# FreeBSD more like Chrome OS?



## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

Hi, I figured it out that I am using FreeBSD just like Chrome OS is made. I mean, I use it for only fundamental applications and code and the rest i I use it for web. Since it's impossible to made Windows or Mac (even Linux) ecosystem of apps, how about making something similar to what Chrome OS is? An ecosystem of web apps? (E.g. use Pixlr instead of Photoshop)

And thus make FreeBSD's interface similar to Chrome OS by functionality.


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## scottro (Feb 16, 2016)

FreeBSD is primarily designed as a server OS.  There are only so many developers, and so much time, therefore, while there are lots of things that would be nice to have, the developers usually concentrate on making it a better server, rather than a better desktop. There are people working on the desktop aspect of things, but they also have a limited amount of time, therefore, unfortunately, FreeBSD does lag behind Linux in things like wireless card support, video card support (the somewhat common later Intel Haskell card, for example, isn't supported.)

There is a bright side to this, though, at least in the opinion of many who use FreeBSD.  As some of your other posts mention that you use Linux, (and I think you mentioned Mint), you might see how certain decisions would make running a server a bit more of a nuisance.  Many of the decisions made in Fedora, in my less than humble opinion, seem to be aimed at the single user laptop, which is fine, till it gets into RedHat Enterprise Linux and suddenly, any user can use a GUI to update packages without administrative credentials.   

So, there are pluses and minuses.  You are making many suggestions based on your wishes as a desktop user. There probably isn't enough manpower to put all of them into practice, even if there was agreement that they're all good.

You might have better luck with the PCBSD people, who are more interested in making a good desktop, and, as far as I know, are still placing a lot of emphasis on said easy to use desktop.  

This doesn't mean that your points are invalid, it is just that (generally speaking) most FreeBSD users are more interested its server aspects, and while it certainly can be used as a desktop, it will take more effort than making a Linux desktop.  


TL;DR
Reasonable points, but FreeBSD is primarily a server OS and probably doesn't have the manpower to investigate all the aspects of a desktop that some of the Linux distributions have.


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## ANOKNUSA (Feb 16, 2016)

scottro said:


> This doesn't mean that your points are invalid...



Well, to be blunt, there wasn't really any point in the first place. Nicushor just asked a question: "Why not do it?" And the simple answer is "FreeBSD is not ChromeOS, or anything like it."

There's a simple philosophical question, pertinent to many facets of life, that few people ever seems to ask: If everything is to be the same, why bother even claiming to have "different" things? If ChromeOS does what you want, the way you want it to, use ChromeOS. If FreeBSD doesn't do what you want, the way you want it to, well, that's not a problem. You simply don't want FreeBSD, and the mere act of changing one thing to be like another thing _just gives you two copies of one thing_. It doesn't matter that you call them by different names; they're effectively the same.


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

Fine, but what happens when I like FreeBSD's style? I have a feeling that it looks at the world from bottom to up, rather than from up to bottom - if you know what I mean. I feel that it is somehow more rigid and rough. Since I like the style, who can tell me what not to do with it (and I am only looking for people who think and feel the same and can help me). In this way, can all the fancy apps like Photoshop (or it's alternative) travel to the cloud and become just what OnLive and PlayKey became for gaming? Don't you agree with me? (I think that this 'weakness' of FreeBSD of not having the apps like 3ds max, will become a strength if it will be only possible to use it in a 'social' way like cloud gaming).


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 16, 2016)

Just being in "the cloud" isn't what makes these things work. There still needs to be conversions and interfacing (and licensing) for that.

That 3dsMax, or any software, doesn't run on FreeBSD is no weakness of FreeBSD. It's that the developers chose not to make it compatible with FreeBSD and there is nothing stopping them from doing that.

FreeBSD is not the programs you run.


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## Maxnix (Feb 16, 2016)

Chrome OS's "cloud behaviour" is not a particular characteristic of the OS itself, but of its GUI and of the programs that run on top of it. How drhowarddrfine said:


drhowarddrfine said:


> FreeBSD is not the programs you run.


This is valid for every OS. Letting you enter in the cloud computing world is competence of the programs you run, that should be able to interface themselves with those type of services (in this case Google's ones).


Nicushor said:


> Since I like the style, who can tell me what not to do with it


No one, of course. This would defeat the opensource spirit that drives FreeBSD. But one thing can: the (non) availability of the instruments you need.
And this is not FreeBSD's failure. If Chrome OS's GUI would be available and compatible with FreeBSD, you could install it without problems.
You could make this comparison even between, for example, Chrome OS and Slackware: both are Linux-powered OSes, and what differences them (in usage terms) is the set of preinstalled applications.

At least,  but not last, how already said by ANOKNUSA:


ANOKNUSA said:


> FreeBSD is not ChromeOS, or anything like it


This simply because they have a different targets: Server OS (FreeBSD) and Cloud-oriented Desktop (Chrome OS).

In brief: It is only a matter of preinstalled and preconfigured applications, availability of this ones, and projects' target.


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

So, you are absolutely happy that FreeBsd is only a "server" os and you wouldn't like to make it a kind of vice-versa of Mac for your desktop? (because it's so well organized)


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## wblock@ (Feb 16, 2016)

FreeBSD is an operating system.  It can be used to build servers, but it can also be used to build desktops or embedded devices.  Sometimes customizing the operating system is needed, like reducing power consumption for embedded things.

For a "desktop environment", FreeBSD can pretty much be used as-is.  The additional stuff is layered on top.


