either, but at least it would be a step in the right direction.
If anyone has read stevens, you "can" have fun with posix.4 IPC's, but it is only available as a kernel patch as of yet. Some day...
By taking a position of superiority you show how nearsighted you are. Thus Spake ADRA
Bye!
Linux was Based on Minix, because Minux was a teaching OS. More importantly Minix Was Tanenbaum's OS, who was Linus' Graduate professor. Are things falling into line now?
True, Linus wanted to play more, because Tanenbaum refused to make Minix more complicated simply because he wanted it simple, since is was a teachers OS...
By taking a position of superiority you show how nearsighted you are. Thus Spake ADRA
Bye!
A lot of people *hate* windoze because they make it so *simple* that moron joe sixpack can configure it. The problem, however, is that it is so simple, that you can't do anything useful with it.
Thousands of professionals would disagree with you. Get the eilitist spoon out of your ass and accept that people really don't care about the ability of the system, but the productivity they can gain from it.
By taking a position of superiority you show how nearsighted you are.
By taking a position of superiority you show how nearsighted you are. Thus Spake ADRA
Bye!
NetBSD has experimental SMP code.
I need a sig.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/history.html
They both look they come from a long line of derivation, if you ask me.
You also contradict yourself by stating that "FreeBSD is based on original BSD code" then stating that the original code had to be removed due to licensing issues.
It ends up with being horses for courses - Each to their own, etc etc. Neither is really "better" then the other, and unfortunately BSD is losing market share because of lack of publicity.
Hopefully it'll get the attention it deserves, because it is indeed a great OS - For it's purpose. Which IMHO is in the server environment.
I need a sig.
That's because Mandrake sucks. RPM sucks.
FreeBSD is definately superior to Mandrake, Redhat, SusE - Any RPM based distro.
You should however try Debian. During the install, don't use the task system. You get a very raw install, and can then install exactly what apps you need using apt-get.
It's disapointing that people are turning away from Linux because of shitty distros like Mandrake.
I need a sig.
Not even - I'm writing this from a FreeBSD machine.
.deb's, something which needs to get much more publicity, like *BSD's ports do.
I don't care what came where in a poll. Debian is by far the best Linux distro, and regardless of what the GPL zealots say, I can run whatever software I choose on it.
The advantage is with the ease of use of
RPM's just outright suck, and I would be happy for Debian, or one of the *BSD's, to take the spotlight away from RedHat and the rest of the RPM wannabe Linux distros.
FYI, I use Debian, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
I need a sig.
compiles just fine...
Juln
What about them? Both freebsd and linux have these things. FreeBSD's proc is a little more spartan, and the kernel modules are somewhat different, but they are there. And the linux procfilesystem support can be installed via linux emulation.
Isn't that just a matter of *configuration*? Are the 3 versions of windows fundamentally different, or is it just that Server comes with different base packages, and perhaps different resource settings, than Pro?
:), and our fabulous rolling-blackouts (grumble... pg&e... grumble...).
*BSD (and Linux) can be configured/optimized for single or multi-user, or tweaked to best (as in perform at its best, not necessarily to do it better than anything else) handle whatever tasks you want to throw at it.
Also, I don't understand why you suggest that responsiveness should be a tradeoff for stability. My desktop FreeBSD machine is responsive AND consistently gives me months of uptime (I have servers that have been up and running without a reboot for over 2 years now!).
The only reasons I've had to reboot have been OS upgrades, kernel rebuild (try THAT on win2000
My windows 98 box, on the other hand could go on the order of days (windows 2000 has been much more stable, only having to reboot every couple of weeks).
blog
I heard that the only thing standing in the way of posix compliancy is paying for the certification, which is very expensive. No one can claim posix compliancy without the certification, hence 'mostly posix compliant'.
'Intellectual Properties' are uncontrollable in the wild. To base an economy on them is just stupid.
There is an important group of BSD users: ISP ! A big amount of ISP use FreeBSD because it is fast, rock stable and clean. A big FreeBSD using ISP is a more important user than a 1000 Linux zealots... or 10000 Win98 mouse pushers.
Linux for my Desktops, FreeBSD for my Servers, OpenBSD for my Firewalls/Gateways, MacOS for Fun, and Windows for a Coaster.
Now the question is why do i use Linux for my desktops, and not FreeBSD. Applications, The same reason that Windows users say they can't leave windows. More of the "Upcomming Apps" are being created for Linux. And most of the Apps comming from other OSes are being ported to Linux. Yes I know that BSD has the linux compatability API's that let you run linux apps, but why run something emulated when you can run on the accual OS they are written for. I find little difference between my RedHat Desktop and my FreeBSD servers. If someone could tell me a reason to use FreeBSD as a desktop over linux then I could put up with the emulation. But for now they seem about the same, except for the Apps.
I do know several people who use OpenBSD for their desktops. They use it because of the built in crypto and extra security functions. Thye feel that this is worth the trade off in functionality that they loose by not using one of the more "Mainstream" *nixes. I've found this trade off to be mostly in device drivers and, again, apps.
I think that marketing is going to be the reason that more things keep coming out on linux first. more people hear about linux, more people try linux. Developers say "hey, we should develop this for the larger user base". Thats why Neverwinter Nights is coming out for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's a very self propetuating system. Just like why there are more Apps released for Windows than the mac.
=================
macbert@hcity.net
macbert@hcity.net
http://www.hcity.net/mac
The X server is dependant on the hardware though, which means there would have to be an X server developed for it, not just the hardware stuff they are doing for OS X. Plus, NVidia has a history of releasing drivers binary only, which means that the drivers compiled for OS X on a mac won't do AMD/Intel or Alpha users much good
Mac OS X system is exactly a BSD OS on the PPC platform
Not to nitpick or anything, but...
I hear this all the time. OS X is NOT "just BSD with some apple stuff slapped on top." It's not even truly BSD. It's a Mach Microkernel with a BSD Compatibility layer on top. That means it replicates the BSD system calls but is not truly a BSD Kernel. It's kinda like saying WINE is windows. It's just an implementation of an API. Granted, the OS X implementation is a lot truer to correctly pretending to be BSD than wine is for windows, but it is NOT BSD. It just incorporates a lot of the BSD stuff that apple found useful
Linux is just a kernel. *BSD is a fully functional operating system.
I'd like my next computer to be FreeBSD based, so what do you mean by "Hand Holding"?
Chance favors the prepared mind, and all that.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
The other issue is that the desktops probably aren't AS friendly as, say, Mandrake. I'd probably have to do a default KDE install, and that kinda scares me.
----
"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
Although marketing via hype tends to be effective at the beginning, but quite a few people get jaded and sick by the hype. I, for one, got sick of the Linux, .com, XML and now the B2B hype quite quickly. Why? It's marketing fluff and that's what it will be unless people take it seriously enough so that the product can and will live without the media hype.
Oh well...
But wouldn't that exclude a home PC? Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always thought of a workstation as a client on a network that connects to a server to run apps and do additional processing that isn't done at the server.
Sounds good to me :)
My question is how does one define a desktop operating system? Is a desktop operating system one that is used at home by Joe User? Or is a desktop operating system one that is installed on any machine that sits on or below a desk?
A server operating system is fairly easily to understand... it's an operating system that is built to serve services (be it files, web pages, MP3s, databases, printers, mail, etc.) and has multiple users connected at once via terminals, desktops and/or workstations.
So what do you consider to be the merits of a desktop OS?
FreeBSD can be both a desktop and a server operating system, mostly since FreeBSD is the only BSD OS (available for free, as in beer and as in open source) that supports SMP. OpenBSD would be a great server operating system since it's security audits on the core code and it's ``secure by default'' legend. And because of that, OpenBSD could also be a network appliance OS since it would make a perfect firewall/router device for any network (okay, maybe not for an ISP or a conglomerate).
But I wouldn't just go silly and give only one label to each BSD OS.
FreeBSD supports a pretty decent array of sound hardware and desktop apps--including the ability to run Linux binaries. It runs Gnome and KDE. There's no reason it shouldn't be valid desktop choice.
Just because something is very good at one job (server) doesn't mean it's unsuitable for another (workstation).
BSD is a desktop OS and has been since there were desktop-sized machines that could run it. The same is true of any "server" OS that can drive a display/keyboard combination while living in a small box that is built in or nearby.
Think about it: A "server" is just a system with enough resources to handle MANY users, of the sort that once required a box too big to lug around without a fleet of trucks.
