Ugly Huge BSD Monster

[Brett Glass]

At 06:19 PM 9/1/2003, Joao Schim wrote:

>The fact that FreeBSD is not fully supported with KDE or GNOME  does not 
>mean that the OS isn't up for the job.

I hope that you didn't take my message as saying it wasn't. The problem is
that attempting to run desktop environments which are designed exclusively
for Linux, with little or no thought to portability, is trying to pound a square
peg into a round hole. And there's no hope of rounding off the peg, because
there's too much zealotry among the designers of the desktops; they're
virtually all GPL and Linux fanatics. Better to use a peg that's designed
to fit from the start.

>I think your attempt at setting 
>up a dekstop box for that school would have led to as much frustration when
>you would have tried it with GNU/Linux. 

Actually, no. It's true that they might have had some problems with Linux. (It's 
Linux, by the way, not GNOOOOOOO/Linux. Unless, of course, you're willing to 
be fair and call it BSD+GNU+Apache+Perl+lotsofotherthings/Linux.) Because 
both Linux desktops are designed especially for Linux, and because the Linux 
distro vendors do so much pre-integration and pre-configuration, they would have 
had an easier time. But Windows was the correct answer in this case.

>a difference should be made between the term 'Desktop OS' as being a 
>MS windows like system on wich every Joe can get around with by clicking
>around using wizards and such, and the desktop as a graphical environment
>in wich people familiar with the OS can get their job done. 

If you install FreeBSD and KDE, you'll find that a tremendous number of
BASIC things -- not just the fancy GUI stuff -- work with difficulty or
not at all. 

>Also i think that the gap you are talking about between Linux and FreeBSD
>can only grow further if the  BSD teams persists in being a Network OS only.

I was one of the ones who opposed the notion of the BSDs as server (or network)
OSes only. Mr. Hubbard & Co. did their best to marginalize anyone who disagreed 
with them on this.

In any event, the BSDs need a BSD-licensed desktop, designed with a BSD 
philosophy, built with with BSD-quality code. If they try to run desktops that 
are designed exclusively for Linux, they'll never work as well and certainly will 
never stand out on the desktop.

--Brett