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

wblock@ said:


> FreeBSD is an operating system.  It can be used to build servers, but it can also be used to build desktops or embedded devices.  Sometimes customizing the operating system is needed, like reducing power consumption for embedded things.
> 
> For a "desktop environment", FreeBSD can pretty much be used as-is.  The additional stuff is layered on top.



This is from where I start, can this "top" be made also in BSD-style? For example bsdMusic, something similar to Apple Music or Google Play Music. And make it a collaboration w/ BSD. This is my suggestion.


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## jrm@ (Feb 16, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> FreeBSD is not the programs you run.





wblock@ said:


> For a "desktop environment", FreeBSD can pretty much be used as-is.  The additional stuff is layered on top.



This and this.  Sure it would be nice if the latest video or wireless cards were supported sooner, or if the buggy BIOS/UEFI from laptop manufacturers just worked as intended.  Often the problem simply isn't that we, the community, don't step up, but that we are blocked by a lack of specifications, closed code, or other software developers just don't target FreeBSD.  I am skeptical that "the cloud" is a  panacea.  Idealologies aside, I have to agree with RMS on this one, "If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whomever developed that software."


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## kpa (Feb 16, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> This is from where I start, can this "top" be made also in BSD-style? For example bsdMusic, something similar to Apple Music or Google Play Music. And make it a collaboration w/ BSD. This is my suggestion.



Start writing code, contribute. This is my suggestion.


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## wblock@ (Feb 17, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> This is from where I start, can this "top" be made also in BSD-style? For example bsdMusic, something similar to Apple Music or Google Play Music. And make it a collaboration w/ BSD. This is my suggestion.


There needs to be a good reason to reinvent something.  In this case, what is the problem with existing music programs?  One of the tenets of the "BSD way" is pragmatism.

Not sure what "collaboration with BSD" means.  There is no one organization that is BSD, or even one version of the operating system.


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## johnblue (Feb 17, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> Don't you agree with me?


The cloud is evil and should not be trusted for anything except for as a CDN.

But that is just me.


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## kpedersen (Feb 17, 2016)

Can you not just grab a full screen window manager, run firefox on startup and carry on using those (terrible) cloud services that are temporarily trending?
Chrome OS doesn't really provide much more than that anyway.


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## Nicushor (Feb 17, 2016)

Ok, ppl, I see that nothing will happen till I don't start making service's like OnLive for everything is good on Mac and give everybody access to use them for free. And also a one big config file to smooth everything visual :-D like typography. Then FreeBSD will be on par with other oses for PC.


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 17, 2016)

You are confusing FreeBSD, the operating system, with a Mac, a computer environment. Mac is not an operating system. Mac is a complete system including every day  user programs. FreeBSD does not include such things cause it's not a complete computer environment for every day users.


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## ANOKNUSA (Feb 17, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> Since I like the style, who can tell me what not to do with it [?]



Nobody. My point isn't that you can't do what you will with it---the code is freely available precisely because the creators/maintainers _want_ you to use it to do cool things. But whether you can do something is never the first question one should ask when considering an undertaking.

One of the things that first attracted me, as a Linux user, to *BSD was that in the BSD world (contrary to the Linux world), developers and designers ask a very important question: When considering change, where exactly is the line between "improving" a thing, and fundamentally altering what that thing is? Changes to the *BSDs are made when the developers figure they improve upon the experience that users already enjoy, rather than making the experience completely different just because a handful of people thought it would be "cool." Most users have a relatively well-defined vision of what FreeBSD is, and they enjoy it, while most developers have a relatively well-defined vision of what FreeBSD is supposed to be, and choices are made based on better realizing that vision for the benefit of users.

You say you like FreeBSD's "style." I like it to. So does everyone else who uses it, to one degree or another. So before asking "Why not make these changes to FreeBSD?" or "Can I make these changes to FreeBSD?" you have to ask, "Can certain changes be introduced to FreeBSD without also changing the definition what FreeBSD actually is?" That is, can you make FreeBSD into something approximating ChromeOS and still reasonably call the result "FreeBSD?" It is logically inconsistent to say "this thing would be better if it were like this other thing," because when you make one thing sufficiently like another, you no longer have two distinct things. You have changed the fundamental nature of the first thing, such that it can no longer be defined in the same way. Case in point: OS X is not "FreeBSD with a fancy GUI." It's a wholly distinct entity that was begun using some FreeBSD code.


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## zspider (Feb 21, 2016)

Some of us came to these places to get away from the control freak, locked down, cloud OS garbage.

But there's nothing stopping you from making your own ChromeOS knockoff - it just won't be at everyone elses expense.


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## TiberiusDuval (Mar 11, 2016)

Hmm for desktop use, if you want FreeBSD why not PC-BSD it's makers have done quite many years of work to get it work properly and nowadays using it is pretty decent experience. Assuming you have hardware fully supported by FreeBSD.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 12, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> So, you are absolutely happy that FreeBsd is only a "server" os and you wouldn't like to make it a kind of vice-versa of Mac for your desktop? (because it's so well organized)



I'm very happy with FreeBSD as a desktop. And I'm not keen on PC-BSD. We're all different in our tastes.


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## zspider (Mar 14, 2016)

TiberiusDuval said:


> Hmm for desktop use, if you want FreeBSD why not PC-BSD it's makers have done quite many years of work to get it work properly and nowadays using it is pretty decent experience. Assuming you have hardware fully supported by FreeBSD.



It's also improper and a waste of valuable money for people to demand that efforts be duplicated.


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