From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Mar 3 16:25:55 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86F5E106564A for ; Sat, 3 Mar 2012 16:25:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org) Received: from qmta04.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta04.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.40]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 657AA8FC12 for ; Sat, 3 Mar 2012 16:25:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.12]) by qmta04.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id h4Jg1i0010FhH24A44Rp0Z; Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:25:49 +0000 Received: from damnhippie.dyndns.org ([24.8.232.202]) by omta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id h4Rn1i00T4NgCEG8U4Roiy; Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:25:49 +0000 Received: from [172.22.42.240] (revolution.hippie.lan [172.22.42.240]) by damnhippie.dyndns.org (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id q23GPki2011715; Sat, 3 Mar 2012 09:25:46 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org) From: Ian Lepore To: H In-Reply-To: <4F51BDDA.3020602@hm.net.br> References: <20120221143537.Horde.deyFDZjmRSRPQ52pxBIpnLA@webmail.leidinger.net> <4F4BA707.5070608@wasikowski.net> <4F4C3FE7.3040802@FreeBSD.org> <4F4D51CB.2010508@FreeBSD.org> <4F4D5E5D.9040302@FreeBSD.org> <4F4DD288.5060106@FreeBSD.org> <4F4ED889.2070608@FreeBSD.org> <4F500BB9.4040307@FreeBSD.org> <4F5088CA.1090108@FreeBSD.org> <4F510FBD.50008@FreeBSD.org> <4F513B2D.6010809@FreeBSD.org> <4F5148A7.4080408@FreeBSD.org> <4F51BDDA.3020602@hm.net.br> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:25:46 -0700 Message-ID: <1330791946.10695.51.camel@revolution.hippie.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.32.1 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: flowtable usable or not X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:25:55 -0000 On Sat, 2012-03-03 at 03:44 -0300, H wrote: > Doug Barton wrote: > > Just looking at the committers, of which we have over 300, only a > > couple dozen at most have ever identified as actually using FreeBSD as > > a desktop at my count. Taking the larger development community into > > account I think the numbers are a little better, but not much. Sure, > > our strength is servers, and that is not going to change. > eventually that could be a good starting point, good question is, why not? > > > But how many real-life bugs have I personally uncovered in -current as > > a result of actually running it (mostly) daily? I'm not the only one, > > certainly, but if the numbers were flipped and the vast majority of > > our developers *did* use FreeBSD routinely, how much better off would > > we be? > again, why? > > let's face some reality. Forever installing FreeBSD Desktop, either KDE > or Gnome, was a nightmare process, or better, to make it appear on > screen was a nightmare. > > Even if somebody got all packages into his system (by miracle?), it > still did not popped up. Without some special knowledge _no_chance_. > > who knows, the guys who created and battled on area51 knew why they > chose this name :) > > Still now, kde4, hours of install, missing packages, compiling and still > nothing, somewhere over the process, flies over the screen please set > kdm4_enable="YES" ... I guess that will not be noticed by any user > > Even if some smart guy figures out that he needs xorg-server, the port > or package do not select all it needs for running, its own drivers and > so. How a user should know that? There is a windeco which installs > hundreds of deps, even sound what do not work on FreeBSD, but xorg do > not have deps for its functionality? goooood ... ohhh I forgot, that has > nothing to do with the desktop itself , sorry for mentioning ... > > Anybody can tell how somebody can find all this out? Don't say by > reading because we need to look at the real facts and that is nobody > want to read, they want a desktop nothing else, something silly and easy > to read email and write docs and surf on the net, listen to a CD, they > need to put a cd into the drive, running install process, reboot, using, > nothing else and such a thing ... we do not have > > so where this potential users should come from? Only from heaven ... > > And before anyone bothers to point it out, yes, I happen to be using > > Windows at this exact moment. I have some layer 9 work to get done and > > I need tools that are only available to me in Windows (more's the > > pity). The sad thing is, judging by the activity on the -ports@ list, > > the traffic in #bsdports, and just talking to/interacting with FreeBSD > > users, a lot of *them* are not only interested in FreeBSD as a desktop > > OS, they are actually doing it. > > IMO the weakest point is that we do not have the packages ready. > > Even if lots of you do not like it to hear, fact is that we must look > around and see how others do it. Windows, whatever it is, it is easy to > install for everybody. > > Same for Fedora, in order to stay with a Unix system, package handling, > update with YUM on Fedora hardly fails. > > ALL packages are compiled, you never need to compile anything. Even if > you need 800MB of packages, yum picks them all, installs them all, and > all is fine up top date. Such a process is where we need to get > orientation from. > > If it was my decision, it should be go to ports=no_no, packages=YES > > I mean, as long as the packages are not complete and ready, no new port > version should be released or announced > > So who dares,understand and can or like adventures, compiles from ports > > Such a decision would help FreeBSD in all means and would help the users > as well, in any case it will create more users > > Why somebody should chose FreeBSD as his daily desktop, oh man, only > some die-hard-guys like you and me, but you know, that is not hours of > work, that is days, weeks and constant setbacks for whatever reasons ... > that is not for anybody. And you are right, no traffic on the specific > lists, why? because the three on the list, two can help themselves (you > and me) and the other is the moderator ... :) not even the port > maintainer/packager is on that list ... :) > > ps. the last statement might be exaggerated and might not be valid in > all cases, so please do not shoot > > When the announcement of the 8.3-BETA1 release was made on these lists I had just finished building a new machine to become my everyday desktop machine for code development. I figured I should download and install using the new beta to help test the release. I was disappointed to find that the packages weren't on the beta dvd ISO, so the test wasn't as complete as I was hoping in terms of being similar to what a new user would experience. I ran through the sysinstall process without any glitches and rebooted to a working text-mode system. Then I did, from my notes: pkg_add -r for the following: sudo rsync xorg-server xorg-drivers gnome2 nautilus-open-terminal firefox libreoffice emacs subversion mercurial There wasn't a single hitch during any of that. I did eventually discover that I had to enable the snd_hda driver to eliminate spewage of warning messages in the log from pulseaudio. This is annoying, but I had exactly the same problem with Fedora a couple years ago when I was using it as a desktop (it's okay to assume that most desktop users want better sound than a 1982-style beep; it's rude to require it). Assuming that the usual packages will be on the final release image, I'd have to say that anyone can successfully install and configure FreeBSD as a desktop machine without being a power user. It all just works, at least for 8.3. That hasn't always been the case in the past, and if you need to update a specific component or two after initial install I think it is likely to be way harder in FreeBSD with ports and packages than it is in a distro such as Fedora that uses yum. So turning brand new virgin hardware into a usable desktop system for everyday code development using a recent release from a mature branch took a couple hours (mostly package download time) and a handful of commands. On a non-beta release I think the time would have been much shorter, and the commands would have been reduced to checking a few boxes in the package browser part of sysinstall. I'm not sure whether it would go so well on 9.0, but it isn't yet a mature branch -- IMO, if you want to live on the leading edge you should expect to do a bit more work. I would expect that by time 9.1 comes out the process should be about as smooth as it was for 8.3. -- Ian