Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:13:02 +0100 From: Tony Mc <afmcc@btinternet.com> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Thank you (for making the ports less boring). Message-ID: <20110913121302.750a0d8d@elena> In-Reply-To: <1315905051.1747.208.camel@xenon> References: <1315864556.1747.103.camel@xenon> <20110912190558.641a3219@seibercom.net> <20110912230943.GD33455@guilt.hydra> <4E6E99BC.4050909@missouri.edu> <1315905051.1747.208.camel@xenon>
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On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:10:51 +0200 Michal Varga <varga.michal@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm not writing about this for the first time (in fact this is for the > last time, so hey, at least there's something on a positive note), but > it has gradually become nigh impossible to use FreeBSD as a modern > desktop workstation over the recent years, and especially this last > year has become a true nightmare. Michal, please understand, I am not dismissing your experience, but I think to provide some balance here I have to say that I have been using FreeBSD as my desktop OS for a few (about 10) years and I honestly believe it is now better than ever. Perhaps we simply use different sets of applications, perhaps my needs are not as complex as yours. Whatever the explanation, I am constantly surprised by the quality (by which I mean a combination of stability, up-to-date-ness, security, availability of good documentation and - always difficult to quantify - simplicity/graspability) of FreeBSD, an OS I can get for absolutely nothing that is (at least for my use) significantly better than anything else I have tried, paid for or free. Of course I sometimes hit obstacles, but they are always resolved within a few days and are never showstoppers (I can live without music on my desktop for that time, since I regard that as entertainment rather than productivity). I hope you have more joy of whatever flavour of Linux you end up using, but I fear that unless your needs are primarily about entertainment, you will only find that you have swapped one set of annoyances for another. At least that is my experience every time I try Linux because of the "Ooh, shiny!" effect. Despite being colour blind, I am deeply suspicious of what looks like greener grass on the other side of a fence. By the way, an example of how FreeBSD is now better than ever (at least for me) is that I can now run 9.0-BETA2 on my IBM Thinkpad T42 and suspend/resume works. I always had difficulties there with versions 8 and earlier and needed to run Linux on that machine while running FreeBSD on my desktop. Now I run FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE on the desktop and 9.0-BETA2 on the laptop and they work together through SSH. Best, Tony
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