From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 1 19:49:28 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id AE32155D; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 19:49:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-la0-x236.google.com (mail-la0-x236.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4010:c03::236]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BBBEA243; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 19:49:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-la0-f54.google.com with SMTP id mc6so7456462lab.13 for ; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:49:25 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=TFoRg3WXlswQfHXs31wbYETTr4hSnoiELFkWapSyaEI=; b=TaHSlYpuxnzBUitnmK9iEh6Ry2FmDXXErA4xtmcDE3zCRrkHZ8RpulMQt2Q3SXRrKu VbWH1cFu+epRCL7GJN758BqVbly+AbVRVtE1wKSKDEsCqAQPogQIaDjQEyP2i3u5TMFV 2yFK6S2sE1cYd2wslFRn8iWI53CkRSsL3MUQyAkdr53Hhgu1p3d1VWkO2khz3BX87IO/ fUVYjO/+VljknbmTYBNknZbmmzxIGxSaen4Mdxj83q7oSp7IhotWx9XRbD0hzkfQ9iu5 APVIFhs4poVDxDlKSUYwbG+m75gjSlsiC2o/xWbZI6UR/2LVNauuZlDPzq5cN6O6Y3q6 ymaw== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.112.50.194 with SMTP id e2mr22953006lbo.4.1396381765377; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:49:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.114.67.80 with HTTP; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 12:49:25 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 15:49:25 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market From: Brian Kim To: Andreas Nilsson Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.17 Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, Eitan Adler , "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" , Matt Olander , Jordan Hubbard X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 19:49:28 -0000 Hi all, I have been a member of the FreeBSD hackers mailing list for about a year.5 now and I must say that I was looking forward to this year's 4/1 email. Last year, I didn't even realize that the discussion of promoting i386 as a tier 1 architecture was a joke until someone blatantly mentioned in... To address the actual content of this thread, personally, I absolutely love the FreeBSD os and the community that supports it. However, even as a third year computer engineering student, I still have not overcome the overhead that comes with becoming familiar with the UNIX environment. Of course, that is mostly attributed to my laziness and my unwillingness to sit through an entire reading of documentation... To share an observation, I am a teaching assistant for a freshman C programming class and I recently set up three FreeBSD servers, one for each section, where students could learn to develop C programs in an actual UNIX environment. Here is the lecture that I wrote up to help them learn the basics: http://vecr.ece.villanova.edu/bk/fc/labs/docs/ece1620-l2unix.pdf. I led the first section yesterday and I have to say that it was an utter disaster. Only about 1/8th of the class showed even an ounce of interest in this stuff (as it was something extra and not required for the course) and I really f'ed up by trying to teach them how to use vi... Long live the BSD community! On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Andreas Nilsson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Matt Olander wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:11 AM, Jordan Hubbard > > wrote: > > > > > > On Apr 1, 2014, at 10:46 AM, Eitan Adler wrote: > > > > > >> 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? > > > > > > The fact that this posting comes out on April 1st makes me wonder if > > it's just an elaborate April Fool's joke, but then the notion of *BSD (or > > Linux, for that matter) on the Desktop is just another long-running April > > fool's joke, so I'm willing to postulate that two April Fools jokes would > > simply cancel each other out and make this posting a serious one again. > :-) > > > > > > I'll choose to be serious and say what I'm about to say in spite of the > > fact that I work for the primary sponsor of PC-BSD and actually like the > > fact that it has created some interesting technologies like PBIs, the > Jail > > Warden, Life-preserver and a ZFS boot environment menu. > > > > > > There is no such thing as a desktop market for *BSD or Linux. There > > never has been and there never will be. Why do you think we chose "the > > power to serve" as FreeBSD's first marketing slogan? It makes a fine > > server OS and it's easy to defend its role in the server room. It's also > > becoming easier to defend its role as an embedded OS, which is another > > excellent niche to pursue and I am happy to see all the recent > developments > > there. > > > > > > A desktop? Unless you consider Mac OS X to be "BSD on the desktop" > (and > > while they share some common technologies, it's increasingly a stretch to > > say that), it's just never going to happen for (at least) the following > > reasons: > > > > As you may imagine, I completely disagree! The Internet just had it's > > 20th birthday (it can't even drink yet!) and it's anyone's game. > > > > This is like trying to predict automobile technology and dominant > > car-makers by 1905. There's always room for competition. Take a look > > at what's happening right now in the auto-industry. Tesla came out of > > nowhere 125 years after the invention of the automobile and is doing > > pretty well. > > > > I bet there were a lot of people at Apple saying they couldn't compete > > in the music-player market, or the mobile-phone market, etc. > > > > In fact, if I look at the stats on freenas.org, we have about 350k > > visitors each month, with nearly 2% of them running FreeBSD and > > clearly using it to surf the internet. Sounds like a market to me! > > > > Seeing this I could not resist: > http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/which-operating-system > > > > > > Long live the FreeBSD desktop, long live PC-BSD :P > > > Let them prosper! > > Seriously, though. There are shortcomings, sure. But I tend to prefer the > rock solid feature rich base with a somewhat shaky desktop experience than > the other alternatives. > > Sure I would like to see a FreeBSD pulseaudio compatible sound server. And > perhaps a template library for pinout configs for snd-cards. And "native" > flash, although I say "flash, no thank you" > > Perhaps companies such as Netflix could release FreeBSD clients ahead of > linux clients ;) > > I can also say that I recently got a friend to migrate from linux on both > his home server as well as his laptop. He is very happy with the change. > > Cheers > Andreas > > > > > Cheers, > > -matt > > _______________________________________________ > > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to " > freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > > _______________________________________________ > 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" > -- Best Wishes, Brian Kim