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Another Step Towards BSD on the Desktop
linuxbeta writes "DesktopBSD is the latest easy to install BSD aimed squarely at the desktop. Installation screen shots. From their site: 'DesktopBSD aims at being a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users. DesktopBSD combines the stability of FreeBSD, the usability and functionality of KDE and the simplicity of specially developed software to provide a system that's easy to use and install.' DesktopBSD joins the ranks of PC-BSD and FreeSBIE."
Could someone point me to (or post) a lowdown on the potential benefits of BSD has over linux (or vice versa) that doesn't include wild speculation and unfounded cynicism?
Isn't a BSD distro going to be about the same as a Linux distro? Does the kernel make that big of a difference?
Note the question marks. I am asking.
First of all, if you're using FreeBSD chances are you know how to configure an X11 environment. It's easy. Also, you have your choice of window managers; not everyone will choose KDE. Package management is already extremely easy with ports, especially with portupgrade. I definitely agree that FreeBSD with an official GUI would be awesome (the opposite approach of Windows, where the interface would simply be a frontend for scripts), but for a half-hearted attempt there's not much of a demographic.
Screenshots are great, but only when they're relevant.
... and I knew that before I looked at the screenshots.
;)
People who are keen enough to be interested in BSD will already know what KDE looks like. It would be far more instructive to show screenshots of things that are unique to this particular distribution of BSD. How about showing the GUI tool for software installation, or samba configuration, or something.
All I know now is that BSD runs KDE
I like the KDE background, though
It would also help if we worked harder on well-defined and standardized APIs, so that it would be easier to get things working with each other. For example, a standardized hardware configuration API would help make "control center" type apps a lot easier to make, etc.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
We're all on the same team -- only if we FOCUS our efforts into the OS with the best chance (Linux) can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X.
:)
Must start using the one true F/OSS operating system... Oh wait, screw that. I like my BSDs here. Reason #1 why I use FreeBSD over Linux, I just want a Unix-like OS without a revolution packaged with it. Talk about bloat.
That's the bootloader, you nut. Even Fedora Core's bootloader uses that "ugly terminal font," just with different colors. Windows NT/2000/XP's bootloader looks like that too (and if you push the right buttons while booting your Mac, you'll get (you guessed it) a text-mode command prompt/boot loader (ie openfirmware). As with OpenFirmware, the FreeBSD bootloader can be configured silent so as not to display that menu). Sheesh. We give you KDE and you give us this hogwash about our installer. >:(
No, the kernel doesn't make that big of a difference, and the kernel is all that linux is. BSDs are complete operating systems. The reason I don't use linux is because every distro comes with a messy userland full of random assorted crap from various sources, and most of the core utilities are bloated, poorly documented GNU junk.
The BSDs have sane, useful, documented and functional userlands, which makes them a joy to use. There is no reason that linux distros couldn't be made with a nice userland too, but nobody seems to have done it. It seems like most linux users have never used a nice unix system, so they don't realize what they are missing.
"Face it, Linux has a head start and is enjoying far more corporate support (due partly to the fact that Linux is licensed GPLv2, which compells big companies to share back their improvements).
We're all on the same team -- only if we FOCUS our efforts into the OS with the best chance (Linux) can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X."
Why must every good thing be turned into some kind of zealot-fest, rally to my agenda? How about we all simply enjoy the damn distro without trying to conquor this, push agenda that, holy-war upon everything that doesn't agree with me?
> Too bad, all that developer talent could have gone into making Linux better suited for the desktop.
