Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:52:02 +0200 From: Lorenzo Cogotti <miciamail@hotmail.it> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Providing a default graphical environment on FreeBSD Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP206A2FD620FA226419DBC58D5950@phx.gbl> In-Reply-To: <5057765F.4080001@an3e.de> References: <BLU0-SMTP510B16745B704C714268E2D5950@phx.gbl> <5057765F.4080001@an3e.de>
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Il 17/09/2012 21:13, Matthias Andree ha scritto: > > What is the particular problem? All major toolkits ultimately talk X11, > and most applications that I have seen will work in any desktop environment. Working with any desktop environments is different than working well, taking full advantage of the desktop environment. I could use GTK on KDE, but could I easily stream a sound using phonon? Could I easily integrate that application with the KDE control center? What if somebody else wrote a very useful utility for FreeBSD that manages something, but it's targeted over KDE? I'm talking about desktop integration and ease to code, not about showing a window in both KDE and GNOME. > I for one prefer a reasonable text-tool to a half-baked playful GUI that > leaves half of the questions unanswered because the author has no faint > clue as to how to properly present a complex technical situation. Fine, that's a choice, I doubt text based utilities will ever fade away. Despite this, a user that likes a GUI more than a text utility can't have it, because having a GUI on FreeBSD is almost a sin :-) I think having an official and documented desktop could show that FreeBSD has nothing against GUIs (which doesn't automatically imply it hates text based utilities) and could ease programming for developers. > As though someone cared. End users could not care less, they just want > their stuff to work and get the job done. > > You don't get developers just because you follow an obsolete standard. Which obsolete standard? On UNIX there is no standard, that's why I'd like one :-) > If you want to make sure that the tools that you'd like to see not "move > toward[s] Linux support", then (a) make sure they are aware there's more > than their favourite Linux distro, (b) help them out. There are no tool I'd like to have on FreeBSD, I am just sharing an idea that I think could improve FreeBSD, I could be wrong of course. I think having a standard could help more in the future rather than right now. > Regarding Linux dependencies, there are few and far between, and most > features do not rely on particular kernel support -- and where they do, > abstracting that, or providing FreeBSD support, is far more useful than > trying to make someone follow a desktop that died a decade ago. CDE was an example, as I said the idea is desktop agnostic, if you find KDE4 more suitable for the task, so be it, Xfce would also work, just pick one. Linux dependencies are increasing day by day, udev being one, consolekit being dismissed in favour of systemd, which is also Linux only, wayland will also need to be implemented on FreeBSD (if it will ever work), and so on. Having just one supported desktop would serve exactly to the purpose of porting the utilities to FreeBSD, since, once done, other developers can see how it was implemented and how it works, and eventually port them to their desktop environments with a fraction of the effort that would be needed otherwise. > Popularity matters in open source. Particularly with desktops. > Even the userbase/time spent developing ratio matters. What also matters is the interest that a system shows in something, I think it's obvious that FreeBSD can't get much attention as a desktop system if no effort is put into it. It is not a bad thing being tied to the server concept, but I just think FreeBSD would also be an excellent desktop system with a little effort. -- Lorenzo Cogotti
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