From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 3 01:45:20 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@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 43CE1A9C for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 01:45:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mx.nsu.ru (mx.nsu.ru [84.237.50.39]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DDE816D3 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 01:45:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from regency.nsu.ru ([193.124.210.26]) by mx.nsu.ru with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1WVWi0-00062e-8j; Thu, 03 Apr 2014 08:44:53 +0700 Received: from regency.nsu.ru (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by regency.nsu.ru (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id s331iQh4050568; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 08:44:36 +0700 (NOVT) (envelope-from danfe@regency.nsu.ru) Received: (from danfe@localhost) by regency.nsu.ru (8.14.2/8.14.2/Submit) id s331iKBs050493; Thu, 3 Apr 2014 08:44:20 +0700 (NOVT) (envelope-from danfe) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2014 08:44:19 +0700 From: Alexey Dokuchaev To: Garrett Wollman Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market Message-ID: <20140403014419.GA45830@regency.nsu.ru> References: <082a01cf4db9$240d3e90$6c27bbb0$@FreeBSD.org> <201404012240.s31MeIe4073267@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <201404012240.s31MeIe4073267@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-KLMS-Rule-ID: 1 X-KLMS-Message-Action: clean X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Lua-Profiles: 59167 [Apr 03 2014] X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Version: 5.3.6 X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Envelope-From: danfe@regency.nsu.ru X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Rate: 0 X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Status: not_detected X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Method: none X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Moebius-Timestamps: 2856066, 2856088, 0 X-KLMS-AntiSpam-Interceptor-Info: scan successful X-KLMS-AntiVirus: Kaspersky Security 8.0 for Linux Mail Server 8.0.0.455, not checked X-KLMS-AntiVirus-Status: NotChecked: not checked, skipped X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 02:29:25 +0000 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, michael@rancid.berkeley.edu 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: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 01:45:20 -0000 On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 06:40:18PM -0400, Garrett Wollman wrote: > Hmmm. I'm a bit biased here, but I've been using FreeBSD on the > desktop since, well, before it was called FreeBSD. It's still my > primary platform for nearly everything (except photo management, which > drove me to a Mac laptop so I could run Lightroom, and those few There are a few alternatives to Lightroom available in Ports Collection, you might want to give them a try one day. > remaining Web sites that still bury all their content inside Flash). That's easy: Flash sites should be avoided. Most of them are using this technology for showing stupid ads anyway, not for something useful. I still recall a friend of mine actually *loved* that his iPhone does not support Flash: it essentially enabled (ad|spam)-free Web browsing (alas, those fuckers had caught up since then). > But let's be clear that different people have different requirements > for a "desktop". My requirements are relatively simple: twm, xterm, > XEmacs, vlc, LaTeX, xpdf, a Jabber client (psi), $VCS_OF_CHOICE, > gnucash, and at least two Web browsers (I use Opera for most stuff and > Firefox for "promiscuous-mode browsing"). [...] > > Other people have rather different requirements, and that's OK. But > let's please not break the applications for which FreeBSD is very good > now (and has actually gotten substantially better). Application availability does not, unfortunately, round up some perfect desktop. I fear that Linux-centric development of hardware drivers, X.org and all that shit is getting more and more divergent from FreeBSD, and soon enough we'll get the situation I haven't seen for some 15 years: we are again far behind on modern HW support. Power-saving techniques, most notably working sleep-resume and competitive batter life are also our weak points at the moment. I'd like to replace my old laptop (which runs 8.4-STABLE almost perfectly), but how far can I go with, say, recent MacBook Pro? ./danfe