# FreeBSD losing Trident?



## LakeCowabunga (Oct 12, 2019)

It *seems* that FreeBSD is going to lose Trident as a GUI offspring. Probably sad. 

Announcement can be read here.


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

LakeCowabunga said:


> Announcement can be read here.



Looks like we need a translator. Anyone can speak Trident? What are they trying to tell us?



LakeCowabunga said:


> Probably sad.



Good riddance, actually. Advertising a perpetual beta distro with a buggy desktop environment to newbies is really not the best way to present FreeBSD.


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## xtremae (Oct 12, 2019)

> For a small preview, we’re already experiencing faster boot times, daily app updates, newer hardware drivers, and bluetooth support in the new version of Project Trident.


Huh, linux?


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## vermaden (Oct 12, 2019)

LakeCowabunga said:


> It *seems* that FreeBSD is going to lose Trident as a GUI offspring. Probably sad.
> 
> Announcement can be read here.


That strange project which tried to create graphical distribution based on FreeBSD but is so ugly that they do not even post screenshots/gallery on their page? 

Use *GhostBSD* or *NomadBSD* as they are MILES better (and look nice) then PC-BSD/TrueOS/Trident.

I will not miss them.


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

https://github.com/project-trident/trident-installer/commits/master/src-sh/void-install-zfs.sh

It seems they are going for Void Linux. Meh, I like Void, but that will not to help them with Lumina's code quality and overall lack of polish.


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## Phishfry (Oct 12, 2019)

So I have to wonder if FreeNAS is going to follow next.
Isn't Trident a iX in-house project.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 12, 2019)

You can only change the name of an OS so many times till you change the OS and keep the name.


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> Isn't Trident a iX in-house project.



No, it is no longer an iXsystems project. That's precisely the subject of the last year TrueOS/Trident split.


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## 20-100-2fe (Oct 12, 2019)

shkhln said:


> It seems they are going for Void Linux. Meh, I like Void, but that will not to help them with Lumina's code quality and overall lack of polish.



I've been using Void Linux for some time and I consider it the best Linux distribution at the moment. Void Linux users don't need any kind of "Russian doll" around their distribution.


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## twllnbrck (Oct 12, 2019)

vermaden said:


> Use *GhostBSD* or *NomadBSD* as they are MILES better (and look nice) then PC-BSD/TrueOS/Trident.


GhostBSD is in the meantime based on TrueOS/Trident or whatever they call it now.


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## Phishfry (Oct 12, 2019)

> experiencing faster boot times


Is this some kind of insider slang? 
Not many users on this forum have complained about boot time that I recall.
My Devuan instance does not boot much quicker.
Better hardware support I understand. Sell your soul for a quick sugar buzz if you must.


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## aht0 (Oct 12, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> Not many users on this forum have complained about boot time that I recall.


Has anyone tried FreeBSD boot with Lua? Lua scripts are supposedly nearly as fast as compiled C binaries..


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## Deleted member 59529 (Oct 12, 2019)

I wonder how this will affect GhostBSD, as it uses TrueOS as it’s base, interesting..I quite 
like it for desktop but I have a feeling I’ll have to look for a replacement shortly. Any ideas? MidnightBSD, NomadBSD, maybe? Or I’ll just build upon FreeBSD12 as base and we’ll see..


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

ibenny said:


> MidnightBSD



For real? Do you even know what MidnightBSD is? For starters, it has exactly one regular user, Lucas Holt himself.



ibenny said:


> Or I’ll just build upon FreeBSD12 as base and we’ll see..



That's the only advice you will ever receive here.


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## vermaden (Oct 12, 2019)

About GhostBSD being based on TrueOS or Trident ... they have chenged their 'base' many times and their 'strength' is in the installer and GUI tools. The base (which FreeBSD variant would be used) is not that important. They could do 13-CURRENT and you would not see the difference.


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## Phishfry (Oct 12, 2019)

aht0 said:


> Has anyone tried FreeBSD boot with Lua?


FreeBSD 12 uses Lua as the default boot loader. That is the first I have heard it it was supposed to be quicker.




__





						LUA boot loader coming very soon
					





					lists.freebsd.org


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## vermaden (Oct 12, 2019)

About GhostBSD being based on TrueOS or Trident ... they have chenged their 'base' many times and their 'strength' is in the installer and GUI tools. The base (which FreeBSD variant would be used) is not that important. They could do 13-CURRENT and you would not see the difference.


shkhln said:


> https://github.com/project-trident/trident-installer/commits/master/src-sh/void-install-zfs.sh
> 
> It seems they are going for Void Linux. Meh, I like Void, but that will not to help them with Lumina's code quality and overall lack of polish.



Daily I am paid to make RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux work. I am also familiar with Ubuntu and its flavors.

As I recently evaluated Linux distributions that do not use systemd Void, Alpine, Funtoo and Gentoo could only try to meet my standards ... and I do not like to compile my life anymore so that leaves Void and Alpine in play ... and Alpine is like OpenBSD so not much would work on it (and I would prefer OpenBSD anyway) so that leaves Void Linux.

... but even if you can install Void Linux on Root with ZFS with nice script there is still the same problem that exists with Ubuntu 19.10 Beta - lack of ZFS Boot Environments support and lack of encryption.

If You install FreeBSD you have full root on ZFS with GELI encryption without any additional bullshit (separate ZFS boot pools or */boot* filesystems). *EVERYTHING* is on the encrypted root partition on ZFS.






Ubuntu 19.10 has three filesystems.

EXT4* /boot*.
ZFS v28 *bpool* (boot pool).
ZFS v5000 *rpool* (root pool).

... and as of current state does not support ANY kind of Boot Environments tool - you can not even set *bootfs *property for the *rpool* pool.

