Re: Using a FreeBSD desktop was somehting about dog food

On 3/28/22 21:11, Dave Hayes wrote:

> Using FreeBSD on a server grants you very measurable benefits in terms of
> reliability, security, and surprises. Thus, it is logical to expect the same
> ideas on a desktop. I've been on a FreeBSD desktop for easily 25 years (I'm not
> counting, but I started this journey in the 90s.)

I'd say so if you are somewhat inexperienced.

Over time, one quickly learns that a great server may not translate into 
a great desktop, and vice versa.


> So over these years, what many call "Gloss and polish" has turned into
> "acceleration and usability". There's an entire generation for whom saying
> "emacs is my IDE" is met with hidden laughter and scorn, as this generation has
> fancy tools that (for example) allow one to refactor an entire code base with
> the flick of a button so you can change that function name to something more
> readable than "doTheThing". Expose features on the desktop are another example.

And I think that's okay, because not everything can do everything, 
despite what the Internet has most people believing :-).


> I understand being grateful for what does work, and I truly am. :)
>
> What I don't understand is the implication that we are somehow ungrateful and
> rude if we have to settle for what sometimes is -far- less. By "settle" I mean
> the idea of "we should just shut up and take what we are given".
>
> Worse, these expressions are often sharing threadspace with the idea of "Why
> don't more people use FreeBSD?". Irony, anyone?
>
> To be clear, my intent in this message is not an advocacy of Linux or other
> commercial OSes, or a dis-advocacy of FreeBSD. This is an appeal to
> tolerance. Those who bitterly complain about some missing feature might
> actually have a point or they are truly frustrated. Would it really cost so
> much for developers to -at the very least- acknowledge some of this
> frustration, to say nothing of -addressing- these issues?

I can't say I have ever sensed that to be the case, certainly not on 
this forum.

Might you have specific examples?

Advocacy for more FreeBSD has generally, in my observational experience, 
been about the back-end... not desktop/consumer use.

Mark.