# Is FreeBSD ONLY for servers?



## Citsakots (Dec 10, 2008)

It seems that many people get mad when I mention Flash, FreeBSD and desktop in the same sentence. So I have a question. Is FreeBSD ONLY for servers? Isn't this against the so-called Unix philosophy? To me the beauty of FreeBSD is that it's up to the user what it will end up as. Am I wrong or something?

:stud


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## Kitche (Dec 10, 2008)

no on the ##freebsd channel on freenode many of us run FreeBSD as a desktop but many don't like Flash since there is no native support.


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## p3n1x (Dec 10, 2008)

i use it for my servers. also use it on my laptop. as for my desktop well its down to windows cuz of my gaming 

i used to dual boot but the point is moot really when i sit in a remote x session to my servers as well (i know tsk tsk dont do that)


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## MP2E (Dec 10, 2008)

I use FreeBSD as my default Desktop distrobution actually  I've tried many many Linuxes, Windows, Mac... But I've found my favorite right here, in BSD. The flash support is a bit of a setback, but the more signatures in the petition the better!

I find it works great for most of my needs, but after all, I did set it up according to my needs


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## hedwards (Dec 10, 2008)

I use it as my primary desktop. Really the only major annoyances are the lack of native 64bit flash, or really native flash at all, and the lack of 64bit nvidia drivers.

Most of the things that people commonly want to do apart from things that require those bits should work.


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## Ole (Dec 10, 2008)

Citsakots said:
			
		

> It seems that many people get mad when I mention Flash, FreeBSD and desktop in the same sentence. So I have a question. Is FreeBSD ONLY for servers? Isn't this against the so-called Unix philosophy? To me the beauty of FreeBSD is that it's up to the user what it will end up as. Am I wrong or something?
> 
> :stud



I using FreeBSD as server platform for hosting many nice OpenSource  project (like Apache/PgMySQL/Asterisk PBX and many other) since FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE. In sometime  trying use as desktop. From FreeBSD 6.0-Release i setup system to home and my office as DesktopOS and after no deinstall it up to the current point(currently use 7.1-PRE and 8.0-CURRENT i386/amd64 platform). 
Periodically (under influence very happy talks on some Linux-forum) i've tried install some Linux distributive (Ubuntu/CentOS/Fedora). But i not see something more in Linux with comparison to FreeBSD. Moreover on the contrary very difficult working in some Linux because its not laconic system like FreeBSD. So my periodic playing with Linux always finishing by removing Linux partition and unroll my FreeBSD backup back 
On my desktop station i always buy Nvidia graphics card but regrettably on amd64 platform official drivers still not ready. I very suffering from that. 
And in sometime in bright day i've starting business based on FreeBSD and certainly began to donate FreeBSD project for helping to make it the best of the best OS for Server and Desktop usage in the world  :stud


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## Ole (Dec 10, 2008)

Citsakots said:
			
		

> It seems that many people get mad when I mention Flash, FreeBSD and desktop in the same sentence. So I have a question. Is FreeBSD ONLY for servers? Isn't this against the so-called Unix philosophy? To me the beauty of FreeBSD is that it's up to the user what it will end up as. Am I wrong or something?
> 
> :stud



I using FreeBSD as server platform for hosting many nice OpenSource  project (like Apache/PgMySQL/Asterisk PBX and many other) since FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE. In sometime  try using as desktop. From FreeBSD 6.0-Release i setup system to home and my office as DesktopOS and after no deinstall it (currently use 7.1-PRE and 8.0-CURRENT i386/amd64 platform). 
Periodically (under influence very happy talks on some Linux-forum) i've tried install some Linux distributive (Ubuntu/CentOS/Fedora). But i not see something more in Linux with comparison to FreeBSD. Moreover on the contrary very difficult working in some Linux because its not laconic system as FreeBSD. So my periodic playing with Linux always finishing by removing Linux partition and unroll my FreeBSD backup back 
On my desktop station i always buy Nvidia graphics card but regrettably on amd64 platform official drivers still not ready. I very suffering from that. 
And in sometime in bright day i've starting business based on FreeBSD and certainly began to donate FreeBSD project for helping to make it the best of the best OS for Server and Desktop usage in the world  :stud


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## liamjfoy (Dec 10, 2008)

Ole said:
			
		

> I using FreeBSD as server platform for hosting many nice OpenSource  project (like Apache/PgMySQL/Asterisk PBX and many other) since FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE. In sometime  trying use as desktop. From FreeBSD 6.0-Release i setup system to home and my office as DesktopOS and after no deinstall it up to the current point(currently use 7.1-PRE and 8.0-CURRENT i386/amd64 platform).
> Periodically (under influence very happy talks on some Linux-forum) i've tried install some Linux distributive (Ubuntu/CentOS/Fedora). But i not see something more in Linux with comparison to FreeBSD. Moreover on the contrary very difficult working in some Linux because its not laconic system like FreeBSD. So my periodic playing with Linux always finishing by removing Linux partition and unroll my FreeBSD backup back
> On my desktop station i always buy Nvidia graphics card but regrettably on amd64 platform official drivers still not ready. I very suffering from that.
> And in sometime in bright day i've starting business based on FreeBSD and certainly began to donate FreeBSD project for helping to make it the best of the best OS for Server and Desktop usage in the world  :stud



As much as I enjoy using BSD calling it the best desktop in the world seems a little unrealistic haha. Thats just my opinion though 

However, I'm very impressed with the progress of PC-BSD.