Now a [foo] server (file server, terminal server, etc.) is another matter. That's a system that has enough of one kind of resource to handle more than one user, but not necessarily all the kinds of resources you need to support a desktop. But BSD is not a [foo] server. It's a generic operating system that provides all the resources you need.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So I guess the real question is: is linux a desktop OS yet?
:-)
Almost. Very close. But no banana yet. To me, to be a "real" Desktop OS, my out-of-box experience has to be at least as good as that provided by a certain well-known behemoth competitor. Now that I have Ximian installed and running smoothly, it is nearly there. However, whether using Moz (icluding 0.8.1), Konquerer, Netscape, or Galeon, the web experience is very poor when compared to IE 5, 5.5 or 6. I suspect that this is because the font-rendering sucks in X.
Note that I am a Linux newbie, though I have been installing Linux regularly since 1995. It has improved so dramatically that I recently bought a second HD to leave it permanently installed without dual-booting (the Mandrake 7.2 distro).
Feel free to disagree with me if you wish.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
I'm running FreeBSD as a desktop OS with X 4.0.2, and the nv driver works just fine. SDL and everything. I used the same setup under RedHat, and I don't notice any difference in performance.
In my experience with installing FreeBSD, it seemed deliberately unfriendly at times.
Consider the first screen where you have to choose devices in your system. It could have given me a list of network cards and asked me to choose one. Instead it gave me a list of all devices which included 10 different network cards all installed, a warning marked "9 conflicts", and I had to delete all but one. Of course once I figured out what it wanted me to do it was fine, but that's a fairly stupid way of asking for a network card.
After I got it installed I was rather disappointed because the ports collection didn't have as many available programs as Debian, and various keys on the keyboard (such as "Delete", "Home" and "End") did the wrong thing. I have no idea how Debian manages to make those kind of keys work right in all programs - it's not an editing-one-file type of job, I know from attempting it - but it does. That and the fact that it couldn't read my Linux ReiserFS partition led to me uninstalling FreeBSD.
I understand that it works great for some people, but it didn't seem to offer any advantages over Debian to make up for the disadvantages.
--
Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Not to nitpick, but I just wanted to point out that BeOS is not 100% POSIX compliant. It was never certified as such (then again, neither is Linux).
But BeOS has some POSIX porting issues that can seriously hamper porting projects. Now, from what I understand (note: I'm not a hardcore C programmer, because I can't do memory management to save my life) there are some issues with normal, POSIX happy code calling mmap() (I may be slightly incorrect on the name). That's why you don't really see as many great command line utils on BeOS as you should.
I do want to note, however, because of the way BeOS is designed, if you can get your normal, POSIX cl util over to BeOS, you can create a GUI wrapper for it, so you don't have to totally rewrite your app to make it pretty. Gotta love that.
Also, BeOS has hardware support issues, like any niche OS. My NIC, for example, isn't supported. Also, printing has always been an issue (may have been resolved somewhat w/ R5). But they do (obviously) have some good industry connections and such, seeing as how nVidia cards, OpenGL, and USB are fully supported.
Okay. I'll shut up now. ^_^
OSX runs the BSD kernel. The distinction between it and freeBSD is like the distinction between Debian and Mandrake.
Nope.. Mac OS X runs on top of a Mach kernel, not a BSD kernel.. Darwin is the underbelly of OS X (with the Aqua display manager upstairs) and the "BSD" equivilent to mkLinux (initially supported by Apple)..
As for your example: it's wrong. FreeBSD supports ATA100 since version 4.2 (about 6 months now, and about 12 months in the developtment tree). In contrast: Linux added ATA100 support to standard (non-dev) kernel much later than 6 months ago.
Somehow people keep repeating each other in these false statments, that might have been true many years ago.
The only area where FreeBSD is painfully lagging is Nvidia 3D-driver support. It is irritating, because of Linux's more prominent image this vendor supports Linux but not FreeBSD in their (binary only, mind you) driver.
This in contrast with vmware, for example, which runs perfectly under FreeBSD. The kernel parts of vmware are available as source and were ported to FreeBSD long ago. The non-kernel part runs 110% under Linux "emulation" (which, technically, isn't a real emulator and runs most linux software faster than directly under linux).
Desktop operating systems have to meet a few criterion before people can truly accept them as such.
First of all, when new software comes out, it has to be readily available on that operating system. Many people choose windows because most games come out on that platform. And if they come out on any alternatives they're mainly for Mac and Linux. If we're lucky enough (BSD people) somebody will port it from Linux to FreeBSD, but that rarely happens quickly. So Linux is a much more viable operating system as a go-between because even the most benevolent software designers who see the potential of open-source software rarely go deeper than Linux.
I think that is the main thing holding FreeBSD back. Aside from a few minor things as well, such as the not-so-laymen install procedure, I think it is a fairly good desktop system. I'm thinking about putting it on my laptop (which could truly benefit from the optimisation). But I don't know how to do a lot of things (such as set up ppp dial-up) and a lot of my friends use it for Word Processing when I let them borrow it.
FreeBSD is a fantastic operating system, but it hasn't been able to overcome the "Linux Craze" that people have gone through, some just choosing linux because it was the first thing they saw and never thought to investigate other systems, and others because of years of experience. But BSD will eventually get more exposure and may even overcome Linux. This might be a sad day though, many people love FreeBSD for what it is and always was: A server operating system. When or If it ever migrates to desktop systems, people will stray from focusing on optimizing the server components and concentrate on other facets, leaving admins to migrate to other, more server-oriented operating systems.
Moral of the story is, we should be careful in trying to push BSD to the desktop (open) market. Though I would love to see it happen, I don't want it to loose that "sparkle" in Daemon's eye.
- Are mostly posix
- Are mostly gnu
- Are mostly free (by some definition of free)
- Are mostly X based
which seems to be pretty compatible. For example, KDE and Gnome can run on FreeBSD with little problems... so WHY would Linux be a better 'desktop' than FreeBSD? It doesn't provide any OS level services that make it a more 'seamless' experience that FreeBSD...I bet if you were really whacko you could set up a freebsd box that was indistinguishable (in terms of user experience... installed packages, file system layout, etc) from a run of the mill Linux box.
So I guess the real question is: is linux a desktop OS yet?
-Chris
If you're looking for an OS that is great for desktop use, is incredibly fast, and is really easy to get used to, and has support for NVidia cards, then you want to use BeOS. I've been using BeOS for a while and although it's not as popular as Linux or BSD, its following is pretty devout. I rarely have any problems with BeOS crashing, and on my Pentium II 266 w/ 64 megs RAM it boots in about 10 seconds. BeOS is also almost completely POSIX compliant, so you can compile most linux apps under it with relative ease. And if you don't feel like doing that, BeBits has all the drivers and software you could ever need that's not included in the distribution. If you're looking for a satisfying desktop experience, then BeOS is the way to go.
its all in the name. That is what myself and friends have come up with. You say FreeBSD and people look at you like your crazy....on the other hand if you say Linux people stop and take a look. If FreeBSD had a cool name it would be on top, and i wouldn't be the lonely BSD-Whore I am now.....
I'm a cucumber
Strength in number is also moving Linux more toward the desktop,
So why is 180 seperate distros, most of them doomed to failure, "strength in numbers"?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I have found that several Linux distros are designed to be more of a "desktop" OS
Then step right up and go an get the FreeBSD for the Desktop!
FreeBSD for the Desktop
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
the better question is: how does the freebsd community create awareness of this fact?
alive to the universe, dead to the world
there ARE nVidia drivers for *bsd
alive to the universe, dead to the world
I whish I could. This was hilarious!
There is even an Official Port of Sun's JDK. It's been covered in a Slashdot article in the past.
<RANT>
The only reason FreeBSD even needs to run anything in "Linux emulation mode" is for software where the coders are either so shortsighted that the only release Linux binaries, or the source code is so Linux-centric that porting isn't worth the effort.
</RANT>
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Does Gnome work on FreeBSD?
I just assembeled a system for a customer with an ATA100 IDE RAID (0+1) and FreeBSD 4.2 saw it just fine thank you.
True, he's not running some very exotic hardware for the mobo, sound and graphics subsystem, but it does everything he needs and it has fully striped and mirrored RAID to speed up and protect his data.
I wouldn't call that "no driver support."
