Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 12:16:11 -0800 (PST) From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: Jeremiah Gowdy <jeremiah@sherline.com> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Gilbert Gong <ggong@cal.alumni.berkeley.edu> Subject: Re: Microsoft Advocacy? Message-ID: <XFMail.011220121611.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <000a01c18977$9007ac20$a700a8c0@cptnhosedonkey>
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On 20-Dec-01 Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: >> Of course, if we talk about non-open source projects as well, >> then Apple's OS X system is also a big progress maker as far as >> unix-as-a-desktop-being-acceptable-by-the-main-stream goes. > > Apple's OS X is not what I would call a "unix". Certainly, the Mach based > underlying kernel is unix-like, and the FreeBSD tools are unix-like. But > the desktop is MacOS version 10. It may be the closest thing to Unix as a > desktop, but I think they have more desktop and less Unix. Besides the fact > that they are on a completely different hardware platform which costs 3 > times as much. I disagree with Mac OS X being considered a > unix-as-a-desktop in this conversation since we are mainly (for now) an i386 > OS. Have you played with an OS X box? It is definitely a Unix box. :) It does come with a pretty desktop environment though in the form of Aqua. However, you can drop into the console and interact with the box on a pure text mode basis if you want. >> > To say that Unix >> > has no place on the desktop is a completely valid opinion, and does not >> > detract from FreeBSD, ***until such time as FreeBSD claims to be a > desktop >> > OS*** >> > >> >> How would you define "claims to be a desktop OS?" Would that quote from > the >> web page be considered a claim, or would it be considered not a claim? > > Is it your opinion that the core FreeBSD team considers FreeBSD a desktop OS > ? I doubt it. Well, 2 of them work for Apple, so they would probably go with OS X. All the others use FreeBSD for their desktop AFAIK. However, what constitutes a desktop OS? Some people are using the definition of being suitable for at least some people which FreeBSD is. I think the other definition people are using is "I could let my Mom use it." FreeBSD is not this for most of us. :) Although I think I may try and get my Mom to mess with a FreeBSD box here before too long. >> Let me give one more example. If we agree now that FreeBSD in certain >> specific desktop environments makes a whole lot of sense > > I do not agree. How about the specific environment of working on software that runs on FreeBSD whether it be the kernel, userland tools, or KDE. FreeBSD is an excellent choose for those specific desktop environments. You are saying that FreeBSD is not a valid desktop for _any_ desktop environment which is a bit strong I think. > Finally, I don't see what exactly the point of all this is. You're not > actually recommending FreeBSD as a desktop. You're recommending XFree86 > with Gnome or KDE, or some other window manager. None of those projects are > directly associated with FreeBSD. Perhaps a better place for your FreeBSD > as a desktop advocacy is on Gnome-Advocacy. You know how I can tell FreeBSD > is not a desktop OS ? Find me a desktop in /usr/src. This is very true. However, the kernel can be designed so as to not needlessly hurt performance on desktop boxes and to help it when such doesn't hurt server performance. This includes adding tweaks for uniprocessor boxes, for example. In fact, the BSD scheduler actually prefers interactive user interface processes to background CPU-intensive "server" processes. :) Although some servers are fairly I/O intensive (think apache) and some user interface programs are rather CPU intensive (X). > Until then, let Gnome and KDE continue their hard work developing a desktop. > Either of those were truly worthy of desktop use (IMO), then perhaps I would > recommend FreeBSD as a backend for the Gnome or KDE desktop. Notice the > phrasing. FreeBSD is no more a desktop than Darwin is. Hmm, someone should port Gnome or KDE to windows just for fun. The tricky bit here is Windows ties its OS and desktop environment together a bit tightly so that it can avoid competition, whereas Unix's philosophy of building solutions from many speciailized tools has led to a cleaner separation between OS and UI. If someone ported KDE to Windows/DOS, which OS would you recommend as the best desktop-friendly OS to run it on? If someone ported the Windows UI to FreeBSD, which UI would you then recommend to a FreeBSD user? Those are more sensible questions I think than comparing the Windows UI with the FreeBSD kernel. -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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