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1182727603272257537_View: https://twitter.com/vermaden/status/1182727603272257537_


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1182739310732337154_View: https://twitter.com/vermaden/status/1182739310732337154_


While Ubuntu just got root on ZFS it still lacks encrypted ZFS and ZFS Boot Environments.

Void Linux - properly configured - will have ZFS Boot Environments but not encryption.

While encryption has been recently added to ZFS on Linux I doubt that Linux will be able to boot from this way encrypted root partition - not to mention without separate */boot *or ZFS boot pool ...


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

I'd rather discuss FreeBSD deficiencies, to be honest.


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## toorski (Oct 12, 2019)

_It’s not what it can do for you or what you call it, it’s what you can do with it._

Think of Red Hat. It used2be just another Linux based distribution. Then, they developed point and click solutions with Linux core for virtualized environments and sold to IBM for around $30 billions.  Maybe some developers that specialize in *BSD based solutions are trying the same. One day a *BSD genius will come up and offer point and click environment, using bhyve and FreeBSD jails, for yet another containerized solutions. They will get the first billion in IPO and you will sit here discussing what’s better. 

Container business is very profitable nowadays for shipping, storage and virtualization.
I have old rusted container to store my junk, and then I use containers in FreeBSD to store and play with more junk.
I wish that someone would provide remote control with AI  solution to move my container utilizing wheels with automatic door opener, so I don’t have to hire a crane to move the beast or pull my arms to open and close those old rusted doors. Same goes for  bhyve, FreeBSD jails and firewalls. I wouldn’t mind  P&C GUI solutions for those. My container was free and so are FreeBSD, jails and bhyve. I deal with it as is and do what I can to make it work for me. 
If you want slick or ez solutions and can’t pay for it than you have to DIY.


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

toorski said:


> Think of Red Hat. It used2be just another Linux based distribution.



It used to be and still is a de facto standard enterprise Linux distro. Also don't forget their Java business.


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## Deleted member 59529 (Oct 12, 2019)

shkhln said:


> For real? Do you even know what MidnightBSD is? For starters, it has exactly one regular user, Lucas Holt himself.



In fact I do, as I have tried it, and didn’t experience glaring problems with it. Still, I believe in good alternatives that provide a ‘point and click’ solution for less experienced users, as well. Not everyone can build their on desktop OS from packages, after all.


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## toorski (Oct 12, 2019)

shkhln said:


> enterprise Linux distro. Also don't forget their Java business.


Java buisness? is not their buisness - that's Oracles' business now.  Any idea , smart, dumb or even stupid, can be turned into Enterprise=Profits, even FreeBSD, given enough start-up funds for development, lawyers and IPO hype. IBM paid for RadHat to get rid off competition on Linux platform. IBM had similiar solutions developed in house, based on Linux.


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## shkhln (Oct 12, 2019)

toorski said:


> Java buisness? is not their buisness - that's Oracles' business now.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jboss


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## toorski (Oct 12, 2019)

shkhln said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jboss



You mentioned Java business, now you're pointing me to Open Source solutions based on Java platform  
Oracle, IBM, MS, Google and many others utilize Java platform to develop expensive EnterPrice software applications based on Java. Nothing special about RedHat and their Java based solutions. I'm glad that *BSD  and Linux cores can do without it. But, if one needs or want they can plug in and use any dev platform based on C, C++, VB, C#, J#, Java, Java Script, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby ... &on&on to develop their killer apps or EnterPrice solutions


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## shkhln (Oct 13, 2019)

toorski said:


> You mentioned Java business, now you're pointing me to Open Source solutions based on Java platform



There is no contradiction. I never claimed they own the brand.



toorski said:


> Oracle, IBM, MS, Google and many others utilize Java platform to develop expensive EnterPrice software applications based on Java.



Oracle and IBM, yes. MS doesn't touch anything Java since 98. Google only sells their cloud platform. I have no idea what relationship Red Hat has with consulting.



toorski said:


> But, if one needs or want they can plug in and use any dev platform based on C, C++, VB, C#, J#, Java, Java Script, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby ... &on&on to develop their killer apps or EnterPrice solutions



Nothing, absolutely nothing compares with Java's mindshare. I'm not joking.


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## shkhln (Oct 14, 2019)

2020 OS Migration :: Project Trident
					

Taking Project Trident into the Void




					project-trident.org
				




Oh, apparently they want to switch to musl as well. These people are truly clueless. (All commercial / closed source Linux software is compiled against glibc. Like mentioned Nvidia drivers,  for example.)


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## Phishfry (Oct 14, 2019)

I used musl with Alpine when messing with Xen. I can say it makes life much harder.
Also limits which applications are ported over.


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## shkhln (Oct 14, 2019)

It is possible to work around this by using compatibility libraries or containers, but that kind of negates the point of switching to Linux for easier maintenance.


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## xtremae (Oct 14, 2019)

shkhln said:


> Oh, apparently they want to switch to musl as well. These people are truly clueless. (All commercial / closed source Linux software is compiled against glibc. Like mentioned Nvidia drivers, for example.)


They probably plan to support both libcs in which case, nvidia blobs won't really be a problem.


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## Beastie7 (Oct 15, 2019)

I'm actually in favor of this. The less beta 'desktop' projects we have grossly representing FreeBSD, the better - it's embarrassing. They should've just quit a long time ago and focused on improving Lumina and the graphics stack with the FreeBSD graphics team. What a waste of effort..

They might as well drop the whole 'Trident' moniker as well; since the system isn't based on that which the name represents.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 15, 2019)

Beastie7 said:


> What a waste of effort..



Years of wasted effort, lack of direction and sound decision making. I was there from the beginning in 2005 when it was still at beta v. 0.73 running some version of FreeBSD 5 with KDE 3 as a default desktop if memory serves me. I have all my old disks from back then and remember OJ from the forums.

It shows a complete lack of loyalty to their userbase IMO, who might not necessarily want to be using Linux in the first place or wouldn't be there, but that is an issue I've brought forth before and can now be laid to rest.


