From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 11 12:36:37 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10BAF1065672 for ; Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:36:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C346B8FC19 for ; Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:36:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-196-75-140.dynamic.qsc.de [92.196.75.140]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 701533C853; Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:36:33 +0100 (CET) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id mBBCaWbo001962; Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:36:32 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:36:32 +0100 From: Polytropon To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20081211133632.114d77c7.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20081211071914.278ae942@scorpio> References: <4be2da2e0812062344y26eddcc9sf589531d10c71a1c@mail.gmail.com> <20081207093713.O5433@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081207082932.04a7cf16@scorpio> <11167f520812070853i3b6fa6dei6e5c71669416470@mail.gmail.com> <20081207191727.V1610@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081207193517.GA20905@laverenz.de> <20081207121431.5dcb37f9@gom.home> <1228733482.4495.14.camel@laptop1.herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20081211122714.W4172@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081211071914.278ae942@scorpio> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: Why FreeBSD not popular on hardware vendors X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:36:37 -0000 On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:19:14 -0500, Jerry wrote: > Define: 'Actual Work'? What you are referring to is that it meets your > criteria. Everyone's work platform might not be so narrow. ometimes, "actual work" may be entertainment, gaming, or programming obscure hardware platforms. :-) > I use FreeBSD for may things; however, it is by no means a perfect > system. There are just too many things that either don't work, or don't > work well. I may say this: At home, I'm using FreeBSD exclusively since approx. 2000 (at least since release 4.0). Here everything worked without any (!) problems, no need for problem reports. At work, FreeBSD and Solaris are present. For some fields of use, I would not FreeBSD instead of Solaris. However, I found no operating system that could replace FreeBSD in the fields where I use it. As in many other topics, this is only my very individual point of view. I do see "FreeBSD's problems" in most cases where hardware support isn't up to date, but that's mainly a thing of the hardware manufactureres that (a) build black boxes or (b) do not use existing standards, so accessing their hardware is a problem. Other problems are usual entertainment stuff that seems to hook that deeply into the operating system that it leads into problems - yes, I'm talking about "Flash" especially. Hardware vendors are mostly interested in operating systems that already have a huge market share. Allthough FreeBSD is a very professional OS and has a growing usage share, its market share isn't that big, so it is considered to be unimportant. Furthermore, FreeBSD is considered to be an OS for servers, allthough it scales very well from desktops over mixed forms to servers. And servers usually don't contain bleeding edge GPUs and strange WLAN USB sticks, so that's why the support isn't that good. Personally, I'd prefer an OS that supports a narrow subset of hardware excellently and efficiently instead of an OS that claims to support everything, supports most things poorly and through "binary blobs" where you can't be sure what it actually does. -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...