From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 17 17:55:14 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE4851065675; Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:55:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from miciamail@hotmail.it) Received: from blu0-omc4-s36.blu0.hotmail.com (blu0-omc4-s36.blu0.hotmail.com [65.55.111.175]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D1608FC17; Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:55:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from BLU0-SMTP117 ([65.55.111.136]) by blu0-omc4-s36.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675); Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:55:08 -0700 X-Originating-IP: [78.13.110.33] X-EIP: [y+OnV7Zjky5m71ZIMsPnbaRenaEIMy+t] X-Originating-Email: [miciamail@hotmail.it] Message-ID: Received: from [192.168.1.3] ([78.13.110.33]) by BLU0-SMTP117.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675); Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:55:06 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:51:11 +0200 From: Lorenzo Cogotti User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:14.0) Gecko/20120729 Thunderbird/14.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Adrian Chadd References: <20120917161427.GB11773@e-new.0x20.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Sep 2012 17:55:06.0792 (UTC) FILETIME=[926DD280:01CD94FD] Cc: FreeBSD Hackers , Lars Engels , Zhihao Yuan Subject: Re: Providing a default graphical environment on FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:55:15 -0000 Il 17/09/2012 19:26, Adrian Chadd ha scritto: > What are you trying to achieve? > > Are you trying to write a set of utilities for FreeBSD that are GUI in > nature? And you'd like to know which toolkit is "blessed" for a > consistent, integrated feel and development environment? > > > > Adrian > Right now I was interested in creating a desktop oriented automounter, in order to experiment with devd (I don't know if something useful will actually come out of it). I then faced the problem that there are lots of GUI toolkits, lots of scenarios to take into account, lots of desktop environments available, basically the problem is the same that Linux has with its non existing userland. I think every developer willing to create an utility could feel overwhelmed by this task, since it's either facing a terrible work to integrate well with any desktop environment, or selecting one of them leaving the others alone. Not to mention that integrating with any desktop environment would mean delivering a solution that could be unable to fully take advantage of any desktop. Given the fact that FreeBSD will never be supported "in a spontaneous way" by the major open source desktop projects, I thought FreeBSD could simply select one of them, "blessing it" if you will. The purpose is simplifying the job of anyone willing to support FreeBSD as a desktop. There could be resources, examples, documentation and guidelines at their disposal. This would make the effort of supporting FreeBSD less significant, as well as allowing better integration and consistent feel of the offered utilities. Anything more than that depends on how much effort the FreeBSD project wants to put into this, delivering a default desktop installation, providing a customized version of the environment, and so on... A FreeBSD project (like geli or gpart) could even go as far as providing an official GUI utility next to the text based utility, without hoping for the specific desktop project to provide it (like devd integration). -- Lorenzo Cogotti