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## unitrunker (Oct 15, 2019)

Lumina was the only part of TrueOS I actually cared about. The TrueOS package manager kept breaking so I switched to FreeBSD with lumina-desktop (which you can still get from ports). I eventually dropped that in favor of something much simpler. An ISO or VM image of FreeBSD with X.org is all FreeBSD needs for newcomers to quickly become familiar with the OS. I see no real loss here.


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## gpw928 (Oct 15, 2019)

toorski said:


> Think of Red Hat. It used2be just another Linux based distribution. Then, they developed point and click solutions with Linux core for virtualized environments and sold to IBM for around $30 billions.


I don't think that RedHat is "just another" distro; nor was it was *just* their container road map execution that got IBM's attention.
RedHat were into exactly the same corporate accounts as IBM, with support contracts (where they make their money).  No other Linux vendor is operating broadly and credibly that space.
And IBM were already into RedHat.  It was their Linux offering of choice on both mainframes and P-frames.  So there was a close existing relationship.
On their hardware P frames, IBM are backing away from AIX and big endian RHEL, and have focused the future on little endian RHEL (P frames are bi-endian, at the level of each virtual machine [LPAR]).
In that space, IBM's enemy is VMware and Dell -- who are easier to target when you also run little endian.
IBM use software discounts to sell hardware.  If you are important, they are going to offer you a cheaper total cost of ownership delivering the stack.  But that stack has to be (seen to be) first class.
RedHat was a perfect fit (technical, marketing, established user base, and corporate credibility) to round out their cloud software stack (IBM were developing one of their own, but it was losing the battle).


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## toorski (Oct 15, 2019)

gpw928 said:


> I don't think that RedHat is "just another" distro; nor was it was *just* their container road map execution that got IBM's attention.
> RedHat were into exactly the same corporate accounts as IBM, with support contracts (where they make their money). No other Linux vendor is operating broadly and credibly that space.



As I indicated then, and I'll repeat now, *Red Hat used to be just another Linux distribution*.

The year was  late 1993 or early 94. At that time, there were Slackware Linux kernel boot images on one or two (can't remember now) 720KB floppies for computer hardware platforms with Intel CPU. Rest of the distribution came over ftp, from ftp.sunet.se.  Read Hat wasn't around in the public domain yet and then.  That's when I got interested in Linux. Later came (I think 1994) the same Linux kernel boot image with  Linux-Red Hat distribution.  As time went by, RH implemented modular kernel and soon after Linux distribution on CD and RPM's, etc. But, in those early days no serious IT operation would touch Linux Slack, RH or Linux on any platform, even many Universities or Colleges. Same goes for MS-DOS and Windows, when Novell ruled  the PC LAN  world because, MS did not have reliable LAN server - no serious IT operation would consider Windows-NT as their LAN server.

I was learning C in college on HP-9000 running HP-UX , back then when my 2 PC(s) with Linux had more and better TCP/IP services and C code than HP-UX. I've ran and played basement ISP with Slackware between 94-97 with help of my younger hacker friends from around the world. We had great time learning and playing ISP and TCP/IP. I had almost 1000 happy local dial-up users with 14.4/28.8/56.6kbps modems. Half of my users did not pay for Internet access because they were too young to deal with writing monthly checks. Nevertheless, I still made tons of money from those who paid $19.95 a month for unlimited access to Internet over my Adtron CSU/DSU modem on T4/DLLC, Livingston router, 50 dial-up telco lines with DNS, SMTPD/POPD, NNTPD, FTPD, HTTPD and lil'bit broken WAIS web crawler engine services, driven by Slackware-Linux, without looking at or touching Red Hat. And, I considered that, then and now, a serious *EnterPrice* hobby.

I'm referring to reality that I lived in then, as it used to be then. And, I don't give a shit what RH had/has or was/is - then for free and now for a fee.

Internet was just fine then, without RH, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Android, iOS, valuations and monetizations of anything and everything for and on Internet, with more intelligent and Internet savvy users, compered to many today, from around the world. Some of them became my good friends with whom I still keep'n touch, after over 20 years of ongoing friendships. Even now, tho I'm much older and dumb'ed out, I'm helping few by providing free email, ftp and webspace over httpd on FreeBSD


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## cynwulf (Oct 15, 2019)

Beastie7 said:


> I'm actually in favor of this. The less beta 'desktop' projects we have grossly representing FreeBSD, the better - it's embarrassing. They should've just quit a long time ago and focused on improving Lumina and the graphics stack with the FreeBSD graphics team. What a waste of effort..
> 
> They might as well drop the whole 'Trident' moniker as well; since system isn't based on that which the name represents.


PC-BSD / TrueOS and everything it spawns was always going to turn into this kind of mess, because the "business model" if you could even call it that, is "let's make it all easy and accessible and attract more users to $OS".

$OS = something we're going to revise at our discretion, in our supreme arrogance and disregard for the user base we've built up.

That is the kind of concept which inevitably spawned Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Mandrake before it.  It's the fallacy of popularity based on the notion that for an OS to "succeed" it needs to grow it's user base.

Those two used marketing, they used all kinds of tactics to attract users and once those tactics no longer works, they conveniently forgot about them, invented new slogans and roped in the next set of dupes and the cycle begins again.

Cut through the marketing, learn the basics, use the real thing and show the snake oil salesmen the door - the same applies to everything.


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## funkygoby (Oct 15, 2019)

I wonder where I would be without OSes such as Mandrake and Ubuntu. They might have no focus, stupidly follow the last trend etc ... but somehow, I owe a lot to Ubuntu and Mandrake.
Back in the day, coming from Win95/98/XP, I would not have been able to install Debian or teach myself enough for this purpose.
Ubuntu was easy enough to install (non-free driver, GUI, etc ...) that it allowed me to gain enough confidence to explore Linux. I learned by using it daily instead of reading manuals and then being frustrated by my lack of understanding.

