Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 07:13:30 -0700 (PDT) From: "Chris H" <bsd-lists@bsdforge.com> To: "Eitan Adler" <lists@eitanadler.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market Message-ID: <8a48d1f8fdae94c540f42582b415f417.authenticated@ultimatedns.net> In-Reply-To: <CAF6rxgkeBozvfV-L0%2BrFZ6fWRn0=Gi3BNq1kPL=-HTq0TD6MkQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAF6rxgkeBozvfV-L0%2BrFZ6fWRn0=Gi3BNq1kPL=-HTq0TD6MkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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> Hi all, > > Some of you may have seen my posts entitled "Story of a Laptop User" > and "Story of a Desktop User". For those of you who did not, it can > be a worthwhile read to see what life is like when using FreeBSD as a > desktop. In short, it is an educational experience. While FreeBSD > can be coerced to do the right thing, it is rarely there by default > and often doesn't work as well as we would expect. Ha, ha, ha. Reminds me of the long running 04-01 gag stating that kernel.org ran on FreeBSD. As to "Leaving the Desktop Market"; +1. OK by me. OTOH The following /will/ give you everything you /claim/ isn't /currently/ possible. x11/xorg-minimal x11-wm/xfce4 audio/aquqlung multimedia/vlc The above list also gives you the ability to switch output(s) on the fly (via mixer). "exotic" video card? emulators/linux_base-f10 x11/nvidia-driver --Chris P.S. Happy April fools to you, too. > > The following are issues I haven't brought up in the past: > > Battery life sucks: it’s almost as if powerd wasn't running. Windows > can run for five hours on my laptop while FreeBSD can barely make it > two hours. I wonder what the key differences are? Likely it’s that > we focus so much on performance that no one considers power. ChromeOS > can run for 12 hours on some hardware; why can't we make FreeBSD run > for 16? > > Sound configuration lacks key documentation: how can I automatically > change between headphones and external speakers? You can't even do > that in middle of a song at all! Trust me that you never want to be > staring at an HDA pin configuration. I'll bet you couldn't even get > sound streaming to other machines working if you tried. > > FreeBSD lacks vendor credibility: CUDA is unsupported. Dropbox hasn't > released a client for FreeBSD. Nvidia Optimus doesn't function on > FreeBSD. Can you imagine telling someone to purchase a laptop with > the caveat: "but you won't be able to use your graphics card"? > > In any case, half of our desktop support is emulation: flash and opera > only works because of the linuxulator. There really isn't any reason > for vendors to bother supporting FreeBSD if we are just going to ape > Linux anyways. > > That is why on this date I propose that we cease competing on the > desktop market. FreeBSD should declare 2014 to be "year of the Linux > desktop" and start to rip out the pieces of the OS not needed for > server or embedded use. > > Some of you may point to PCBSD and say that we have a chance, but I > must ask you: how does one flavor stand up to the thousands in the > Linux world? > > Eitan Adler > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > >
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