From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 14 16:41:32 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3FCAD16A4CE for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:41:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from rproxy.gmail.com (rproxy.gmail.com [64.233.170.197]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B11D343D39 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:41:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kjelderg@gmail.com) Received: by rproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id j1so678893rnf for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:41:31 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:references; b=bXXnVaMIQZZqXhS4STH5xj52NvyzeloOkjxKenU12jcP/lVLpU4r64mDUpKHzcSYsh3Lmv8LqDF8PVNr8BnXN5F+xsFu+0Ezhium1X52i9UKs8jWurnYb9s91qRydlhoNJHQXbmNFtGgzSgTnlH/U4kKSB4YmYhhEwDaRF8tFdI= Received: by 10.38.150.66 with SMTP id x66mr70534rnd; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:41:30 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.38.101.19 with HTTP; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:41:30 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 10:41:30 -0600 From: Eric Kjeldergaard To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <9C4E897FB284BF4DBC9C0DC42FB34617641AE6@mvaexch01.acuson.com> Subject: Re: SPAM: Score 3.3: Re: Instead of freebsd.com, why not... X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: Eric Kjeldergaard List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:41:32 -0000 wrote: > From: Anthony Atkielski [mailto:atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr] > > > > Because FreeBSD is a server, not a desktop. > > Agree and disagree. While FreeBSD is well suited for the server, it's also > well suited for the desktop. That doesn't mean that we should be stressing > the desktop to those shopping for servers, instead it means that we > shouldn't be telling those shopping for desktops to go use Linux instead. > How many business will be running Linux on the desktop but FreeBSD on the > server? None! > > Currently Windows rules the desktop world, even for diehard Unix shops. But > that will not last forever. We need to start thinking about the desktop > today. We need to stop the official discouragement of desktop FreeBSD. I wholeheartedly agree with this. FreeBSD simply is a better desktop in many circumstances than Windows. This is not all due to the primary software developers. There are several reasons why Free Unix machines (or "Unix-Like" machines) are better suited to the desktop in many instances, from a user perspective. 1) Cost (in $$$): FreeBSD is free. Most of its third-party software, also free. This is a big advantage to the many businesses that have difficulty affording hundreds and often thousands of dollars per machine in software. 2) Security: FreeBSD has rather a notable track record for security. I know of no examples in which an email client or web browser has been able to execute arbitrary code, sometimes even outside of its permissions level. Windows (possibly due in part to exposure) has a deplorable track record. Patches come out often to fix known security holes, but sometimes weeks or months after the hole has been found and reported publicly. 3) Stability: FreeBSD is possibly the most stable OS currently in existence. For some people's desktops that does not matter. However, there are mission-critical desktops in existence and sometimes crashing is not allowed. There are also desktops where reboots aren't an easy option and (ties back to security) things that require reboots are often necessary in the Windows environment. 4) Flexibility (especially mutliuser): This one is probably the most important. When dealing with desktops, the ability to make it act appropriately for the intended users is integral to its success or failure as a desktop OS. This is something which Windows sadly lacks and something which X11-based desktops truly deliver. There are many examples of features that are simply lacking from Windows one user interface. It lacks features (available to users in general) of a window manager (always-on-top, for instance) and the ability to change appearance much (no window decorations or different window decorations) which are often very convenient for desktop users. It is also not good for the multilingual desktop setting. This setting for businesses and public places is VERY important. In order to have a Chinese (for example) user interface in Windows, you need acquire a Chinese release of Windows. If you needed both Chinese and Spanish (again, for example) you would need to dual-boot the computer. Since Windows does not officially support dual-booting on one partition, this means a lot of inconvenience. 5) Ease of development: A place where non-windows becomes substantially more prevalent in the desktop market is the desks of Software Engineers. Those of us that program for a living often choose Unix (or Unix-like) because it has a powerful terminal, good (and free/OSS) versioning software available, good (and in gcc's case free and OSS) compilers, excellent editors (free, OSS), excellent documentation systems (man is free and OSS, for instance), and wonderful debuggers (gdb...free, OSS). It also is capable of running the same software that we are running on our Unix servers so that we can work on applications that work with them in an environment that simulates the server. It is also remarkably stable during development. This makes debugging substantially simpler. Windows, however, is often not the environment on the server, has a weak terminal, a few decent editors (often ported from Unix), a frustrating development environment (Visual Studio), and is often in need of reboots when programming and debugging. 6) mutliusericity: (Yes, I know that's not a real word...) In general, Windows does not handle multiple simultaneous users. This is something that Unix was built around and thus is strong with. The need to do this on a desktop is somewhat rare, but when it exists is readily and comfortably handled in Unix, while in some situations impossible in Windows. And even when talking of non-concurrent multiuser situations, FreeBSD outperforms (largely due to the third-party software writers and to the permissions system built in). Windows has a major fault with multiple users and appropriate storage of settings. Many applications (including M$ apps proper) do not separately store settings in a user-by-user basis and instead toss them into the centralised registry as a system setting. This is both a security nightmare and a frustration to the various users. This situation simply doesn't come up in fBSD. If a user stores a setting, it is stored (generally) in their home directory safe from affecting other users. Just thought I'd give a few reasons why fBSD is the only OS that doesn't frustrate me on the desktop. -- If I write a signature, my emails will appear more personalised.