Later, I used PC-BSD to get a working FreeBSD + desktop as I was exploring BSD land.

The accessibilty and the ease of use for new comers are still a plus in my book for such projects. One the other hand, changing name, and decisions like these don't give me much confidence in the project.

I like what @shep does with OpenBSD. He just provides some scripts that take a simple install to a full Desktop. The user can blindly run the scripts or adapt them to its tastes and learn the ropes of the system along the way


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 15, 2019)

cynwulf said:


> $OS = something we're going to revise at our discretion, in our supreme arrogance and disregard for the user base we've built up.



That's what I remember most about my experience as a PC-BSD user.

Supreme Arrogance? Maybe not so much these days.



funkygoby said:


> I wonder where I would be without OSes such as Mandrake and Ubuntu.
> 
> Later, I used PC-BSD to get a working FreeBSD + desktop as I was exploring BSD land.



I bought Mandrake as my first disco before I got a CD burner. If it had a Live CD I probably tried it out and how I eventually found PC-BSD. I was going to try out FreeBSD in '98 but the installer intimidated me into thinking it beyond my skill level. (It was.)

PC-BSD got me to the desktop. I took it from there so it did serve a purpose. I opened a file manager to see what was under the hood, ditched KDE for Fluxbox and their .PushButtonInstaller to learn ports. One of the Moore bothers asked me why I was using ports. Black sheep that I was. I read a pf tutorial by scottro and it proved a most valuable skill in more ways than one.

I followed a tutorial here somebody else wrote to set up my first FreeBSD desktop.


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## shkhln (Oct 15, 2019)

> Never mind. My bad for talking about FreeBSD.



LakeCowabunga FYI, editing the thread title would make more people revisit the thread (because it's looks like a new thread) and then they will leave even more comments.


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## jdrch (Oct 15, 2019)

20-100-2fe said:


> Void Linux users don't need any kind of "Russian doll" around their distribution.



You're right. Trident wouldn't replace the default Void installation. It would sit downstream of Void.



Phishfry said:


> Not many users on this forum have complained about boot time that I recall.



I think the comparison is relative to Trident's current boot process, which is very "legacy," to put it mildly.



vermaden said:


> ... but even if you can install Void Linux on Root with ZFS with nice script there is still the same problem that exists with Ubuntu 19.10 Beta - lack of ZFS Boot Environments support and lack of encryption.
> 
> If You install FreeBSD you have full root on ZFS with GELI encryption without any additional bullshit (separate ZFS boot pools or */boot* filesystems). *EVERYTHING* is on the encrypted root partition on ZFS.
> 
> ...



I do believe Trident have said they're abandoning ZFS root.



toorski said:


> One day a *BSD genius will come up and offer point and click environment, using bhyve and FreeBSD jails



So FreeNAS?



shkhln said:


> Oh, apparently they want to switch to musl as well. These people are truly clueless. (All commercial / closed source Linux software is compiled against glibc. Like mentioned Nvidia drivers,  for example.)



I thought using obscure solutions regardless of support because they are - in your estimation - technically superior was a standard BSDism  While this certainly is a contradiction - aiming for ease of use while using nonstandard solutions - I don't necessarily think it's any worse than what I've observed in many other distros. They're already choosing a niche base as is, I doubt this is gonna make too much of a difference.


Beastie7 said:


> focused on improving Lumina and the graphics stack with the FreeBSD graphics team.



Per the dev, many of their attempted contributions to the FreeBSD effort have gone ignored/unaddressed. I confess I haven't been able to verify this myself.



Trihexagonal said:


> when it was still at beta v. 0.73 running some version of FreeBSD 5 with KDE 3 as a default desktop



To be fair, that was before Plasma, which transformed KDE into its current excellent state.



Trihexagonal said:


> It shows a complete lack of loyalty to their userbase IMO



I'm a Trident user. While I'll be migrating to GhostBSD instead of following them to Void, I understand the motivations for the move. However, it does seem that by choosing musl they are, again, painting themselves into a corner in terms of being a solution that's so niche no one supports it.

I haven't minded the driver issues because I run Trident on a previous gen PC with relatively simple hardware, and it's not my daily driver. But if I were using it on newer hardware, especially with newer Wi-Fi adapters, and as my daily driver, I'd have been frustrated too.



unitrunker said:


> Lumina was the only part of TrueOS I actually cared about.



I think it's pretty good for being essentially a one man project. It's better at X11 forwarding than GNOME, for example.



cynwulf said:


> PC-BSD / TrueOS and everything it spawns was always going to turn into this kind of mess, because the "business model" if you could even call it that, is "let's make it all easy and accessible and attract more users to $OS".



There hasn't been any implied business model since Trident forked from TrueOS.



cynwulf said:


> $OS = something we're going to revise at our discretion, in our supreme arrogance and disregard for the user base we've built up.



I don't think you'd be making this comment if you'd been part of the community. Having interacted with these folks I can assure that's not how they think.



cynwulf said:


> Ubuntu



Ubuntu spawned Linux Mint, which was the 1st distro I managed to run without ultimately borking. Never underestimate the effect of an easy onramp.



cynwulf said:


> It's the fallacy of popularity based on the notion that for an OS to "succeed" it needs to grow it's user base.



I mean, if no one uses your solution no one will develop for it, either. If you scroll through the thread you'll see people dogging Trident for choosing musl over glibc and MidnightBSD for having only one user. User base isn't absolutely everything, but it's not something a solution can be truly relevant without. It's phenomenally difficult to achieve very necessary 3rd party support without it.



cynwulf said:


> they conveniently forgot about them



I run Ubuntu 19.04 and don't feel "forgotten" by Canonical. As a matter of fact, I like what they've done to vastly improve the OS' usability over the years.



funkygoby said:


> I wonder where I would be without OSes such as Mandrake and Ubuntu. They might have no focus, stupidly follow the last trend etc ... but somehow, I owe a lot to Ubuntu and Mandrake.
> Back in the day, coming from Win95/98/XP, I would not have been able to install Debian or teach myself enough for this purpose.
> Ubuntu was easy enough to install (non-free driver, GUI, etc ...) that it allowed me to gain enough confidence to explore Linux. I learned by using it daily instead of reading manuals and then being frustrated by my lack of understanding.
> 
> ...