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Yeah, not forking off your own little version of every damn bit of code you can get your grubby little hands on is so horrible! Those linux people are so stupid. Interopability Schminteroperability
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
I shall smite you all!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
arrg but the average dip-wad can't install windows either!!!!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
When the market is flooded with some particular "desktop operating system" SO unstable, they'll call anything stabler a "server operating system"
OpenBSD is my desktop OS of choice :) no bloat, no bugs, no worry.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
A lot of people *hate* windoze because they make it so *simple* that moron joe sixpack can configure it. The problem, however, is that it is so simple, that you can't do anything useful with it. Pure bloat. Me: "I want this to do that" windoze: "i'm sorry, i think you want the paperclip to change that back without asking!" Taken on that level, the 'easier makes it harder' idea goes like this Windoze --> Linux --> BSD. I used to use Redhat 2 1/2 years ago...i hated that install. I told it not to install KDE or GNOME. I guess it took that as some logical 'or' because it just installed both anyways. Then all this isapnpdump crap...Now OpenBSD is *easy* no stupid menu installs. No menu based configuration. No menu based kernal config. And no 6 cdrom *base* install. I can't stand KDE; I can't stand Gnome. Too many stupid buttons and config files. I use blackbox. It is fast and sweet. Because it seems the less complex (read: less bloated) it is, the faster and easier it is to use. I also don't play games. So leenuchs games don't affect me. Shit, all you need is x-evil. Enough of my rant. But everyone on here should know...if the OS / program holds your hand while setting it up, you will not learn shit. Now go in there with vi and you will learn. BLah blah blah....
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Maybe Linux's higher profile is partly a result of its name. "Linux" makes a great battle flag around which to rally - "BSD" does not. This is true on two levels.
First the superficial level: Linux is a cool word, evocative of both "Linus" and "Unix". It's the kind of simple-yet-catchy name on which companies spend millions. BSD is yet another three letter acronym, and not a cool one like NSA or ATA. I can't explain or prove this lack of coolness, but I do remember noticing it upon first hearing the name FreeBSD.
Second, the level of representation: Linux is Linus's OS. The name matches the story, and it's a simple story. Every time you use the word Linux you're touching upon Linux's primal creation myth.
Of course the same could be said of "BSD" - it reminds us of Bill Joy (I think) copying tapes of the "Berkeley Software Distribution", a modified version of AT&T Unix. Except, unfortunately, this story has little to do with the reality of *BSD today. If the BSD's could choose their names now, they might be something like Servix, Securix, and Portix - names which convey the core message of the OS identity, rather than some baggage from the past.
So how do these stories look to the casual observer? Linux: "Finnish student Linus Torvalds created Linux, a free OS which rose from hobbyist roots to challenge Microsoft, Sun and HP." BSD: "At one time, a bunch of people at UC Berkeley made changes to AT&T Unix, and distributed tapes. Then AT&T sued them, and the court..." (Casual observer wanders off.)
And that attitude is just what the original poster was complaining of. Contrary to the implication above, it is not customary in a free market for sellers to dictate terms to buyers.
First, there's a difference between proposing a deal (what you described) and dictating a deal (what Microsoft does). Second, the description you gave only describes one of several ways a deal can be made in a free market. It's equally likely that the buyer makes an offer, and the seller accepts, rejects or counters.
But that's a tangent. The real point is that Microsoft's two-tiered pricing for NT is enabled by lies (pretending there's a real difference) and sabotage (deliberately making it hard for Microsoft desktops to interoperate with non-Microsoft servers.)
Microsoft isn't part of the free market any more than an extortionist who sells you 'protection'. They happen to still be 'out on the street' awaiting an appeal of their conviction.
Another relevant question: "Why isn't Windows a desktop operating system?"
Got Rhinos?
I use FreeBSD as my server and desktop platform at work, and I use Linux at home. The primary thing I've found about FreeBSD that keeps me from switching at home is the lack of supported software for the platform. A huge number of tarball distrobutions simply don't compile under FreeBSD. As an operating system I've found it to be amazingly robust -- we had a heavily-used server that was put up, and for a year and a half after the first boot, it never went down again. As a desktop environment, it's just as rock solid. It only needs a reboot when the rolling blackouts hit. *grins*
My suggestion for FreeBSD users is to help out. When you encounter a compile problem, fix it and submit a patch. There are very high profile projects that do not compile under FreeBSD without tweaking. If more software would compile, it'd be an amazing desktop environment.
---
Josh Woodward
Josh Woodward
Be a rebel, push the envelope, drink Dr. Pepper, etc.
DT
--
Is this thing on? Hello?
As I understand it, Minux's licensing was a bit too liiting, and Linus decided that he wanted something similar that he could play with a bit more ... (or something like that).
Linux is based on the GNU project (yes, Gnu's Not Unix -- the same way that Super Glue and Crazy Glue aren't the same thing... same purpose, same design same intent, different manufacturers and different names.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Ah, I found a Linux History page with a copy of Linus's "Historical posting":
(bold emphasis mine)As for Linus being a student of Tanenbaum, Tanenbaum, himself, wrote:
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Sorry, but that is just plain wrong. Linux does not have formal change request system that is remotely as convenient as all the BSDs have. In fact, Linux has no approved way yo submit patches - through linux kernel mailing list. Whether or not this patch will get someone's attations is anyones guess. BSD's use more formal process with GNATS, PRs, etc. In fact, the best way to become a committer is to submit as most good quality PRs as possible so that other FreeBSD committers will get bored committing your patches and simply will let you to commit them yourself. I would say it is extremely hard to get poorly designed code into BSD CVS. Good code is always welcome.
It's fairly easy...
BSD is not a desktop system, it's not a server system, it's not a work station system. It's an operating system. It's flexible, and powerfull and can be configured for any task possible. Linux borrows a great deal of code from BSD's, while MacoSX has a solid BSD base under it -- both of these are arguably ready for mainstream desktop consumption.
The more classic BSD's: BSDi, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD all have their own miniroles. BSDi is a rock solid commercial system, ready for embeded systems market and commercial UNIX systems. FreeBSD is a full-featured work station-type UNIX, complete with easy installation and quick access to a desktop environment; OpenBSD is rock solid stable, and security-audited. Both OpenBSD (at least partially) and NetBSD feature extremely elegant code base, and even if at the current moment they lack features, any type of feature addition is possible, and when those features are implement they will neither increase the size, nor the speed, nor the elegancy of those operating systems. NetBSD is also highly portable, and due to its extremely organized code-base, rock-solid stability etc.. had been put to use by NASA.
My personal favorite is OpenBSD. I can choose what I want with it. And from my UNIX machines, I want a small, minimalisitic installation, each and every component of it I can monitor, control and see the source to. And, security should not pre-empt usability, which is why I use OpenBSD. Yet if I wanted anything else, I'd be confident that either one of the mainstream BSD's or one of their derivates like Linux and MacOSX will do it. BSD is a what-ever-you-want type operating systems. Oh yeah, and we also believe in features without the hype.
That comment made me cough my coffee all over my keyboard and screen.
If you are going to make a comment like that you need to quantify it by telling people a) what versions of software you were using, and b) what hardware you tried to install it on.
In any comparison of any operating system (*NIX, Microsoft etc) we have to make sure that 1) the hardware you are trying to install on is on the hardware compatability list, and 2) you install the different software on exactly the same hardware in each case.
If conditions (1) and (2) aren't met then the experiment has no value.
so pretty much, till i either have another machine, or there are nvidia bsd drivers... i won't be using it much. which is to bad.
-------
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
there's a bug aparently with my motherboards chipset and nvidia cards using the default drivers in xfree86. i had the exact same issues in 3.3.6, 4.0.1, 4.02.... before i installed the nvidia drivers.
i've talked to many people who've had this problem. i'm pretty sure there's mailing list archives discussing it if you really want to search.
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
I've personally had GNOME 1.2 running in OpenBSD.
Sure it required a lot of work but I did it. Then again most morons don't wish to think for themselves. The only thing I wish OpenBSD had was better video/sound hardware support and SMP support. Since I run an SMP machine at work I'm stuck with FreeBSD.
BTW LINUX IS FOR CHILDREN!
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
*sighs*
--Ryvar
I found this pretty cool site through a comment or sig here IIRC... Either way, it covers all sorts of things (incl. ppp setup): FreeBSD Cheat Sheets. As far as the word processing thing goes, if you're laptop is beefy enough give StarOffice a try. If not, try AbiWord.
The ppp setup described above is for 3.x and it's for a lan2dial home gateway. You may wish to try looking at chapters 15 (Serial Communications) and 16 (PPP and SLIP) of the FreeBSD Handbook for more up to date or generalized instructions.
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Except for the fact, of course, that MacOS X graphical layer is not X-Windows.
I mean, reliably and not in "linux emulation mode"? You may ask "well, who needs Java!". I do. I test my servlets on my local machine before I stick them on the production server (which is non-BSD as well for that and only that reason).
