PC-BSD: Set For Serious Growth?

Artem Tashkinov writes: Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a serious desktop OS contender by year 2020, since Linux so far has failed to grasp any serious market share. He writes, "Consider this: In the past 10 years has the distribution you run changed significantly in what it offers over other distributions? I think you'll find the answer is largely no. I do have to give a shout out to openSUSE for the OBS, but otherwise I've used my desktop in the same exact way that I have always used it within the continuity of distribution X,Y, or Z since I started using them. Distributions simply aren't focused on desktop features, they're leaving it up to the DEs to do so." He continues, "PC-BSD on the other hand in fitting with the BSD mindset of holistic solutions is focused on developing desktop features and is moving rapidly to implement them." What do you think?

Comments

Can't Get 1 Year Predictions Right

[thebes]

You have a computer prediction (and a software one at that) that is attempting to look 5 years into the future. Yeah, good luck with that. Any article talking about the future in such a way is simply a marketing ploy. Nothing more. Nothing less.

A reasonable road map demonstrating how this could possibly be achieved on the other hand would have some credibility.

Compared to this article, the Mars folks look a little less crazy.

Re:It'll grow when FreeBSD does.

[Celarent Darii]

The first thing you need to insure is that there is a MBR compatibility mode for your motherboard, which for your machine should be IPISB-CU (Carmel2), so this is possible. Once you have that, you can probably figure the rest out in the wiki, or better to ask in the forums. I could give you some help but maybe slashdot is not the place for that. I hang out often in #freebsd so you might catch me there, and in general there are many helpful people there.

You will notice that I put the links for FreeBSD for the PC-BSD. The only real difference between the two is the software repositories. In fact you can easily convert a standard FreeBSD to PC-BSD simply by changing a few configs. You might try that route if you want a quick desktop install. I prefer to 'roll my own' but the PC-BSD guys have really done a lot of good work putting in good defaults.

Re:You're absolutely right. The desktop is over.

[Gavagai80]

The fact that people buy a new phone every year and only buy a desktop every 7 years does not imply that they use their desktop less than they used to or even less than their phone. While there has been a mild decline in desktop use, mobile use has been largely supplementary not a replacement.