Every annum for the past 6 years, headlines claimed that it was the year of "desktop Linux." Yet nothing came of it save for a bunch of Windows-esque clones with no innovation. Then Apple came along and revolutionized the desktop experience. So maybe it is time for someone else to give it a go.
can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X.
dude, take it easy. turn off the che rhetoric for a bit, tell your poly sci prof to lighten up on the indoctrination, and be thankful that we have money-grabbing corporations or else we'd all be living in mud huts. from each according to their ability doesn't work in the real world. now, i'm no fan of microsoft, but tell me this: how many people do you employ? how much do you pay in taxes? how many people use your software to run their businesses, etc. i own two ibooks, and have run linux on my pc's since '98. however, profit is not a dirty word. people pursue profit and it stimulates innovtion. why is it that people bitch up and down about "evil M$", yet barely say a word about all the hardware companies? eh? aren't they money grabbing? you like your dual core pentium 4's, well, they ain't making them because they're nice people.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Will you quit using the "Royal We"?
OpenBSD is my main operating system, with some Linux on the side. I don't want BSD to be like Linux. That's why I use it instead of Linux. That's why people use BSD. It does the job for them in a way that they like better. If they wanted Linux, they'd use Linux.
Both systems have their strengths. BSD is great if you want something lean. Linux is good if you want something very easy to maintain and don't mind a little GNU-bloat.* BSD is great if you want traditional Unix. Linux is good if you're not very philosophical and just want something that works. BSD is great if you don't want to recompile your kernel. Linux is great if you don't want to recompile your userland. BSD seems to consume less memory. Linux supports more binary-only software.
The point is, they have different goals, different strengths and weaknesses. I'm not in any hurry to see them merge. In fact seeing people advocate that here on Slashdot annoys the hell out of me. And I can tell you, the BSD developers and Linux afficionados out there would find the idea stupid too. If you posted your comment to a developer mailing list, if there'd be any reply at all, it would be along the lines of, "No. That's ridiculous. Stop getting in the way of our work." Though perhaps more polite.
* Yes, GNU has a noble goal but can be bloated. It's mostly bloated because it tries to be all things to all people. See the infamous GNU echo joke.
RC2 is actually out, just not listed on their download page. I found it on the Oregon Mirror, however that mirror is extremely slow -- (20K/sec).
I'm hosting a mirror of DesktopBSD-1.0-RC2-x86-CD.iso
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
Why not do it in a sane way such as:
This is my hope for a desktop oriented BSD. I'm typing this from OS X on my powerbook, but I think the world still needs a compelling open platform.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
but unfortunately it allows people to not 'share back' the stuff they took and improved.
Sharing isn't the word your want. Sharing isn't about attaching strings to your generosity. The word you're looking for is "reciprocality". Please don't confuse the two.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I suspect Intel and AMD and most companies have much lower profit margins than Microsoft, and don't spend nearly as much time trying to screw the customer. There's a difference between an ordinary profit-seeking company, and a company that tries to squeeze as much money as possible from its customers -- and can get away with it.
Come on! The desktop is alredy here, both GNOME and KDE are very usable, and in some points better than Windows.
The problem is how to integrate them to the underlying OS! Until recently there was no standart way to do it, every distro implemented its own hardware discovery scheme.
Now we got udev, pmount, hal and others to help. Have you tried a modern desktop targeted distro recently, like Ubuntu for example? Get a usb drive, plug it and bang! It appears on the desktop MacOSX style.
The only BIG problem left is easy, next-next-finish style, standart installation packages across every distro. But hopefully they'll handle this one too.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Short answer: because FreeBSD has softupdates, which for most people turn out to be just as good, and for some better.
There are two ways to get the advantages most people want from a journaling file system. The obvious is to write a journal. FreeBSD instead spent time to make sure that meta-data could not get out of date in the first place, and thus there is no need for a journal. The latter is harder to implement, but has some significant advantages, and other disadvantages. For most people either will work fine, for those who have a case where it matters FreeBSD is implementing the journal. The real question is why nobody else is implementing softupdates so they don't need a journal in the cases where it is worse.
Remember, this is not a case where journals are always better than softupdates. For some workloads journals are better, for others softupdates is better. FreeBSD will soon be the only one to let you choose based on your real-world needs.