From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 2 13:12:59 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B11BD1F6 for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2014 13:12:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp-sofia.digsys.bg (smtp-sofia.digsys.bg [193.68.21.123]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "smtp-sofia.digsys.bg", Issuer "Digital Systems Operational CA" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3E2D2E61 for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2014 13:12:58 +0000 (UTC) Received: from dcave.digsys.bg (dcave.digsys.bg [193.68.6.1]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp-sofia.digsys.bg (8.14.6/8.14.6) with ESMTP id s32DCtBE033259 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 2 Apr 2014 16:12:56 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from daniel@digsys.bg) Message-ID: <533C0CD7.90803@digsys.bg> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 16:12:55 +0300 From: Daniel Kalchev User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market References: <082a01cf4db9$240d3e90$6c27bbb0$@FreeBSD.org> <533B3903.7030307@rancid.berkeley.edu> <201404012240.s31MeIe4073267@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 13:12:59 -0000 On 02.04.14 04:26, Adrian Chadd wrote: > It's no longer "xorg just speaks to the graphics chip." This is a common trend in computing recently. What once required tightly integrated OS/applications is now distributed, in the widest sense. The so called "Personal Computer" is nowadays actually spread out all around the globe -- some of your "desktop" applications or parts of them might actually run in a data center far, far away. Having lots of diskless workstations in my office, all running FreeBSD and fact being "dumb" X Windows terminals to a bunch of servers, where the actually applications run -- it is sometimes very difficult to even begin explaining this concept to colleagues who have seen nothing but the Windows PC. The display, keyboard, mouse etc might be running their own and different OS each. Therefore, I don't see this adding of abstraction layers as a bad thing, as it lets you have a "FreeBSD workstation", running on an Android STB as the interface to your physical monitor/mouse/etc. What we should do instead is make sure that FreeBSD supports the respective APIs. Considering that today visualization is everywhere, I also don't see any problem running that particular Windows, or Linux "only" application in an VirtualBox window. Or (in my example office case), running something (Linux?) on the diskless workstations that handles the peculiarities of the particular video chip/audio etc and still providing you with the same desktop session on your FreeBSD servers. Daniel