Agreed. Trident taught me BSD, and I actually appreciate FreeBSD so much thanks to Trident that I'm deciding to stick with the former instead of following the latter to Linux.


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## shkhln (Oct 15, 2019)

jdrch said:


> They're already choosing a niche base as is, I doubt this is gonna make too much of a difference.



Indeed it won't make any difference, but not due to the reasons you think. The core truth here is that developing a desktop environment and a distro simultaneously is just too much work for 2 developers. Even with the greatly reduced maintenance burden that still would be unsustainable. I have no fucking idea what they are thinking.

Also, please tell the devs to reformat Lumina's source code. They must adopt a code style and enforce it. I don't even care if that code has any tests or documentation. Just formatting. How hard could this be?


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## jdrch (Oct 15, 2019)

shkhln said:


> developing a desktop environment



As I said earlier, I don't think incumbent DEs were sufficiently robust _for their needs_ to make the tradeoff of developing their own DE not worth the effort. I _do_ KDE and MATE _at least_ are now sufficiently mature and robust to make that tradeoff unnecessary, as demonstrated by GhostBSD. 

If anything, Trident may be suffering from the sunk cost fallacy in that regard.



shkhln said:


> I have no idea what they are thinking.



Probably that they have a better way to do things that works _for them_. Purely from my interaction with the group in their chat they seem don't use 3rd party applications or packages (aside from perhaps device drivers) in their own workflows, so their use case space is a bit more narrow than most. But they do also come across as reasonable, level headed folks.

I admit I didn't know about the musl vs. glibc issue; after reading the pitfalls of the former in this thread I'm honestly puzzled that they'd have actually selected it. The marginal benefits seem infinitesimal to nonexistent.

Anyway, as I said, GhostBSD is the next move for me. 

I'm not defending their decision(s) as much as I'm framing it as the best option _for them_, _by them_.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 15, 2019)

jdrch said:


> To be fair, that was before Plasma, which transformed KDE into its current excellent state.



To each their own. A DE reminds me of Windows and their .pbi installer reminded me of an .exe. I had a low end laptop at the time so I moved to Fluxbox and have stayed with it since.




jdrch said:


> I haven't minded the driver issues because I run Trident on a previous gen PC with relatively simple hardware, and it's not my daily driver. But if I were using it on newer hardware, especially with newer Wi-Fi adapters, and as my daily driver, I'd have been frustrated too.



That wasn't the cause of my frustration in leaving. That's trivial in comparison. I am not easily discouraged though often underestimated.



jdrch said:


> I don't think you'd be making this comment if you'd been part of the community. Having interacted with these folks I can assure that's not how they think.



That's where you are mistaken. I responded to that same quote from cynwulf:



> > $OS = something we're going to revise at our discretion, in our supreme arrogance and disregard for the user base we've built up.



That is exactly how they ran business back then and I can't see where things have improved over the years. Supreme Arrogance was their downfall in underestimating me, both as a member of that community and more recently. Supreme Arrogance withered in the light of Righteous Indignation and that should have been enough. It was much worse the second time and _we_ took it personally.

Since you're a Trident user I don't want to be rude or burst your bubble about how things work behind the scenes, or did when I was still a member of the community in 2012. I presented the facts in public when forced to do so and have already spoken out loudly about it in great detail. Then and more recently, in more than one place on more than one occasion.

it's a moot point now. They're leaving for Linux and I've said everything I had to say about it. Suffice it to say a part of me is resting at peace with it now.

If that sounds cryptic or like I'm dancing around the subject, I am. No offense, it's for the best of everyone.


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## Beastie7 (Oct 16, 2019)

I really wish the project would incite more interest in desktop related infrastructure, or at least grow a team that would address specific issues related to the desktop. Things like bluetooth improvements, power aware CPU scheduling, input device improvements, etc. That way this demographic can be targeted from within the same Project itself. I'd like to see an 'iflib'-like framework for desktop peripherals. I can't stress enough the 'Base OS' concept advantage FreeBSD has over Linux when it comes to potential ISVs/IHVs.

I'm *really* glad the new FUSE driver was re-written and improved. This a good step in the right direction for making the switch easier.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 16, 2019)

I tried out TrueOS as a favor not that long ago. It listed Lumina and Fluxbox as the choice of desktops and since I'd used Fluxbox some 13 years at the time chose that.

There was no terminal or file manager available. The command `xterm` did not exist and x11/eterm was missing fonts and failed to start with an error. Not what I describe as full functionality in my desktops. The Lumina file manager doesn't have a `copy to` or `move to` option like x11-fm/xfe which makes it useless for me since file transfers a good part of the work I do.

Marco, one of their devs, said the xterm problem was due to using x11/xorg-minimal and a lack of communication IIRC, but would bring it to their attention. I don't blame him. The people who designed the file manager must not use one for file transfers and I never got an answer as to why, or word of it having changed.


That's just general desktop activities for me and what I would expect from any Linux disco I booted up. Long range planning is all good and well but maintaining  team communication and fixing the fundamentals before marketing the product a sound business plan IMO. My hardware is old so support issues never come up for me. I know they do quite often for others and it can make the difference in them using it or "getting tired" of FreeBSD and going back to Linux.

I've never used GhostBSD but have heard good things about it so it's likely more users for them. Their site is well maintained with no sign of wishy-washy decisions regarding a proposed change from FreeBSD. There are tutorials other than mine that can teach a new user to set up a FreeBSD box and a horde of friendly Daemons always ready to lend a hand.

