# Idea: a FreeBSD-only desktop environment



## kforstneric (May 17, 2012)

Hello everyone!

I'm new here so I don*'*t know if this is the correct forum to post this thread to  First of all, I like FreeBSD. I like the fact that it is a complete, well thought out system.

Although what I have failed to understand why you guys don't take more measures to differentiate FreeBSD from Linux. And I don't mean that internally, (I know the internals of FreeBSD are different than Linux's) I mean in terms of user applications, desktop environments, etc. FreeBSD supports all the same applications that every other OS does, the difference is that FreeBSD supports older versions of those applications. 

I'm a C/C++ programmer and I'd be willing to join the FreeBSD project to work on a FreeBSD desktop environment. I however don't know how would such a project fit into the long-term goals of FreeBSD.

Comments, thoughts are welcome.

Best regards,
Klemen


----------



## UNIXgod (May 17, 2012)

Look @ PC-BSD.

Join the effort there.


----------



## Beastie (May 17, 2012)

^ But PC-BSD is based on the "mainstream" KDE/GNOME/Xfce/LXDE. I guess kforstneric wants something more like OpenBSD's Xenocara+cwm or even a complete FreeBSD-specific environment built from scratch.

I'm not sure this would provide any advantage for FreeBSD though. There are already many desktop environments (and their components) for all needs and tastes. Why reinvent the wheel?
Plus it would be a significant resource drain on the developer community.


----------



## tingo (May 17, 2012)

Ideas are nice. But - they only work if somebody takes an idea an actually does the work to make whatever the idea was about.
In the case of FreeBSD, the project is a volunteer effort. There are lots more ideas for FreeBSD than there are people working on implementing new features.

By all means - present new ideas, but be realistic about it; an idea has best chance of becoming reality if the people behind it are also the people trying to implement it.
So, if you have an idea for FreeBSD; learn what you need to know in order to implement it, or at least try.


----------



## pkubaj (May 17, 2012)

OK, I give you my permission. You can start working on it from today on. When it's done, give us links to download it, or, better yet, commit it to the ports tree.


----------



## kpedersen (May 17, 2012)

Arguably one of the best features of a desktop environment is that it abstracts the user away from the operating system and also provides the same feel across multiple platforms.

If FreeBSD had its own, it might defeat the purpose slightly because I would need to use one desktop environment for one machine (i.e running linux) and then another environment for when using FreeBSD.

Unless of course I just use something like Xfce for both... But then that *really* defeats the purpose


----------



## throAU (May 18, 2012)

FreeBSD's desktop market share is small enough without it trying to push an incompatible, "works different" desktop environment to the rest of the unix world.


That said, I really would like to see Etoile` take off.

Objective-C and the *Step libraries are a good thing.


----------



## rabfulton (May 18, 2012)

If you want to make a Freebsd FreeBSD desktop enviroment then your time is better spent creating support applications and backends. See the recent port "automounter" that does automounting the Freebsd FreeBSD way, or better support Freebsd FreeBSD by contributing to Gnome or KDE. Graphical ports management is another oft requested feature.


----------



## UNIXgod (May 18, 2012)

I have a feeling that the OP is a one hit wonder.


----------



## germanopratin (May 18, 2012)

I can't see a benefit in that. There are great DE's for any taste, any size. After all, this is in no way something OS developpers should care about. It would be wasting valuable resources. The other way round for me: I am glad that it is possible to have XFCE, for instance, on different platforms. It makes switching systems easier.


----------



## Ionized (May 22, 2012)

One of the things that annoy me about the Linux/freedesktop crowd is how Linux-centric they are becoming. If we had a FreeBSD-centric desktop we would be no better than they are.

A portable UNIX desktop would be nice but I think efforts are best spent to fix the whole udevd/devd debacle.


----------



## fluca1978 (May 22, 2012)

kforstneric said:
			
		

> I mean in terms of user applications, desktop environments, etc. FreeBSD supports all the same applications that every other OS does, the difference is that FreeBSD supports older versions of those applications.



Well, I'm glad FreeBSD supports all the other Linux fancy applications, so that I can switch from my home computer to my office and have a very similar environment. Moreover, this is the key for _interoperability_, I mean I can export my data from one workstation to another without particular care about which application wrote that data (I'm not talking about file systems here!).
The _older_ thing pays the stability, don't get confused from running the latter version of application xyz, since it could introduce some bug that previous applications did not have. Moreover, not all applications are older than their counterpart, it depends on who is _voluntarily_ working on the ports and packages.



			
				kforstneric said:
			
		

> I'm a C/C++ programmer and I'd be willing to join the FreeBSD project to work on a FreeBSD desktop environment. I however don't know how would such a project fit into the long-term goals of FreeBSD.



I don't see how building a new desktop for FreeBSD would be a good thing: I don't want to see the Unity-error replicated into FreeBSD: I like more the idea of creating a set of FreeBSD specific widgets that can be plugged into an opendesktop compliant DE and can help running and administering a workstation.
The BSD family is already "isolated", if compared to other mainstream OSes, I don't think that making it more different than it is will help attracting new users. Think about Haiku for instance (not meant to be rude).
Finally, I think the PCBSD team will be glad if you help them with new applications and improvements, and this will help you too understanding what the needs for a desktop-os marriage are.

These, of course, are my thoughts.


----------

