Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:40:06 +0100 From: Julien Cigar <jcigar@ulb.ac.be> To: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why FreeBSD not popular on hardware vendors Message-ID: <1229002806.2749.51.camel@frodon.be-bif.ulb.ac.be> In-Reply-To: <20081211133632.114d77c7.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <4be2da2e0812062344y26eddcc9sf589531d10c71a1c@mail.gmail.com> <20081207093713.O5433@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081207082932.04a7cf16@scorpio> <11167f520812070853i3b6fa6dei6e5c71669416470@mail.gmail.com> <20081207191727.V1610@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081207193517.GA20905@laverenz.de> <20081207121431.5dcb37f9@gom.home> <1228733482.4495.14.camel@laptop1.herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20081211122714.W4172@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081211071914.278ae942@scorpio> <20081211133632.114d77c7.freebsd@edvax.de>
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Just to share my point of view : I use FreeBSD only since 6.2, before that I was a long-time Debian user. For the little experience I have with it I must admit that it looks pretty solid and a perfect choice for a "server" (for proof: I replaced almost all my Debian boxes with FreeBSD, both at work and at home) : things like ports, GEOM, PF, Jails, ... are a pleasure to use, altough some things are missing (no software RAID 5 (no, no gvinum please), no "grow" mode as in mdadm, etc). As a desktop I'm a little more reserved. I had a lot of problems with my pc at home for example (but not only): - on almost all my machines I have problems with CD/DVD drives, mostly things like READ_BIG timeout, etc. I tried almost everything (disabling ACPI, DMA, upgrading the drive BIOS, etc), disabling DMA resolved some problems, but it's still impossible to burn a DVD for example. - my mouse (a Logitec MX 300, USB) is still undetected at boot. Every time I have to unplug/plug it after boot. Not a big deal I admit, but boring. - USB mass storage plug/unplug sometimes causes system panic. I know that this is a well known bug that require some rearchitecting and that a proper umount has always been the way to umount a drive, but, honestly, you cannot seriously convince someone to use FreeBSD with things like this ... - Altough ports are fantastic, building things like OpenOffice or ... is just inhuman, especially when you cannot use -j for building ports (but it's being resolved I think). Of course there are packages, but it's far less friendly to use (and manage) than apt-get/dpkg. Julien On Thu, 2008-12-11 at 13:36 +0100, Polytropon wrote: > On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:19:14 -0500, Jerry <gesbbb@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Define: 'Actual Work'? What you are referring to is that it meets your > > criteria. Everyone's work platform might not be so narrow. > > ometimes, "actual work" may be entertainment, gaming, or > programming obscure hardware platforms. :-) > > > > I use FreeBSD for may things; however, it is by no means a perfect > > system. There are just too many things that either don't work, or don't > > work well. > > I may say this: At home, I'm using FreeBSD exclusively since > approx. 2000 (at least since release 4.0). Here everything > worked without any (!) problems, no need for problem reports. > At work, FreeBSD and Solaris are present. For some fields of > use, I would not FreeBSD instead of Solaris. However, I found > no operating system that could replace FreeBSD in the fields > where I use it. > > As in many other topics, this is only my very individual point > of view. > > I do see "FreeBSD's problems" in most cases where hardware > support isn't up to date, but that's mainly a thing of the > hardware manufactureres that (a) build black boxes or (b) > do not use existing standards, so accessing their hardware > is a problem. Other problems are usual entertainment stuff > that seems to hook that deeply into the operating system that > it leads into problems - yes, I'm talking about "Flash" > especially. > > Hardware vendors are mostly interested in operating systems > that already have a huge market share. Allthough FreeBSD is > a very professional OS and has a growing usage share, its > market share isn't that big, so it is considered to be > unimportant. Furthermore, FreeBSD is considered to be an > OS for servers, allthough it scales very well from desktops > over mixed forms to servers. And servers usually don't contain > bleeding edge GPUs and strange WLAN USB sticks, so that's why > the support isn't that good. > > Personally, I'd prefer an OS that supports a narrow subset > of hardware excellently and efficiently instead of an OS that > claims to support everything, supports most things poorly > and through "binary blobs" where you can't be sure what it > actually does. > > -- Julien Cigar Belgian Biodiversity Platform http://www.biodiversity.be Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Campus de la Plaine CP 257 Bâtiment NO, Bureau 4 N4 115C (Niveau 4) Boulevard du Triomphe, entrée ULB 2 B-1050 Bruxelles Mail: jcigar@ulb.ac.be @biobel: http://biobel.biodiversity.be/person/show/471 Tel : 02 650 57 52
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