On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Zhihao Yuan <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <[email protected]> > wrote: >> In message >> <CAGsORuBqiodwt_EmVqB+fO=tgOVeZOERopSE2y=mla8jp6z...@mail.gmail.com> >> , Zhihao Yuan writes: >> >>>Well, let's make it more straightforward. I hope people can agree with >>>this: a default, officially supported modern desktop environment is >>>essential to FreeBSD. >> >> No, it is not. >> >> It would certainly be nice to have as an option, but I would hate >> to have to deal with it, when I squeeze FreeBSD into embedded systems >> which have neither graphics outputs nor keyboard or mouse inputs. > > "Default" does not mean you "have to" install it. Default means when > you are looking for a DE, bsdinstall, handbook, official site, all of > them answers "*DE".
*gathers breath for really tangential/OT rant* <joking> Sounds like we have someone volunteering to write a chapter in the handbook and do some X11 development to make Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Fluxbox, [...], or etc work better on FreeBSD! </joking> To be succinct: this is not OSX/Windows. True Unix and Unix clones can be decoupled from a desktop environment enough that forcing everyone to have one choice for desktop user experience doesn't make sense, and the fact that there isn't a common GUI development toolkit (GTK, QT, etc) encourages fragmentation of effort further (I think it's called the Bazaar model of development :P). It honestly sounds like what you're looking for is a custom FreeBSD-based distribution (and PCBSD is one of those options) as FreeBSD is a generic project. Even the Linux kernel//GNU/Linux OS doesn't have a single adopted DE as its flagship DE. With all of the choices I listed above (and more), getting everyone to agree on working with one DE is like herding cats, in part because end-users/developers have different requirements, opinions, work styles, etc. It makes more sense to provide hooks into several DEs (like Linux, PCBSD, etc has done) to accomplish various tasks in a GUI-ish manner (setting up networking, wireless, etc) and upstream those changes if and when one has the chance to do so. Finally, one should then become a devoted "testing resource"/"advocate" FreeBSD OS integration in the future if one has interest in continuing to use said DE on FreeBSD. Thanks, -Garrett _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[email protected]"
