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FreeBSD Vows to Compete with Desktop Linux
AlanS2002 writes "FreeBSD developer Scott Long is being reported as saying that FreeBSD is quickly approaching feature parity with Linux. Apparently this is being achieved through efforts to more tightly integrate GNOME with FreeBSD, with one of the priorities being to 'GNOME's hardware abstraction layer--which handles hardware-specific code--working with FreeBSD'."
I'll give you an example of just how poor their hardware config tools are. My system is 5 years old, includes a Sound Blaster PCI16 audio card, NIC uses the Tulip Driver, Via Chipset and under freebsd it's impossible to configure the sound card withouth rebuilding a kernel? and I've never succeeded in even getting started on rebuilding the kernel. Another issue is why in hell don't they use DMA access to drives as yet? All 4 drives in my system all offer DMA access and they can't bother to run hdparm automagically and enable that feature? That's idiotic as it provides such a performance boost to the system.
What the need to do is enable audio support in the kernel and use Alsa instead of reinventing the wheel as they're trying to do and yes I do know that the entire project derived from a server environment where sound wasn't a concern. At least they did the right thing and used Xfree so the video support is available to those who need it.
Now if they'd spend some time developing the needed hardware configuration tools and ease the audio/video/misc hardware issue by taking it out of their kernel and using existing modular projects "Use the Modules Luke", maybe they'd finally get somewhere.
Of course it is :) otherwise they have nothing desktop once they realize how miserable GNOME sucks :) It's actually a good idea to help them port GNOME, so even FreeBSD people know how much it sucks.
The "vow to compete" is a useless and sensationalist addition by the author, so let's keep it civil and avoid flame wars.
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FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux guys are idiots... so is Steve @ Microsoft... only Steve @ Apple gets it and then only by accident. Nobody cares about a fancy GUI or even legacy apps... to re-phrase Steve @ MS... it's DRIVERS, DRIVERS, DRIVERS, DRIVERS! If it won't work with your hardware, you won't use it. The entire open source community should switch gears and focus on nothing but DRIVERS for a whole year... then Jan 1st, Microsoft would shut it's doors. Done.
KDE has too many buttons, sidebars, and other broken interfaces that simply don't belong. Best to stick with Gnome where they have more chance of mainstream appeal.
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