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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?
No.
on FreeBSD
I'd guess that your on FreePCP, myself.
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. :)
More to the point: since my bosses evaluate the quality of something by its price tag, when will someone generously assemble the CostlyBSD package?
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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.
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
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.
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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
*sighs*
--Ryvar
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.
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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)
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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...
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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 =)
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