>> So at most, BSD forks can only be used seriously as strong servers. That's >> how I'm using dfly. > > FUD. All my desktop systems have been running on FreeBSD or DragonFly for > more than 10 years. > Sometimes the lack of a good Microsoft Word alternative is a bit painful, > but with LibreOffice now unleashed, there's a good chance this matter > will be resolved relatively quickly. >
That makes two systems, FreeBSD and DragonFly. Unlike Linux, none is a full Windows replacement for a user like me, so this would make three systems to learn and maintain, with two doing a similar job (Windows and FreeBSD as desktops). Also, I gave up on FreeBSD, because I didn't like the orientations it was taking - too strict, too serious and too apart from other *BSDs. Open Source us fun and open collabortion (while Windows is dull and commercial - bad path FreeBSD)! And I won't learn Linux over all this. I'm using FreeBSD as server and development station since 1996, with a preference for FreeBSD v4, then DragonFly since v1.6, and I'm really happy with it, I won't change that for anything - with or without desktop and multimedia support. But I never made this a religion. I kept Windows for where it's good at, as long as I can't substitute it with one single system, not two or three Unix variants. No stress here for me, I'm living well with the situation. I have to say, I started on an old Zilog computer with CP/M and BASIC on the begginning of the '80s. Than we had DOS at home with BASIC and BASICA, then DOS/Windows as it was called. Worst, I like Bill Gates! (I toast here ;-) A university C programming teacher (a true one with a big white bear) made me a UNIX lover at university, but access to UNIX wasn't easy back then. Being able to use a UNIX system at home, and better, browse it's source code until late at night was really a dream come true. I really wanted to replace everything with it. But if some are used to UNIX ways since the beginning, I have to live with my old ways too, so Windows remained. In this, you answer large parts of my long time worries: > Part of the problem with porting is software checking for platform > names whereas it should be looking for features. This would help the code porting problem for applications like KDE. On the end, that's what interests me here. Please understand that I'm not trying to tell anybody what they should do, I have deep respect for the DragonFly developper's decisions and hard work, and to their UNIX dedication. I'm more interested in knowing the orientations decided by them to plan how I'm going to use DragonFly in the future and where I should place my energies, for example wheter or not to help KDE or Gnome DragonFly ports. Its clear to me, I now plan to spend energies on porting server applications instead. So your answers help me here. SR P.S. My Windows stations are stacked with UNIX stuff, like Thunderbird, Firefox, Gimp, OpenOffice, Dia, Bouml, Cygwin, etc. It does the job, well behind my DragonFly's firewall, gateway and Samba server. I may not be "pure" enough, but Windows users might see it differently ;-)
