Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:00:21 -0500 From: Zhihao Yuan <lichray@gmail.com> To: Lorenzo Cogotti <miciamail@hotmail.it> Cc: FreeBSD Hackers <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Providing a default graphical environment on FreeBSD Message-ID: <CAGsORuAbLJOU2Nr0jishLmHN22kro3Jf63U5vN%2B4MsYrbniOxw@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <BLU0-SMTP510B16745B704C714268E2D5950@phx.gbl> References: <BLU0-SMTP510B16745B704C714268E2D5950@phx.gbl>
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On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Lorenzo Cogotti <miciamail@hotmail.it> wrote: > Hi, > I was wondering about the possibility of FreeBSD to provide an official > supported graphical environment. > > Currently FreeBSD doesn't provide any standard desktop environment, this > means that, in a way much similar to Linux, a developer cannot know in > advance which GUI will be available on the system. This leads to another > problem, again much similar to Linux, tools are usually provided in a > text based fashion only, because that's the only sure and reliable way a > tool can work in a relatively dependency free and independent way. As > another effect, many utilities and graphical tools are provided for a > toolkit, but not for another, needlessly duplicating efforts and > applications, achieving barely half the result. > > Though, in a different way than Linux, FreeBSD doesn't get much support > from developers in this regard, mainly because development focuses over > Linux rather than FreeBSD, which remains known only as a good and > reliable server platform, many technologies remain relatively unknown > and doesn't get attention from developers, like devd vs udev, and other > solutions that FreeBSD provides since a very long time. > > The idea would be choosing a default desktop environment and providing > it as the official supported way to develop GUI applications on FreeBSD, > thus tools provided on FreeBSD would be able to get official GUIs and > supported graphical tools in a standard and non-redundant fashion, like > a GUI for tools like pkgng, geli(8), gpart(8). This choice would also be > motivated by the fact that often technologies move toward Linux support, > like GNOME3, dbus and consolekit, without taking into account BSD. > > In this regard CDE[1] is could be an interesting choice, since it was a > diffuse and reliable UNIX environment, and it is lightweight, relatively > Linux-like dependencies free solution, which could be updated to today > standards and extended to support FreeBSD features. > CDE was just recently released with open source license[2] and some > effort is being made to support FreeBSD. > > Of course CDE isn't the only possibility, the idea is "desktop > environment agnostic", also I don't mean that FreeBSD shouldn't work > with other environments, which could still be installed and used as long > as they support the platform properly. I don't mean forcing a graphical > environment over installed FreeBSD systems either, which could be > unwanted for server installations. > > [1] http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Home/ > [2] > https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/code/ci/978aff3dc9c7d009423a3d7fd0624d12f9df0734/tree/cde/COPYING?format=raw > > I see this as an interesting opportunity to let FreeBSD gain more > visibility in the desktop field, would this idea be useful and worth > implementing? > > Thanks, > > -- > Lorenzo Cogotti > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" I definitely agree with this. Sun has a book, "UNIX Essentials featuring the Solaris...", and GUI takes a big part in the book. A default GUI is essential to a modern UNIX. FreeBSD can no longer regard GUI as a third-party bonus. -- Zhihao Yuan, nickname lichray The best way to predict the future is to invent it. ___________________________________________________ 4BSD -- http://4bsd.biz/
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