We have a healthy influx of new users it seems. FreeBSD is not for everybody and this may nurture Natures Way of dealing with it.


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## Skaendo (Oct 16, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> We have a healthy influx of new users it seems. FreeBSD is not for everybody and this may nurture Natures Way of dealing with it.



I don't know if I would be considered a "new user", I did play with FreeBSD (among others, PC-BSD, etc) for a while when I was distro hopping after I was soured by Debian (don't ask, wont tell) but the release when I finally said enough, KDE4 was bad. The panel didn't work and all windows didn't have titlebars. It was completely unusable.



			https://i.imgur.com/A7uOJcB.png
		



			https://i.imgur.com/6CD2acb.png
		


When I tried FreeBSD it was not as polished as I had hoped, (MATE DE) but everything worked. I don't like having to "tweak" things a lot, generally I use things the way they come. Finally I landed on Slackware and ended up building my own Cinnamon DE that I still use and will for a long time. 

I am back to FreeBSD because I am setting up a home server and maintaining it will be a lot easier with FreeBSD. I have been going through it setting it up a few times and screwing it up, but I am close now. I am installing Xfce via pkg and it just works. But in the end it will be headless.

As for Trident, it seems like another Budgie to me, just window dressing on a Lumina stack(?) where Budgie is just window dressing on a Gnome stack. Why bother? I guess that there is more to Budgie than just "window dressing", since the last time I toyed with it (Solus), it was a normal DE and not that crazy crap that Gnome has going on.


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## 20-100-2fe (Oct 16, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> We have a healthy influx of new users it seems. FreeBSD is not for everybody and this may nurture Natures Way of dealing with it.



I am one of these new users. I've used Solaris at the beginning of my career and I really liked it. When Linux began to be available on CDROM in 1995, I was delighted to be able to run a Unix-like at home and I've learnt a lot using it.

I've changed for FreeBSD recently. It wasn't my first try but I've been rebuked on all my previous attempts at using it. What was different this time is that I realized how much my way of thinking had been shaped by Windows and Linux. Being aware of this gave me the freedom to choose to think and act differently and to appreciate FreeBSD for what it is.

Trihexagonal is right when he says that FreeBSD is not for everybody. So was Linux at the beginning, you had to recompile the kernel to support your network card, etc. But now, Linux has become the new Windows of our time, sort of. Its evolutions are now driven by multinational corporations such as IBM and Oracle.

Often, I feel like an alien lost on Earth, maybe that's why I can't be happy with an operating system "for everyone". I' glad FreeBSD isn't one.


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## rootbert (Oct 16, 2019)

20-100-2fe said:


> Often, I feel like an alien lost on Earth, maybe that's why I can't be happy with an operating system "for everyone". I' glad FreeBSD isn't one.



thanks, I am feeling the same ;-)

My roots with FreeBSD began with 4.something, but just out of interest before I started my career in this fascinating field of IT. It was an on and off for a few years, but I have been using it more since version 10 arrived, also in our company and for some clients.

I tried trueos and trident several times, but it was nothing special, I had to fiddle around with gui setup the same way I had to with FreeBSD, so there was no win for me in the setup routine. However, I had the feeling that - before trueos and trident got separate projects - they finally were on the right path (after all the name changes etc.). Still, I think it's sad to see the project become another one of the gazillion Linux distributions. Though it was not for me they sure contributed to the BSD ecosystem, and now for the trident project I see no bright future - there are too many distros.


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## neel (Oct 16, 2019)

When I first tried FreeBSD in a virtual machine, I constantly broke things with Ports. I came from mostly playing with Debian on VMs and old hardware and how it "just worked". I never really loved Debian even if it was "easy" because it didn't feel right to me.

However, despite breaking my installation so often, FreeBSD felt right. It felt clean, well-maintained, something I grew to love. Maybe hardware support was weaker than Windows or Linux, but I still loved FreeBSD.

I can thank FreeBSD for teaching me about Unix instead of just seeing OSes as a black box throwing together Ubuntu and Docker unlike most of my peers my age (although I got into FreeBSDbefore Docker was a thing).

My desktop only ran on FreeBSD for all these years. My laptop has mostly been FreeBSD except where I actually couldn't. I ran my own web and email servers, and Tor relays, all on FreeBSD.

And from the bad hardware support, I learnt about how the various hardware subsystems work and are put together. I maintained Ports for half-a-decade, and even I wrote a few kernel patches (that have been committed) because I just had to make my laptop work with FreeBSD. I simply wouldn't give up.

However, I may be back in Windows and Microsoft-land for my future job. This job is just too good for me to miss out on, and the pay is really good too. I guess I'll really miss FreeBSD, it has been my OS love for many years. Hopefully can I still maintain a lifeline in the FreeBSD world or even keep some use as second OS.


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## shkhln (Oct 16, 2019)

They actually did bother to commit your patches? In less than a year? What magic is this?


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## neel (Oct 16, 2019)

shkhln said:


> They actually did bother to commit your patches? In less than a year? What magic is this?



I asked committers to review my patches, through email and mailing lists. You just need to find the right committer.


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## yuripv (Oct 17, 2019)

shkhln said:


> They actually did bother to commit your patches? In less than a year? What magic is this?


Link to yours bugs/patches that need attention?


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## Cthulhux (Oct 18, 2019)

shkhln said:


> Do you even know what MidnightBSD is? For starters, it has exactly one regular user, Lucas Holt himself.



Name your source. For what it tries to attempt, MidnightBSD is good enough.


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## shkhln (Oct 18, 2019)

Cthulhux said:


> Name your source. For what it tries to attempt, MidnightBSD is good enough.



The reddit/twitter/whatever complaints or bug tracker activity is a dead giveaway. Remember, if no one is calling your project shit, that simply means nobody is using it.