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Linux is a server OS too, but any un*x with X running is a desktop IMHO. Why can't a desktop run any services? Mine does.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
If it works as a desktop, then there is nothing wrong with running it as such. I'm tired of the "OpenBSD is a server OS" and "FreeBSD is a workstation OS" and "Linux is a silly little toy OS" .. Most OSes will work out-of-the-box as either a server or a workstation OS. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD are all this way. (ps: Mac OS X does work fine as a server OS. and with netinfo it easy to admin. versus NIS+ on Linux/FreeBSD).
ps: for you Linux geeks out there wanting to be cool like the FreeBSD guys, I recommend running Rock Linux. :) easy to install if you know how to run unix. no silly-ass menus to go through. Boot the rescue disk. ifconfig you eth0. fdisk, mke2fs then download the .tar.gz for the base system. set your root password, reboot. then you have full access to "extensions" which are pretty much like FreeBSD ports. scripts just download source, compile, config, install. viola!
sorry for talking more about rock linux than FreeBSD as a desktop OS. since that's such a non-issue since it does both quite nicely.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It depends on what you call a desktop OS.
:) Sure, it's mainly a server OS but there is no problem at all in using it as a desktop. It runs many Linux binaries, and of course most *NIX sources can be recompiled to run on it without alteration.
It's perfectly *capable* of running on a desktop. I'm also someone who has used it on my home PC and liked it
You can even use KDE and GNOME on it, at least on FreeBSD. That kinda speaks for itself. Anything that runs KDE, the window manager that most desktop Linux distros thrive on, is what I would call a desktop OS.
BUT. If you see a desktop OS as something that Joe Average can use easily, then I guess BSD isn't great for it. It didn't have any friendly, graphical/pretty installation wizards last time I checked, and that's probably the biggest hurdle for Mr Average. A text based installer like the one FreeBSD uses is usually easy to follow if you have your brain plugged in, but at first glance most "newbie" types will just run off screaming. This is a concept that some Linux distros (Mandrake, SuSE and co) only just started to see a year or two ago, and now they're thriving from it.
Once up and running, BSD is very nice, and the hardware support is excellent (it seems better than Linux's in some places, like good USB support was there earlier). But getting it to the up-and-running stage is not the easiest of tasks unless you're experienced. Compare it to a more "out of the box" distro like Mandrake (and dare I say it, MS Windoze), and you know which Joe Average will go for.
And so stands my opinion. I think that if you really *want* to think of it as a desktop OS, do so! It's fully capable of being one. But I wouldn't expect to call it a "serious" desktop OS like Linux is becoming, Windoze unfortunately is, and BeOS was until recently. As it is, it just isn't newbie-friendly. To be honest, I hope it will never be. IMO, we will always need a free *NIX that is fully "cleansed" of the kind of fluff that newbies need.
CPU cycles are much cheaper than download bandwidth. I'd rather download source and compile than download the compiled RPM.
(actually I just got a 24/7 connection so this is no longer true for me, but I think it's still going to be the case for most people).
It's not as if this is Windows. The system is totally usable while that compilation is happening. The compilation is also probably faster than the download of a compiled package.
All in all I can't see any argumet in favout of pre-compiled packages.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Almost any desktop software available for Linux is available for FreeBSD via the ports or their packages collection.
If something is only available as a redhat rpm, it can be installed and run on FreeBSD under Linux emulation(emulation is not quite the right word, think of it as Linux mode FreeBSD).
Even vmware runs on FreeBSD thanks to some excellent work by a porter who wrote kernel modules to bridge between the FreeBSD kernel and the vmware kernel modules
The ports team works extremely hard these days to keep the packages up to date. Pretty much any "major" piece of software gets its latest version into ports within days of its release. Gnome, KDE, sawfish, you name it... The only problem that I've encountered is this:
I come across a fine piece of free software that I decide I would like to use on my FreeBSD desktop. The chances are very high that the maintainer of the software couldn't care enough to provide a FreeBSD package. Worse, the chances are very high that the maintainer did not even care to build it on a non-Linux machine. Sure, the package has a configure script and all the other bells and whistles to create the Makefiles. But the sucker doesn't build. But all is not lost. You have the source. Spend some time. Build it. Fix it. Spend a couple hours with it on FreeBSD, it's very likely that you can get it to build and run (Linux and FreeBSD are not that much different). Then create a patch and send it to the maintainer. Create a port and send it to the FreeBSD team. Both parties are always happy to include it in their next release. I should know, I've done it.
The OS X userland code is based closely on a recent FreeBSD distribution.
Actually, you have that backwards... I've heard that the kernel is based on FreeBSD. As for the userland stuff:
[localhost:~] root# uname -a
/bin/cat:
/usr/bin/who: /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/bin/* /usr/sbin/* | wc -l /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/bin/* /usr/sbin/* | wc -l /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/bin/* /usr/sbin/* | wc -l
Darwin localhost 1.3 Darwin Kernel Version 1.3: Thu Mar 1 06:56:40 PST 2001; root:xnu/xnu-123.5.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
[localhost:~] root# ident `which cat`
$NetBSD: cat.c,v 1.18 1998/07/28 05:31:22 mycroft Exp $
[localhost:~] root# ident `which who`
$NetBSD: who.c,v 1.6 1997/10/20 03:20:29 lukem Exp $
[localhost:~] root# grep -l NetBSD
134
[localhost:~] root# grep -l FreeBSD
8
[localhost:~] root# grep -l OpenBSD
15
The majority of the binaries have NetBSD RCS IDs...
[localhost:~] root# ident `which ps`
/bin/ps:
$FreeBSD: fmt.c,v 1.13 1998/12/07 10:25:48 bde Exp $
$FreeBSD: keyword.c,v 1.23 1999/01/26 02:38:09 julian Exp $
$FreeBSD: print.c,v 1.33 1998/11/25 09:34:00 dfr Exp $
$FreeBSD: ps.c,v 1.25 1998/06/30 21:34:14 phk Exp $
ps is one of the few binaries from FreeBSD... perhaps because it's looking at kernel data structures?
The Mach microkernel runs on PowerPC... Apple didn't have to port all of FreeBSD's kernel to PPC. Anyways, as Apple's developer info says, "The BSD portion of the Mac OS X kernel is derived from FreeBSD, a version of 4.4BSD that offers advanced networking, performance, security, and compatibility features."
and I is my favorite. Fast and stable. Need an application for your desktop, cruise on over to the ports collection, type make && make install and a few minutes later you have a new desktop app.
I have not been able to use it for a while though. I develop primarily in java and unfortunately their java support is behind. Hopefully, BSDi will be able to keep it more current in the future.
--Doug
C'mon people, Linux as a desktop machine is sucky enough. Let's focus all our desktop energies on that, and make FreeBSD the best damn server out there. If only they had compatible licenses, maybe this would have already happened. The right tool for the right situation. FreeBSD for your server, Windows 2000 for your desktop, Linux for your embedded device?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Uhh, BSD kernel in OS X...
Eh...
OSX runs the BSD kernel. The distinction between it and freeBSD is like the distinction between Debian and Mandrake.
Eh...
Note: "Comparable" is the perceived time it takes to generate a web page with some queries. I didn't do any serious benchmark testing. I have the same data on both machines/DBs, and have a third machine that accesses the data and spits it out to an HTML web page - selecting the DB by changing the name of the ODBC name to use.
You can't judge Linux by Redhat alone.
You're quite right. As time and available boxes to play with permits I will be trying out some other flavors of Linux. I'm just not in any rush to, as FreeBSD does everything I would expect of a Linux box. As this discussion was over the suitability of Linux versus FreeBSD I may have over stressed the point a bit.
Although I have not used FreeBSD myself
Take one empty box, a connection to the net, and 2 blank floppy disks. If you weren't on a Northpoint DSL connection (like I was), and happen to have a fair bit of bandwidth you'll be playing with an up and running FreeBSD box in about 30 minutes. Your mileage may vary based on how much stuff you check off to install, and how big a pipe ya really got.
Personally, I recommend installing very little from the sysinstall menu. Better to cvsup everything to the latest greatest and build all the rest from the ports tree. Takes a little longer, but it sure is worth it. For the quicker route, just install from the binary packages. They install from across the Internet as well.
If I never see another f**king RPM file again with it's dependencies to totally unknown files belonging to unnamed packages it'll be way too soon. I do not miss RedHat. On the other hand, I am still very curious to see Debian's magic in motion with them get-apt things. Maybe some time this summer between rolling blackouts.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
As a one time RedHat user and now fully FreeBSD when not on my NT Workstation I suppose I can kinda see why the perception is the way it is. The RedHat installer walks you through from an empty system to a graphical logon straight into Gnome. At this point in time if a user isn't taken straight to a GUI, then it must be a server kinda machine.
