Re: FreeBSD Foundation Laptop Support target hardware and desktop environments

Comments inline…

> El 13 feb 2025, a las 19:01, Mike Watkins <mike.watkins@solutionroute.ca> escribió:
> 
>> For the desktop environment we'll start with KDE, as it is popular
>> and has an active development team.
>> https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/proj-laptop/blob/main/supported/desktop-environment.md
> 
> While that makes perfect sense from a FreeBSD-centric viewpoint, KDE
> isn't the most popular desktop environment in the *nix world, GNOME is,
> by far. GNOME has always been the most popular desktop environment on
> *nix desktops.
> 
> https://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=gnome-panel%2Cgnome-shell%2Ckde-runtime%2Cxfce4-panel%2Clxpanel%2Ckde-plasma-desktop&show_installed=on&want_legend=on&from_date=2000-01-01&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1
> 
> Some will argue that GNOME is too systemd-centric to be a good fit for
> FreeBSD; I'd argue that I've used it on systemd-free Linux
> distributions for years, and also suggest that active support on non-
> systemd Linux platforms, and non-Linux platforms, can only help to
> avoid systemd lock-in from becoming a future reality.

I humbly consider myself desktop-agnostic, switching from KDE to GNOME, MATE, etc. depending on the environment I’m currently working on. I too have a non-system platform with GNOME running nicely on it and the only thing that makes KDE attractive to me is that it supports my cameras’ raw formats automagically. 

> Current GNOME 47 ships on a variety of non-systemd Linux distributions
> including Alpine and Chimera Linux; on Void Linux (also non-systemd)
> they tend to skip one GNOME release a year.

> I'm not selling GNOME for my own wants; I prefer and use River on
> FreeBSD and Linux. I do believe letting GNOME languish in ports is
> problematic. Perhaps a scoping effort for what it would take to bring
> GNOME up to date could at least be considered at some point by this
> project.

1+

>> We're targeting Wayland as it's important for long-term viability,
>> although in the short term KDE on X11 is the usable approach.
> 
> I applaud targetting Wayland. 

1+ as long as it gets the same level of simplicity as Xorg when installing it.