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## mod3777 (Oct 28, 2019)

I


aht0 said:


> Has anyone tried FreeBSD boot with Lua? Lua scripts are supposedly nearly as fast as compiled C binaries..



I have used scheme once, not lua. I learned to program in lua back in days.


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## Lars Skogstad (Oct 29, 2019)

Is this the new trend, making several unpolished "distros" within FreeBSD?  Wouldn't it just be better if everyone got together and made one good system?


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## Crivens (Oct 29, 2019)

obligatory xkcd...


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## mark_j (Oct 29, 2019)

Lars Skogstad said:


> Is this the new trend, making several unpolished "distros" within FreeBSD?  Wouldn't it just be better if everyone got together and made one good system?



Personally, I see nothing wrong with it. I have ghostbsd on one of my laptops. I could have accomplished much the same myself with FreeBSD and some application installations etc, but I wanted to see what they had done. I liked it so I kept it.

It's obviously not as common for FreeBSD because it's an entire operating system, not just a kernel like Linux. (A big bloated kernel, I might add). But I don't see anything wrong with forks of it. Who knows, maybe some ideas can leak back to FreeBSD?


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## aht0 (Oct 29, 2019)

Lars Skogstad said:


> Is this the new trend, making several unpolished "distros" within FreeBSD?  Wouldn't it just be better if everyone got together and made one good system?


GhostBSD, for what little my opinion is worth of, is pretty polished. At least compared to mess TrueOS desktop or Trident installs usually ended up being. I've even used GhostBSD at home for "server" purposes - just had to remove Mate & X. Because I really like OpenRC combined with FreeBSD.


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## mark_j (Oct 29, 2019)

aht0 said:


> GhostBSD, for what little my opinion is worth of, is pretty polished. At least compared to mess TrueOS desktop or Trident installs usually ended up being. I've even used GhostBSD at home for "server" purposes - just had to remove Mate & X. Because I really like OpenRC combined with FreeBSD.



I concur. Trident was/is a mess. TrueOS/Trident never seemed to know what it wanted to be after renaming itself from PC-BSD (Just my impression from afar). 

Now it wants to be a Linux distro. Good luck to them, they'll be extinct or inconsequential within a year because there's so much choice with Linux you'd have to be blind to want Lumina as your desktop.


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## abishai (Oct 30, 2019)

Wozzeck.Live said:


> you can also find on ebay 5 dollars perfectly working Windows licenses (thanks to Europa Union who decided that reselling an used license is perfectly legal and could be forbidden by the software editor).


Please, don't call it legal. It's worse than general piracy with public KMS as you support criminal business.


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## Crivens (Oct 30, 2019)

abishai said:


> Please, don't call it legal. It's worse than general piracy with public KMS as you support criminal business.


Please get used to the fact that other parts of the world have other laws. It's legal here.


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## sidetone (Oct 30, 2019)

FreeBSD desktop works perfectly well without Gnome, KDE, Mate and XFCE. They should remain options, but those shouldn't be promoted for regular use. I'm happy with JWM. Others speak highly of i3, and other minimal window managers. I think Gnome related development tries to put knots in every piece (or tangle up with needless complexities) of software they can.

Bluetooth and multimedia key support are the only things really lacking for a general desktop. Multimedia keys would be nice, but aren't a necessity. Access point Bluetooth printer accessibility would also be beneficial for an access point or non-desktop computer.


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## mark_j (Oct 30, 2019)

Wozzeck.Live said:


> I get the impression that people are mixing TrueOS and Trident
> According to me, theses are two different things
> TrueOS is still alive and is focusing on server, as it was at the beginning before merging PC BSD into TrueOS.
> It is possible to setup desktop with TrueOS



They are two different things now but they weren't previously. Yes now one is a 'server' and the other is a 'desktop'.
Why anyone would use TrueOS over FreeBSD baffles me.
If you read their spiel, it's GELI encryption, boot environments and "ports with more options". Nothing you cannot do and have more control over doing so, with FreeBSD.

In regard to Trident, well it's a Linux distro now, so it's irrelevant here.

Why ixsystems did what they did? Who knows? Maybe a last desperate attempt to keep Lumina going?



Wozzeck.Live said:


> I wonder if Trident has any chances to survive on long term



If I was a betting man I would say "slim and none". Initially, they may get a lot of gloating Linux fanatics taking a look at it because it has ditched FreeBSD but the love won't last. Not if they keep their desktop as is.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 30, 2019)

Wozzeck.Live said:


> TrueOS is still alive and is focusing on server, as it was at the beginning before merging PC BSD into TrueOS.



They first started talking about using PC-BSD as a server when it was at 9.0 Isotope in 2012.


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## toorski (Oct 31, 2019)

Wozzeck.Live said:


> you can also find on ebay 5 dollars perfectly working Windows licenses


$5! That's so overpriced- legal or not. But, everything on Ebay is overpriced and then the idiots trying to outbid each other to pay even more than the actual overpriced price - hehe
As to Trident, Lumina or TrueOS; There's nothing to gain or loose from them, beacuse FreeBSD is still here, with or without Lumina.


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## toorski (Oct 31, 2019)

abishai said:


> Please, don't call it legal. It's worse than general piracy with public KMS as you support criminal business.


What do you expect from the rest? This world is being run by a bunch of crooks and criminals, starting with the so called governments. Legal or illegal has nothing to do with right and wrong or moral and immoral. And, Laws have nothing to do with Justice.


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## kpedersen (Nov 1, 2019)

abishai said:


> Please, don't call it legal. It's worse than general piracy with public KMS as you support criminal business.



Don't worry, no-one uses public KMS anymore to activate their software. They run a local KMS emulator and activate against that. Clean and offline.

I can also confirm that Microsoft has been known to use these same "solutions" internally when provisioning test VMs offline. Are you calling Microsoft criminals? I wouldn't disagree. They are the ones forcing users to expose all their computers to the internet in order for it to "keep on working". If that isn't malware, then what is?


