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[2603:6000:a446:9100:223:24ff:fe37:c4d7]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id u65sm8152716qkh.100.2020.04.13.05.48.53 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 bits=128/128); Mon, 13 Apr 2020 05:48:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Ars Technica article To: Alexey Dokuchaev Cc: wireless@freebsd.org References: <3049612.rJTJeGpjCJ@saskatoon.bionicmutton.org> <20200410001102.GB23747@lonesome.com> <4e3bf6be-aecf-7c62-df98-1cc4b01b8db9@gmail.com> <43f83193-e495-2bf2-f85d-91aa0b36c1a0@gmail.com> <0e205fe8-fbc6-5d91-99b0-1bd4870b8a5d@gmail.com> <20200413061928.GB90880@FreeBSD.org> From: Jason Bacon Message-ID: <38f5e668-1398-6fa2-33dc-f15f905f68d6@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2020 07:48:52 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20200413061928.GB90880@FreeBSD.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Language: en-US X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4917j65cwjz4YpV X-Spamd-Bar: -- Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=pass header.d=gmail.com header.s=20161025 header.b=H7Tuc/vD; dmarc=pass (policy=none) header.from=gmail.com; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of bacon4000@gmail.com designates 2607:f8b0:4864:20::741 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=bacon4000@gmail.com X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-3.00 / 15.00]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_ALLOW(-0.20)[gmail.com:s=20161025]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; TO_DN_SOME(0.00)[]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+ip6:2607:f8b0:4000::/36:c]; FREEMAIL_FROM(0.00)[gmail.com]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; IP_SCORE_FREEMAIL(0.00)[]; RCVD_COUNT_THREE(0.00)[3]; IP_SCORE(0.00)[ip: (0.01), ipnet: 2607:f8b0::/32(-0.33), asn: 15169(-0.43), country: US(-0.05)]; DKIM_TRACE(0.00)[gmail.com:+]; RCPT_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[1.4.7.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.2.0.0.4.6.8.4.0.b.8.f.7.0.6.2.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.0]; DMARC_POLICY_ALLOW(-0.50)[gmail.com,none]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; FREEMAIL_ENVFROM(0.00)[gmail.com]; ASN(0.00)[asn:15169, ipnet:2607:f8b0::/32, country:US]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[]; DWL_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[gmail.com.dwl.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.0] X-BeenThere: freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: "Discussions of 802.11 stack, tools device driver development." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2020 12:49:00 -0000 On 2020-04-13 01:19, Alexey Dokuchaev wrote: > [ setting CC to a more appropriate -wireless@ list ] > > On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 07:20:14PM -0500, Jason Bacon wrote: >> ... >> I think [well-working gfx stack] a great long-term goal, but it will >> take a significant investment of man-hours to get us there. In the >> meantime there's a lot of lower-hanging fruit, like minor improvements= >> to the bsdinstall UI, external media mounting, etc. > What I find more frustrating when reading similar articles (they are > all more or less the same) is that they rarely focus on FreeBSD's *real= * > problems (and no, that's not the awkward installer, having to manually > find working DRM port + xf86-video driver combination, search for the > scattered knowledge of which magic lines to add to /etc/rc.conf and/or > /boot/loader.conf, read the Handbook N times before one can set up thei= r > bluetooth mouse, et cetera). While installer's issues, better defaults= , > bash vs sh, sudo, modelines, and those other little things might seem > significant for someone coming from Ubuntu, it would take them a day > to learn, adopt, and get back most, if not all, from their previous > environment. Our real problems aren't solved that easily, and being > solved painfully slowly. > > Leaving X.org/DRM mess aside, we lack a lot in our laptop department. > Our WiFi stack is essentially maintained solely by adrian@, and he's > currently not very active. Some ~4 y.o. cards like BCM43228 are still > not supported [1]. If you search for "atheros" in our Bugzilla, it > returns 13 bugs, the latest action being on 2019-01-26 (reassignment). > > AR5B22 WLAN+Bluetooth combo does not work/broken, discussion [2] had > ended nowhere. > > Realtek 5209 card readers are quite common and also do not work; the > WIP OpenBSD driver porting effort [3] is stuck because apparently > something is missing in FreeBSD [subsystems], although [the] driver > seems to faithfully implement the OpenBSD [code]. No kernel hacker > had chimed in to help. :-( > > Our WMI stack is unmaintained and incomplete: brightness and multimedia= > keys do not work on many laptops despite corresponding kernel modules > being loaded. > > This list goes on. Yes, these are deep, hard problems, not the low- > hanging fruit, but if Foundation decides where to spend some money, > I'd rather see it considers these rather than bsdinstall UI, external > media mounting, or some other "lipstick on a pig" type of tasks. > > ./danfe > > [1] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D202501 > [2] https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-wireless/2019-April/008= 660.html > [3] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D204521 Just to be clear, I was not suggesting that the foundation spend money=20 on low-hanging fruit. What I'm saying is that we can make the desktop experience significantly = better by fixing the easy issues before the foundation considers an=20 investment. I suspect that some developers might not think fixing a WiFi issue is=20 worth their time when there are so many other problems with setting up a = desktop system.=C2=A0 On the other hand, if it's easy to build a desktop = machine that mostly works, and WiFi support is one of only a few obvious = shortcomings, that perception might be different. I'll also add that I'm not a proponent of of even trying to make FreeBSD = attractive to people hung up on some of the trivia mentioned in articles = like this one.=C2=A0 I think our primary focus should be on attracting=20 potential contributors, not average Joes who will only make demands on=20 our time.=C2=A0 For that, we don't need a desktop experience for the=20 technically clueless, just one that a reasonably savvy user can easily=20 manage so they can focus on their real work. =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 JB --=20 Earth is a beta site.