Personally, I feel that RedHat's hand holding actually hurt me in the long run. I never felt comfortable going any where near the command line when using it. I couldn't figure out why the directories were structured the way they were. Oh boy, then there was the couple of times that X crashed and left me at a blinking command prompt. Reboot!
With FreeBSD I was forced to get at least somewhat comfortable with getting around without a GUI. Due to it's being a bit harder to get going it actually made things easier for me in the long run. The real problem with this is that you're never going to manage to convince someone who isn't willing to put in the time of this.
One issue that folks like bringing up is the lack of hardware support for FreeBSD. Not only has this not had any impact on me, but I've actually found FreeBSD to be a good bit smarter. For example, on my RH box I had 128meg of RAM installed, where only 64meg was being seen. A kind soul over on #LinuxHelp walked me through configuring the system to see the rest of the memory. If my life depended on it I couldn't recall all the steps that went into fixing this. FreeBSD just picked up whatever was in the box and ran with it! When I've needed to add support for something, doing up a custom kernel was surprisingly easy.
As it is now, I'm writing this using Konqueror under KDE 2.1 with FreeBSD 4-STABLE and doing just fine. Occasionally I use the Linux version of Netscape for the better plugin support, as well as a few other Linux only apps. StarOffice works just fine here. I also keep Apache, PHP, and MySQL going in the background for stuff I'm developing. I just can't see going back to any distro of Linux any time soon.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility is not emulation. Its not even really abstraction. Linux binaries don't have to go through any extra layers in order to execute on FreeBSD than they would in order to execute on Linux.
Linux binaries can run natively on FreeBSD because the FreeBSD kernel contains all the necessary ABIs, and the filesystem contains all the necessary libraries, and there is even now a linux procfs that runs alongside FreeBSD's procfs for the benefit of Linux binaries. FreeBSD simply executes a native FreeBSD binary one way, and native Linux binaries another way. There is no performance penalty for running a Linux binary on FreeBSD because nothing has to be emulated or translated from a Linux-style execution to a FreeBSD-style execution, it is simply executed as-is.
Maybe try to understand it this way: FreeBSD can run Linux binaries not because it emulates the way Linux executes binaries, but because it has implemented the way Linux executes binaries alongside its own implementation of binary execution.
So to ask "Why should I run linux programs on FreeBSD when I could just run them on their native OS?" is a question based on misunderstanding. The simple answer is that even when they are running on FreeBSD, the are running on their native OS.
For a more technical explanation, read http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/x19213.html
(I include a GUI because that is the standard for computing today; before the Macintosh or more likely Windows 3.1, that was not mandatory.)
The alleged confusion probably comes from rabid OS worshippers who consider their chosen desktop and OS as the ordained by the One True Church of God(TM) and anything else coming from a Trap of Satan, to be ridiculed as heresy, and any praise of same as blasphemy.
Make no mistake about it, decisions about operating systems rank up there with some people on the level of what religion they should be (Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc.), and for some, which OS or Window Manager as being what denomination they should belong to (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Sunni, Druze, etc.)
For some people their choice of OS (and window manager, if they are using X) can be more significant to them than the question of which church is the One True Church of God(TM).
For most people, some version of the Number of the Beast from Redmond serves their purpose. (95, 95 OSR 1, 98, 98 SE etc.)
A tiny minority pray at the cathedral of St. Jobs. (Let us pray using only one button because we worship the Macintosh above all others.)
About an equal number as the followers of the food of Adam and Eve believe in Linux and X and will have no other gods before them.
The rest worship with some of the lesser cults such as BSD, BE, the Amiga and several thousand other less known cults.
As a result, if you're not of their church, you're an infidel.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
FreeBSD has very poor driver support. I would have to throw out half the hardware on my desktop if I installed FreeBSD. In fact, I could not even install FreeBSD because I have new hardware (an ATA100 hard drive controller). Linux supports all my hardware fine, but FreeBSD only supports a few things. I have even asked people on freebsd newsgroups and such if there is a way to install FreeBSD to an ATA100 IDE controller, and they have had no answer.
I like freebsd a lot. I think it is a lot more coherent. But since it doesnt support a lot of my hardware that I NEED to use it, it will not be on my desktop.
Now when building servers one can select hardware that is known to be freebsd supported. That is why it is used on servers. But on the average desktop, especially with newer hardware, freebsd just would not cut it.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
using *BSD on the desktop soon is not even their fault. But I gotta have my video drivers and damn Nvidia won't do it or let anybody else do it. Otherwise I would think about switching. Oh yea and if Debian/BSD got off the ground that would be very cool also. But that mailing list is *very* dead.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Since WINE is a project porting the Win32 API to linux, it will be Windows. (When and if completed)
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Unless FreeBSD can't install KDE2 as a default during installation. Which I doubt, but I wouldn't know.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
:-)
But that is the problem. You need to be technically savvy.
If you have someone that is clueless on this stuff, then the answer is "Start X? how the hell am I supposed to know that?"
The latest Redhat has a nice pretty gui type install. But if you have odd ball hardware setup, it is a problem.
I have one guy teaching himself how to do work with Unix by installing Redhat. He has a nice desktop with gnome fired up. By default it installs with Dialup (not Ethernet), even though he choose a server config. The computer doesn't have a modem, but it does lan card. He is going to figure this out on his own, but hasn't yet.
Redhat has the prettier program, and sets up the dial up for you. FreeBSD is "Uglier" (I think it is better) but you have to know more. But in both cases you still have to be fairly knowledgable.
The bottom line is that I still think that Unix is still not for beginners. This is a practical problem for widespread adoption. I happen to prefer FreeBSD.
Alot of impressions are highly dependant of the Distribution, which deals with items like installation, ease of changing components, changing setups, installing programs, etc. Not the underlying soundness of the system, the drivers, etc.
But that (your fav distro) is a different flamewar indeed. (I need a cup of coffee, my mind is too fuzzy for this, this early in the morning)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
BULLSHIT!!! os x on x 86?
apple is a HARDWARE company
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100% Australian
I'm using OS X and Omniweb to post this. And god damn OS X hasn't crashed on me once. BSD truly does rock. It's freaking amazing. OS 9 is so slow browsing compared to OS X. My 56k feels like DSL. I am so freaking happy. YEAH!!!
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get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
Those of you who are BSD fans:
You believe the new Mac OS having a BSD base will encourage it BSD to become a bit more mainstream?
I run an OpenBSD box at home and I can say I was very impressed by it, very clean, very organized, and very simple to set up once you get past that archaic disk setup tool.
1. Bleeding edge - if you want the latest stuff hot off the press it is easier to get for Linux
2. Journaling file system - As far as I know not available an easily selected install option
3. Easier setup - Linux distros typically come with utilities that make it easier for people to set up stuff without learning vi first
I like the BSD's because the layout for setting things up is so much better but if you are new to Unix you will have an easier time getting up and running with a Linux box.
...now that their code bases are merging!
So, you've built a desktop. Most other people set it up as a server - but your system is indeed a desktop. Go tell them to fork a daemon or something...
I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!
SIG: HUP
I would like to have an homogenious network, so I don't like one linux and one *BSD's ...
...
I use linux, because freeBSD doesn't support my modem cardbus, so my webcam,
And there's a lot more software for linux than *BSD's !
Its these 2 things that keep me with SuSE Linux rather then Freebsd. I guess Sun would love nothing more then a stranglehold on the unix market. I am aware that java standard edition is going to be supported soon but I doubt the enterprise version will ever be ported which is essential to any programer.
ALso I winder postgress will ever be ported or even compile. Mysql is too primptive for me and it seems to be the only one wupported with freebsd 3.4.
Well, instead of paying $100 for all the cd's, and live without java, postgress, fortejava, staroffice, jarkatta. Or you can just pay $79 and get all those things with Linux and its more ready outside the box. I only do alittle java programming and mainly like c++ and c but if i pay close to a $100, I want every tool I can get.
Also I assume you were trained with unix or are a cs major if you actually like freebsd. Freebsd is still alot harder to configure and use then Linux for a variety of reasons. SUSE has 4 manauls and docs and the freebsd handbook is a great book. Linux is easier to use and learn because you can get more help on the web and from third party books. Have a linux problem do a search or enter a caht room. With Freebsd there are less sites and chatrooms and documentation. Also Linux distro's tend to have more throughly installation routines and special software tools after your done. Its these things that make linux a prefered desktop solution.
