From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 31 00:36:56 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC6F7106564A; Thu, 31 May 2012 00:36:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lars@larseighner.com) Received: from mail.team1internet.com (mail.team1internet.com [216.110.13.10]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B92798FC18; Thu, 31 May 2012 00:36:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from larseighner.com (unknown [71.20.75.102]) by mail.team1internet.com (Postfix) with SMTP id C0D3816B4A9; Wed, 30 May 2012 19:36:49 -0500 (CDT) Received: by larseighner.com (nbSMTP-1.00) for uid 1001 lars@larseighner.com; Wed, 30 May 2012 19:35:28 -0500 (CDT) Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 19:35:27 -0500 (CDT) From: Lars Eighner X-X-Sender: lars@noos.larseighnerhome.com To: David Chisnall In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 00:36:56 -0000 On Wed, 30 May 2012, David Chisnall wrote: > Hi Everyone, I came to FreeBSD nearly 20 years ago because it had text-mode (aka command line, console, etc.) apps and I wanted to avoid GUIs for applications that are not essentially graphic in nature. The ability to switch for applications essentially graphic (paint, image manipulation, etc.) and back for everything else (writing) without rebooting was very attractive. There is not any graphics font that can put 2000 characters (80x25) on one screen legibly - and that has not changed. The native editors on BSD (vi, emacs) are pretty horrible -- imagine the Frankenstein that thought "I'll just write an editor in Lisp!" But once I discovered Joe, it was smooth sailing. There is no GUI file manager as good as lynx ./ . This is still why I use FreeBSD. I tried linuxes, but found keyboard mapping really opaque. Now, I won't use linuxes because they have abandoned text-mode for rasterized text -- which is just as horrible as GUIs -- and the linux distributions just assume you are trying to run Gnome, completely ignoring formerly text-mode, now rasterized applications. Unfortunately FreeBSD seems to be headed this way and I will have to hop off the upgrade cycle at some version and hope that I die before it becomes orphaned. -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266