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## abishai (Nov 2, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> Don't worry, no-one uses public KMS anymore to activate their software. They run a local KMS emulator and activate against that. Clean and offline.
> 
> I can also confirm that Microsoft has been known to use these same "solutions" internally when provisioning test VMs offline. Are you calling Microsoft criminals? I wouldn't disagree. They are the ones forcing users to expose all their computers to the internet in order for it to "keep on working". If that isn't malware, then what is?


Keys from Ebay the last time I've got one was from MSDN. That why I call it 'not legal'
But I agree about local KMS emulator.


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## Hakaba (Nov 2, 2019)

I read all post and my reaction is :
«So, Trident lost freeBSD».
Trident is installed in computer that run *BSD with GUI.
There is very few competitors on this configuration and poeple that install this kind of system are aware that system and wm is complex piece of software.
In linux world, most user install a «distro» with a very complex and mature wm (and de) that run out of the box with very large communauty support (KDE, Gnome, XFCE...)
Few poeple install an another wm (dwm...) to configure it.
The choice to create a linux distro with Lumina is, for me, not the good one.
For me, there is two case : Trident is mature an then create a Tubunutu to «prove it» or trident need support, developpment etc and then protect him with captivated users.


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## aht0 (Nov 3, 2019)

abishai said:


> Keys from Ebay the last time I've got one was from MSDN. That why I call it 'not legal'



I've bought a few (Win8.1, since 7 is about to be EOL soon) and these seemed to activate fine. Seemed to be OEM keys actually.
Mind you, since I am citizen of the EU, it's 'legal' for me.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Nov 4, 2019)

I think with all the name changes I might have thought at first TrueOS was going Void Linux, too. 

But they're staying with FreeBSD which perfect sense at this point.


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## rootbert (Dec 4, 2019)

hm, ixsystems will introduce Linux support in 2020. I am more worried about that. Supporting two operating systems for their product costs money, so they might have a long term plan in their sleeves which I don't like. Container support in Linux land also makes it much easier for plugins and addons, and if the platform is the same on Linux and on FreeBSD there is no sense in keeping 2 supported systems. I don't want to spread FUD, but I am concerned and that's what I think.


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## vermaden (Dec 4, 2019)

rootbert said:


> hm, ixsystems will introduce Linux support in 2020. I am more worried about that. Supporting two operating systems for their product costs money, so they might have a long term plan in their sleeves which I don't like. Container support in Linux land also makes it much easier for plugins and addons, and if the platform is the same on Linux and on FreeBSD there is no sense in keeping 2 supported systems. I don't want to spread FUD, but I am concerned and that's what I think.


IMHO - in the long term - they will abandon FreeBSD in favor of Linux (as Delphix did with Illumos).

ZFS Storage is their primary selling product and ZFS on Linux is mature enough for production now.

You will see that future FreeNAS (or new name) will be based on Linux - unfortunately.


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## xavi (Dec 4, 2019)

Such is the way of the world, there is no room for sentiment in business.
What this does mean however, is that there may well be a gap in the market for another company to fill.
As one door closes, so another one opens.


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## shkhln (Dec 4, 2019)

rootbert said:


> hm, ixsystems will introduce Linux support in 2020.



You mean this post?


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## rootbert (Dec 4, 2019)

shkhln said:


> You mean this post?


yes


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## shkhln (Dec 4, 2019)

Well, I guess the logical followup to the last year TrueOS direction change would be a TrueNAS based desktop or something like that.

(No, not really.)


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## Crivens (Dec 4, 2019)

I would not worry too much. Soon they will try to tie ZFS with the init system, and people will face NAS boxes not properly rebooting.


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## kpedersen (Dec 4, 2019)

I personally prefer an OS that has less ties to a specific corporation. I notice that decisions tend to be less correct when governed by companies rather than developers.

My main worry would be funding; I know ixSystems has provided financial support in the past and developer / employee time to spend on a number of things which will be sad to lose.

That said, FreeBSD still has a large list of donors here so this certainly isn't the end!:
https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donors/

I have an actual dislike of current open-source desktop environments (all broken, bloated pieces of shite) so the fact that DE-centric PC-BSD (or other names) might discontinue doesn't at all affect me. That said, I do understand that some people might like modern DE's (possibly they weren't around to experience the days when DEs were acceptable and Sun Microsystems were actually performing sane user-studies on professional people rather than gamer kids). However, again this isn't the end; the ports collection or packages is still the correct way to install these kinds of software. Absolutely no need for a 3rd party distribution to do this.


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## rootbert (Dec 4, 2019)

I am just worried that FreeBSDs relevance is vanishing slowly by more and more companies jumping on the Linux brandwagon. I just don't like monopolies, and I don't like the fact that Linux is drifting away from its roots too much - systemd/linuxisms are creeping in which increases the amount of work for FreeBSD devs to port software.


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## kpedersen (Dec 4, 2019)

rootbert said:


> I am just worried that FreeBSDs relevance is vanishing slowly by more and more companies jumping on the Linux brandwagon.



True but it also used to be _"I am just worried that Linuxs relevance is vanishing slowly by more and more companies jumping on the Microsoft Windows brandwagon"_

History has repeatedly shown us that _relevance_ is not entirely aligned with _popularity_.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Dec 4, 2019)

My theory is Microsoft Windows was not a bandwagon at all but a result of Microsoft flooding the market back in the late 80's early 90's. People simply had no choice at that time anyway. Not really relevant to the subject at hand though...

I also prefer an OS where I have full control over the process of choosing how I want it to look if I am using it as a desktop. Server, who cares, it's all cli anyway, or should be. Whether I am using FreeBSD or Linux, I always build my desktop environment to my liking. The only one DE that I actually have found to be the least trouble at least in my experience, is Mate`. I was a big Gnome 2 fan though.


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