Also I think its bad for Rob to print a story like this to a linux/bsd diehard community website. I smell flamebait!
http://saveie6.com/
NT server4 and NT workstation 4 are actually the exact same product and there are even compilied they are even compiled the same.
One registry key holds the actually product name and I believe the other key is used to control how many connections NT can server if I recall.
You can even turn NT workstation into SERVER by changing the 2 keys! I have done it. Of course you get alot more administration tools if you buy the server version. This alone would make sense for bussiness users.
What is slimy about this is that Microsoft made a whole bunch of false benchmarks showing NT workstation lagging far behind NT server. It turns out the NT kernel looks at the registry and cripples itself if its set to workstation to make NT server look faster.
http://saveie6.com/
I don't know which FreeBSD users you have been talking to, but all the ones I know, including my self, love using it as both a desktop and server operating system.
The laptop support is also great -- I have it working perfectly (including audio) on a Toshiba Libretto, Portege and Sony Vaio.
MacOS X is not FreeBSD. It may be very good, it may be very bad, it's certainly for the desktop, and when all those MacOS X users come flooding into c.u.b.f.m for help, we'll do all we can for them - but it's not FreeBSD.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
In the main article, Cliff asked Slashdot (I quote) "What would FreeBSD need added to it to make a desktop friendly BSD distribution?"
Saying OS X is a desktop operating system cetainly doesn't answer that question.
There again, Slashdot made a balls-up of the headline - that doesn't help either.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
FreeBSD is perhaps the most vigorous. Let's look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo understates that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. This ties up with the fact that NetBSD doesn't have a newsgroup. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts, rather surprising when you think there is no such operating system. Therefore there are about 700 users of a phantom operating system called BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is completely inconsistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the closeness of Walnut Creek to FreeBSD, CD sales and so on, FreeBSD gained a lot of business and established closer links with BSDI who sell a supported version of the same OS. All marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily risen in market share. *BSD is very healthy and its long term survival prospects are very secure. If *BSD is to decline at all, it will be among the mental freaks who frequent the slashdot trolling grounds. *BSD continues to improve. Nothing short of a miracle could stop it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD has it made.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Umm...and how is this different from Linux?
--- Standard disclaimer applies.
It's fine and well to expect different levels of support. But what if you aren't particularly interested in the support? If you know you're quite capable of setting up your Win2K machine as a web server, stuff the support. You know the machine can do it, so why fork out a whole lot of extra $$$ for the "server edition"? The crux of the issue is that the "workstation edition" is *deliberately crippled*. They have deliberately added extra code to (for example) limit the maximum number of incoming TCP connections.
This is more than just a case of the server edition being "more optimized". It's a case of you being forced to buy the more expensive edition through deliberately crippling the workstation edition.
Shouldn't you be allowed to at least make the choice? If you're going to buy and you dont want support, then you should have some choice in what you buy. Your idea that you are definitely going to want support is completely bizarre to me. Support is not some intrinsic part of the product, and should never be. Support is something optional that you pay extra for that gives some people a comforting feeling that if the system messes up they have someone to phone that'll fix everything up. In reality "support" doesn't work that way though. Why should the "tech support" be worked into the price of the product? Why should I pay more for it just because somebody else wants to be able to phone someone when they don't know how to install a network printer or configure the web server or something?
Why not just charge a flat price for the OS (all those optional extras and configuration tools can be selected via amazing things called "checkboxes" when you install the system) and then charge extra differing amounts for differing levels of support? Exactly like RedHat in fact. One set of installation media, with an option on startup "server" or "workstation" install. No crippling needed, and if you want lots of support, pay for it. As for "optimizations in the software", well, once again these should be configurable via those amazing "checkboxes", "radio buttons" and "configuration tools". In NT you can dynamically select "optimize for background processes" for example. There is no absolute rule in the universe that each set of "optimizations" can only be fixed to one particular set of installation media. Thats ridiculous - the only time this happens is if the company designing deliberately goes out of their way to limit the options available to clients, which is exactly what happens with MS.
With the optimizations I would expect a desktop version to be shipped with most daemons off
You seem to be under the impression that daemons are turned off by the manufacturer on the installation CD itself when they burn the CD. Please. It is the easiest thing in the world to select which daemons should be installed and/or disabled by default when installing a system based on what the user wants. I can only assume that you've have never installed any RedHat system released in the last 2 years.
This link has already been posted here but I don't think that it has been given enough exposure. Please read this article properly and realise that BSD is definately as much a desktop OS as linux can be. (That is assuming that you consider GNOME to be at all relevent to the point).
yeah, except that Win2K Professional is the same OS as Win2K Server, but for a few registry settings and a couple of DLL's. It's an artificial distinction made by Microsoft to sell more copies of a more expensive OS. They couldn't make money if they sold a highly-capable server-ready OS at their desktop price, and nobody would buy a general-purpose OS at the prices MS charges for W2K Server.
The truth is, it would have been simple for MS to include a little radio-button control in their control panel to switch between ntkernel's to optimize for the application most suited for it. Reboot, and you've got a more capable OS. But it would never make money. This is understandable, of course -- Microsoft is a corporation like any other, and they're designed to make money. They have their niche, and they fill it - well.
So on the other hand, *BSD -isn't- trying to make money; they just want to be a more general-purpose OS usable for either desktop or server applications, and appending "Server" or "Desktop" to their name would be inaccurate and misleading, much more so than simply doing your homework and learning the capabilities of an OS before you install it.
--nick
Unless I'm mistaken, X on OS X is being worked on/works, and NVIDIA is just handling hardware access, isn't it?
Slap an X server (whether it be xFree or something else), and you get X-Windows, don't you?
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
How ironic that NVIDIA is pushing hard into the Mac market with their GeForce line of cards, when the Mac OS X system is exactly a BSD OS on the PPC platform =)
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Since starting my PhD at Virginia Tech, I was sold on FreeBSD (FBSD) We had it running in our labs and I got a great deal of local support for making the change to it. I loved that. I love the security, I love the stability (vs. what I was running before).
Now, I'm in the midst of developing the software that is central to my PhD dissertation and I have a group of students working on this developement in Java. They ALL run Linux (Red Hat, Caldera, etc). After this semster is over, I plan to dump FBSD off my dual boot (Win 2000/FBSD) and move to Mandrake. I can't take that the Java port is STILL at 1.1.8 (and 1.2 is only in beta). I can't compile my research work at home, and unfortunately that is a central need to my computing existence at this time.
If FBSD gets native JDK suport worked out, I'll be back. Until then..... it was cool while it lasted.
let's not forget other things: audio software, most consumer-level graphics software (sorry, fuckers, the gimp sucks -- whine as much as you want -- say: "you just don't know how to use it" -- it still sucks and it's not photoshop.) fuck games -- i just want to run a reasonable sequencer and have a computer that supports my sound card without fucking having to write drivers myself (which, clearly, i cannot do.). this is why linux/etc is not a more popular OS -- there's only so much you can do with it quickly and easily.
remember that freeness is basically a non-issue for many many many people -- i know folks who wouldn't even speed or run a stop sign, but are more than willing to use copies of commerical software. essentially, windows and its software *are* free for most users. you guys really need to revise your stance to : "shut down the fucking pirates, etc, use linux!" because let's face it: for most poeple, the only merit of linux is that it is (legally) free -- but fuck, if all this other software can also be had for nought, AND its easier for the end user to understand (and is a game, audio or graphical utility that just will never show up on linux)-- well, fuck it.
fisfhcuerk.
whiny responses follow:
Until I had someone slap me upside the head with a reality check, I was actually under the impression that BSD in general and FreeBSD in particular was an OS with its own merits that I didn't belive was designed to be used as a desktop OS on a single-user machine, but rather was really only good for multi-user machines as part of a wider network, or as a server.
However I certainly wasn't under the impression that it was specificaly a server OS, or was ONLY suitable for one or two specific applications, but rather that it wouldn't be worth it for someone who is just interested in having a stable desktop OS to setup on their PC.
Of course now I have FreeBSD installed on my system and am slowly working towards it being a day-to-day OS, though it's still a ways off, primary thing keeping me back is lack of a stable, fast browser (honestly, IE is faster and more stable in Win2k than Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera have ever been in ANY OS for me), and lack of an email client that I like the interface of (call me crazy but I prefer the OE interface to anything I've yet seen in the *nix world, and other interfaces drive me NUTS)
yeah, except that Win2K Professional is the same OS as Win2K Server, but for a few registry settings and a couple of DLL's. It's an artificial distinction made by Microsoft to sell more copies of a more expensive OS. They couldn't make money if they sold a highly-capable server-ready OS at their desktop price, and nobody would buy a general-purpose OS at the prices MS charges for W2K Server.
