Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 13:39:36 -0800 From: Eric Melville <eric@FreeBSD.org> To: Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: Randall Hamilton <nitedog@silly.pikachu.org>, GB Clark II <gclarkii@vsservices.com>, Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Message-ID: <20011129133936.A90325@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <01bc01c17892$f2dea380$0a00000a@atkielski.com>; from anthony@freebie.atkielski.com on Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 06:01:45AM %2B0100 References: <15365.11290.211107.464324@guru.mired.org> <006101c17854$c6aa2570$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <01112817112006.13219@prime.vsservices.com> <016301c17888$c1be3cc0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <000901c17892$28e1ce90$0301a8c0@nitedog> <01bc01c17892$f2dea380$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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> We would still be sitting in front of timesharing terminals connected to UNIX > systems. I know a good number of people that would consider that a step up from today's workplace full of chain letters, outlook viruses, and collections of porn and mp3 files. I also tend to agree with them. Don't forget that the goal here is to get work done. The number of applications which actually benefit in this regard from being graphical is very limited. As for the false perception of graphical items being easier to learn, every version of windows to date most certainly take time and effort to learn as well. Millions of sales in "for dummies" books support this claim. > I tried xeyes. It seemed useless to me. I think that was the point. > Actually, I prefer it for desktop workstation use over other versions of > Windows. The consumer versions of Windows are too unstable and insecure for my > tastes. Windows NT does not crash, except if you install buggy drivers (but > that is almost unavoidable, since drivers must be trusted by the OS). I could have sworn that was also your reason for X being bad. > I have no problem with people using FreeBSD as a desktop OS, if they really want > to fit square pegs into round holes. Using your very own "strength in numbers" logic, I can claim that your opinion is not of any value in comparison to someone like Steve Jobs. Jobs, incidently, thinks that unix makes a great desktop. > However, I should be _very_ upset if FreeBSD were "enhanced" to make it more GUI > friendly. I consider FreeBSD to be a superlative _server_ OS, and anything that > might be done to it to enhance the GUI "desktop experience" would almost > certainly diminish its utility as a server dramatically. This may be a problem with windows, where the interface is the OS, but such is not the case for X. You can write a window manager designed for idiots without affecting the rest of the operating system. > This is one reason why I'm not running X on the machine. Too much of the > machine is required to run a GUI, and that's just a waste of resources on a > server. The console on my machine spends about 99% of its time running the > text-based Beastie screensaver--pretty much as you'd expect for a server system. I'd call the screensaver a waste as well. Why does your server have a screen? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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