This is standard business practice, not something that is only done by MS. It all comes down to that you charge the highest possible price a customer is prepared to pay for a certain product.
You can't judge Linux by Redhat alone.
:)
Your experiences with FreeBSD sounds a lot like mine with Slack. Although I have not used FreeBSD myself, I have heard Slackware compared to it countless times. As a Slack user, I can attest to some similarities: BSD-style init scripts, rock solid, and almost no real hand-holding.
It's a no-nonsense Linux distribution. You may want to try it out sometime.
-Justin
I should admit it; I use Windows 2000, but I use the "Run" keyboard shortcut at least 200 times a day, and I'm interested in making a Quake-style console that acts as a hybrid DOS-box that can be popped down with a simple key-combination (maybe SysRq would be a good combination; after all, what if you need to type in a tilde in the command line?).
I've seen the screenshots of the Windows XP interface, and I am utterly disgusted. Much like MacOS, extensive mouse usage is encouraged. All that Microsoft would have to do is make perfectly circular mice with one button, and then the circle would be complete. I, as well as other avid "Run" users, fear the day that Microsoft goes the way of the Mac: completely point, click, crash.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
What would FreeBSD need added to it to make a desktop friendly BSD distribution?
As Apple has showed, all they need is a good GUI, the underlying system is good enough for the desktop.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
I can't say anything aboutthe buisness dealings of *BSD. All I can say is that they make a fantastic product. OpenBSD is unbeatable as a server platform. The effort that Theo and the crew put into making it secure, reliable, stable, and easy to use say it all. It's just like apple has been saying forever "Apple, Proudly going out of buisness for 20 years" Just like Apple, *BSD may not be the most popular, user friendly, make the most money, or whatever, but it has a tried and true loyalty that won't go away. Even if the buisness end went under, the development would continue by said loyal users. (please no apple flames, it was just an analogy)
nb
homophobia is silly and pointless
..are you saying by implication that mysogyny isn't?
I was just being funny.
..or not
cd /sys/i386/conf
./config/NUTTY
../../compile/NUTTY
vi NUTTY
cd
make depend ; make ; make install
How hard is that? I'm not even at a FreeBSD machine right now. GUI's for system configurations are for Linux and Windows zealots.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
./config NUTTY #no god damn slash.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
damn, you're right. that's what I get for thinking about real operating systems while patching 30 NT boxes for the plethora of security bugs announced in the last few days.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
Granted, LINT is hardly complete documentation, but a "man -devicename-" will give you much more information.
Experience gives you the ability to write out kernel config files in about 20 seconds. Generic is so bloated now that configuring for a server with only NICs and hard drives only involves commenting out all the other crap. I would think a menu driven system would make this process even slower and more painful, but the option would be nice for novices. New project for me? Maybe...
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
ps2 Mouse support is available at setup time without a kernel rebuild in FreeBSD.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
Although my main use of FreeBSD is for hosting, I use it as my desktop OS as well. Having tried Linux before (Mandrake 7), I didn't find it to be a better suited desktop OS. However, even though FreeBSD in my opinion is easier to use and maintain, I was never able to make the sound work or print a color page from Netscape... With Linux, multimedia and printing were better supported at installation time.
I would still prefer FreeBSD over Linux for my desktop though, because of it's reliability and the fact that you can install an application so easily from the ports collection, and it works flawlessly every time!
Moreover, after installing Linux, I end up removing a bunch of stuff I don't need... With FreeBSD, I actually add the applications I want! I like the ports system much better than the rpms, which always gave me trouble.
Both systems can do the same thing, and I think FreeBSD can be made as desktop friendly as Linux with a bit of work. For me, the payoff came later with less maintenance...
PGP public key at: http://keskydee.com/gil.asc
Relax. The original poster seems to be a BSD supporter.
Nevertheless, Linux has some advantage that *BSD hasn't.
Linus
*BSD are created by a group of professional developers. Nothing spectacular. It's very,very boring.
Linux is different. 'A free operating systems created by a former Finnish University Student during his free time which almost overthrow the evil Microsoft Empire...'
No disrepect here. Just an observation. (Acutally you could read an interesting perspective from http://www.softpanorama.org/index.shtml)
Ricky
Welcome to slashdot, user 413639.
You are braver that i am. When i post something, i usually spent 10% extra words to ... tell the world that i am not trolling, i am not flaming, YMMV...
I have decided a while ago that i am not going to do that anymore. I want to make this a better community. Let people who say what they want, directly to the point. Even when people are trolling flaming whatever, the best thing to do is to ignore them.
Ricky
All this reminds me of those stupid old Certs ads:
BSD is a breath mint!
BSD is a candy mint!
Ok, moderation totals -1 Stupid, sure, but I guess I didn't have enough caffeine yet today...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
With all the hype about Linux going to be the next desktop system, I think people are misconfusing things again. Linux is a desktop operating system (granted, it may not be a good one... :p ). So is FreeBSD. FreeBSD has been around longer than Linux, IIRC. FreeBSD is valid.
And isn't MacOS X based on FreeBSD? If not, it's at least based on some form of BSD, either way it's a good thing. BSD is moving into the popular scene. It's only a matter of time before people realize Linux sucks and BSD doesn't.
Apple has shown us what the minimum requirements for a Desktop OS are. After all, they nearly sold the ranch to make sure the new MSFT Office got ported. They have also agressively sought the latest 3d acceleration hardware and porting of the lastest games. (As a matter of disclosure, I'm a big FreeBSD fan, and use it for my servers). Games and Office apps just haven't been the biggest priority for FreeBSD devlopers or for application developers considering which OS's are worthy of ports. At best Quake 3 A will run somewhat awkwardly with no acceleration. I don't think Word perfect was ever ported. That said, if MSFT office were ever ported to BSD, BSD would overnight become the premiere open source desktop OS. Period. I think that's obvious to all of us. (By the way, on the server side, BSD has two major league limititations: SMP is still a work in progress. It has a ways to go before it's as efficient as (gulp) WinNT (or the new Linux kernel even). Also, despite little newsgroup burps to the contrary, Oracle hasn't really been ported to BSD. Some have tried, and some have claimed they could boot it, but nobody is claiming a production Oracle running under BSD. Certainly not Oracle 8-9x.
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Microsoft used the source code for Kerbos and rewrote it to be non-interoperable with the opensource implimentation and because it was under the BSD license they were not required to release their changes to the public.
FreeBSD is a great Server OS because you don't need a mouse on a server, but those of us with desktops need ps2 mouse support... you can't expect someone to recompile the kernel on their first day. Though I was amazed with the speed.
I use Linux, not FreeBSD because I like knowing there is a philosophy behind... GNU philosophy.
I have not experienced a working GNOME at all. Even after downloading a bunch of files, there's always a new bunch of unresolved dependencies. anything that works as a sever, works as a desktop, anything that don't work, don't work but of course I'm concidered a bit kinky anyways
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm in the same situation as you here: a normal desktop user doing normal desktop things. I also tried many Open Source OS's, including FreeBSD and many flavors of Linux. I used FreeBSD for a while, until finally settling down on a Linux distro. Why? Because FreeBSD is simply nowhere near user-friendly enough to beat many Linux distributions in competition for normal users. Sound requires a kernel recompilation, which is no big deal, but getting ppp up and running isn't too fun and FreeBSD printing setup is an absolute pain in the ass! Besides, Linux seems to do everything FreeBSD does and more (from my experience). The ports collection is rather convenient, but it doesn't hold a candle to the Debian package manager. Still, though, if FreeBSD is what you prefer, go for it. That's the beauty of open-source. I just can't really see the advantages it has for normal end-users. I must agree, though, with an earlier post: Debian/BSD would be ass-whuppin'. ^_^
i think that any of the BSD's (specifially free or open) _can_ be used as desktop OS's over linux for the x86 arch. The only thing linux based os's have over bsd's is hardware support and corporate support.
:)
I see the BSD's as more power users who do development and need a hardcore solid OS on industry standard good hardware, as opposed to crappy cheap PC hardware that normal users get.
make world is pretty kool
if you are looking for pretty crap on yer desktop and lots of stupid applications that normal browsing and chatting users want then go with linux. if u run x just so u can see lots of xterms and are doing hardcore work. spend the time with a BSD.
-----
Kenny Sabarese
Left Ear Music
AIM: kfs27
irc.openprojects.net #windowmaker
Kenny Sabarese
www.kennysabarese.com
Have you ever seen BSD mentioned in a trade magazine? In a programmer's journal? Is it offered by hardware vendors as a pre-installed Operating System? Let's face it. "BSD" isn't a buzzword, and the hype surrounding it pales in comparison to Linux. It doesn't even have the courageous Free software crusade or the GPL to back it. Other than its outstanding performance, there's nothing really noteworthy about it. No human interest, no millions to be made. And no glibc exploits to be fixed. I was the one saying "Eww, BSD, who would use that garbage?" a year ago, because I, like a lot of people, was a totally ignorant Linux zealot. Since then I have learned better, and in the last couple of months I've convinced nearly all of my coworkers to switch to FreeBSD, but it took a lot of hand-holding. Even the hardcore Solaris guys. The moral: BSD is a viable desktop OS, but you have to go door to door with it, and slap people around if you have to. And a pretty GUI install program wouldn't hurt (hint hint).
They'd run their own OS, but they're hosted by sunsite.
They don't have the bandwidth to host a site like openbsd.org, so they're smart enough not to try.
Do you like German cars?
I think one of the main reasons why FreeBSD wasn't viewed as a great desktop OS is because in earlier versions (2.x and the early 3.x tree) the support for desktop related hardware (sound cards, video cards, multimedia, etc) was lackluster or non-existant. It might have been there, but the main focus for the FreeBSD project has been to make one of the best server platforms out there. Linux on the other hand, while being a good server, also makes a good desktop. There is much more support for cutting edge hardware in Linux because the software/driver developers have a much easier time getting their drivers added to the kernel or making a kernel patch.
Fastforward to the 4.x tree, and you'll find support for pretty much whatever you've got in your computer. There is also better support for PNP devices (read soundblaster Live! cards) and more video support. Plus, more X desktop environments are supported under FreeBSD now like KDE, Enlightenment and Gnome. Pack that on top of FreeBSD's ultra stable kernel, fast TCP stack and really sweet filesystem, and you've got one hell of a desktop OS or server platform.
Brad
I run FreeBSD, Mandrake and Windows 2000 all courtesy of GRUB. Windows was pre-installed, it is my brother's machine, Mandrake came second and eventually FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is both the easiest and the hardest to install depending on whether you've done it before. RedHat and Mandrake have wonderful graphical installers and FreeBSD has a graphical installer. Well, an installer. Well, something that if you know what you're doing will result in a working system. But certainly nothing you'd give your mom.
Once FreeBSD was installed configuring it was no more difficult than Linux. My only real complaint is that turning soft updates on for the root file system, and /tmp in my case, can't be done easily. Mounting Mandrake partitions is easy.
KDE, Netscape, RealPlayer etc. looks pretty much like Mandrake but I don't have a graphical session manager. Linux applications, for example Netscape, run perfectly. FreeBSD ports are easier to deal with than RPMs.
I think FreeBSD is a fine desktop system. But the installer could use some work.
I know i just didnt' read that. Are you really that stupid? Server/WS are based off the same kernel, but they are different OS's. if you think so, then you need to read up.
I installed FreeBSD out of disgust with Linux.
.tar.gz file and attempting to compile is a futile one at best when the programmer is Linux centric. I witnessed this, and the patches ports provides is essential for some programs to compile.
I discovered the following:
My soundcard sounded absolutely horrible under FreeBSD and in Linux it sounds crystal clear (even better then Windows.) Is there a clear explaination for that being the case? No, and I don't care.
Second, where is the documentation for DRI and, furthermore, the user pages that would tell someone how to go about doing such? Without DRI, there is no accelerated X. The fact that BSDs are including XFree 3.3.6 is a sign that they haven't yet adopted the new architecture because there isn't any emphasis placed on making the kernel DRI friendly. Sure, it's in current, but current may or may not build. As mentioned by others, NVidia seemingly doesn't have plans for BSD, so the majority of video cards out there won't have very native support.
Lastly, ports itself is great in concept, but in actuality who wants to spend cpu cycles waiting for dependency after dependency to compile? And, without ports, the patches applied to several programs are *LOST* and thus downloading the
Strength in number is also moving Linux more toward the desktop, like it or not, because of the amount of knowledgeable people out there willing to help. While there may be helpful BSD people out there they are, unfortunately, less in number. As far as the knowledgeable having an attitude toward newbies, no comment as I didn't participate/observe the community enough, but if that belief is *TRUE* BSD will find itself in trouble as, like I said earlier, resources/documentation are sparse.
This is certainly not a flame but the question posed is very redundant and seems to be asking for the typical CAT vs DOG response here! In fairness to BSD, most people consider BSD more consistent then Linux distributions. With manual pages on so many different aspects of the system like syscalls and devices and the like, why NOT consider BSD less of a desktop operating system and more of a server one? It, at the moment, obviously isn't placing an emphasis on a lot of things Linux has. Finally, there are three different BSDs, each crafted differently for a particular environment (ie. NetBSD, see how many it can get on,) with different kernels. You can't say the same about the Linux kernel; there may be forks for certain platforms *at certain times before a merge can occur*, but that is nothing compared to three free BSD's and one commercial offerring.
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
Power management works, my Logitech USB Optical Wheel Mouse works, my digital camera works using Gphoto. Oh, did I mention that it has never crashed? Did I mention that when I wiped the default windoze installation off the drive tat it went from a 1.1 GB base install to a 700 MB install, and that's including 300 MB of swap space?
In fact, although I'm pretty sure that most people think of the BSDs as server operating systems, (particularly OpenBSD), I'm just giddy over here. Yes, it was a lot of work, and sure, Linux would have probably worked pretty well, but I like the svelt, clean BSD design, and the BSDs are what I'm most comfortable with.
This article is actually pretty timely, since I am going to be puting FreeBSD on my dual processor desktop machine next week (never played with it much before), and I'm sure I'll pick up a few pointers and get to read a couple "*BSD is dying*" trolls along the way.
If ya can't beat 'em, clone 'em.
They need to get nVidia to create drivers for bsd.
--
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
well, Just because you have something that is very good at one job, doesn't mean it's bad for another. BSD is a desktop OS and has been here since there were desktop-sized machines that could run it. The same is true of any OS "server" that can drive a combination of things while setting in a box that is built in or nearby. I have to say though that I agree with you. BSD is very nice.
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
There are people using all sorts of operating systems for their primary desktop. Just because somebody wants to limit themselves by calling FreeBSD a server OS, doesn't mean that it's true. Use/make it for whatever you want.
I don't know why people care so much about things other people say... I use both linux and freebsd as desktop (next to solaris), and _both_ work fine. My advise is - use what you like and feel good with, and gets the job done, all comments of others aside... It really doesn't matter.
Your right, BSD and Linux have much in common. Although Linux is a bit more stable than any of the BSD variants (or at least it is on my boxen), I use both and would be perfectly happy with either.
And it is clear that all of these operating systems have microsoft sweating bricks. They are very, very nervous that in a year or two an Open Source OS is going to put them out of business. And I think they have good reason to be nervous, too.
homophobia is silly and pointless
If i am saying that by implication i didn't mean it, not really.
These are the questions I have about FreeBSD. Some of the answers I know, and they prevent me from switching.
Really, FreeBSD is just an OS. A desktop, to me, is defined as a set of applications running on top of the system. Three of those questions are OS-related (I think), and that's printer support, audio/video support, and GUI installer. The other two will happen if a lot of people start using FreeBSD. But the others need to happen first.
As for the GUI installer, can't it be made optional? It would be nice (and smart) if these installers asked you if you would like to set up X Windows and install a login manager, etc...
-- Craig "Kowboy" McDaniel
I think it's time you got some new friends.
Mac OS X, which I have been using for a week now, is a BSD based desktop operating system. It is far and away the most stable, fast and intuitive operating system I have ever used. I suggest you check it out if you have a chance. If you don't own a mac don't worry rumors abound of x86 compatible versions of OS X, my guess is that you might see them as early as this summer at Macworld NY, or even in May at Apple's WWDC. http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Freebsd has better support for soundblaster live cards? Pfft, when i tried it about 6 months ago i had to go through the rather user unfriendly kernel configuration files and compile the necessary modules (the process of working this out took the better part of several hours, and i had to be guided through the process, freebsd should take a page out of linux's book and make a nice easy kernel configuration program), and then it didn't support it properly, only letting me play one sound at a time. I'm running slackware linux at the moment, and getting my sblive working was no more difficult than adding "modprobe emu10k1" to my startup files. Even windows requires more effort than that ;P