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## Gemini (Dec 13, 2008)

I'd say, "not quite".

The Xorg video drivers for FreeBSD are a bit rough, especially in the area of XVideo and OpenGL.  Even our flagship Nvidia proprietary drivers are best used for Geforce 7-series cards.

Internet use is a bit rough, too.  The Java JRE libraries are a PITA to download and compile.  Flash, Shockwave and Silverlight have already been covered.  Firefox 3 seems to have all sorts of plugin issues.

AMD64 builds are not ready for the desktop at all.  No WINE, no accelerated Nvidia drivers, PITA managing I386 libs for legacy pre-compiled apps, buggy 3rd party code under 64-bit, etc..

But, sound support is actually quite good these days, almost to the point of exceeding XP.  26MB download for Realtek drivers under 2K/XP?  No thanks!

Also, the Ports collection [in general] makes up for a lot grief.  I have more utilities than I know what to do with.  That helps a lot.


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## sverreh (Dec 13, 2008)

Citsakots said:
			
		

> It seems that many people get mad when I mention Flash, FreeBSD and desktop in the same sentence. So I have a question. Is FreeBSD ONLY for servers? Isn't this against the so-called Unix philosophy? To me the beauty of FreeBSD is that it's up to the user what it will end up as. Am I wrong or something?
> 
> :stud



I don't think you are wrong. If you are wrong, so is the president of *The FreeBSD Foundation*:


> "We are very excited to be able to fund this project, which we know is of great interest to our users, especially in the desktop space," said Robert Watson, president of The FreeBSD Foundation.


http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/project%20announcements.shtml

He was not talking about Flash, but about removing USB-devices before unmounting. But anyway, the desktop environment is considered important by the Foundation!

So the *The FreeBSD Foundation* does *not* consider FreeBSD as a system for only servers!

And by the way, let's do as *Ole* proposed: Donate to the Foundation to help develop this marvellous system!
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/


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## susanth (Dec 15, 2008)

sverreh said:
			
		

> I don't think you are wrong. If you are wrong, so is the president of *The FreeBSD Foundation*:
> ...



Gud response with *PROPER EVIDENCE* 



			
				sverreh said:
			
		

> ...And by the way, let's do as *Ole* proposed: Donate to the Foundation to help develop this marvellous system!
> http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/



Yes Donation is very very important.

Interesting is that: FreeBSD foundation allows even tiny amounts ($1-$19) as donation and acknowledge the same in the list! (It motivates others to join the list)http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml

Now, just 69 members are in the list of $1-$19.

If we convince the importance of donation in our friend circles;
500 peoples * $2.0 will result in $1000 !!!!
Still it may be a small amount. But Increasing the habit of
Contribution to 5000 peoples (in future) will surely make WONDERS.

I guess $2.0 to $5 is really an amount affordable for any willing to donate desktop user.

I have already done my part ( "youNIX computers" 3rd from bottom).

This is the right time to help. As of now, $97524 is required to meet this years goal. Just 16 days more


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## sverreh (Dec 15, 2008)

Very good Susanth!

And now an advice for all the rest of you who are _rushing_ to press the donations button on the Foundation's website: If you donate by pressing the *DONATE NOW * button, there is a field where you can specify your preferences and give feedback to the Foundation. Great! You can tell them what you want them to give priority to.

To avoid misunderstandings: I am in no way connected to the Foundation, I am just one of hundreds of happy donors. The Foundation, the FreeBSD developers and maintainers are doing a fantastic job to give us the best operating system in the world. For free! :e

*Support them! Donate now! (Or tomorrow, or both)*  :e


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## DutchDaemon (Dec 15, 2008)

FreeBSD is not only for servers. It is, however, BASICALLY A SERVER OS. All desktop functionality is added on top of that, so it is an added bonus, with its own line of development. But there's no denying that FreeBSD is a server OS from the ground up.


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## Pushrod (Dec 16, 2008)

I use FreeBSD on all of my servers where the choice was mine. However, on the desktop, I wouldn't even consider it. When my old PC died, I had to use my FreeBSD file server as a desktop for about 6 weeks, and it was terrible. 

I know that this makes me a corporate shill, but I've had a lot of success with Vista64 running Cygwin. I find it a lot more stable and easier to use than using a nix desktop and emulating Windows for games. Vista has a bad reputation, but I don't see why because it has been rock solid for me ever since, besides some issues with old hardware. I cannot say the same for FreeBSD on the desktop, as much as a I want to.

I just don't have time for X and the applications written for it. Having a GTK app next to a QT app next to a Motif app (etc etc) makes me feel like I'm using 10 OSes at once. I figure I could squabble with all of that stuff trying to make it play nice together, or I could use Windows and put on Cygwin to give me a decent shell and some other unix utils that I like. Having Flash is nice too.

So for me, FreeBSD is only a server OS, but I don't blame the FreeBSD team, I blame the idiots that made X and many of the apps for it. As Jordan Hubbard once said, "I think X will probably remain the DOS of window systems".


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## hydra (Dec 16, 2008)

I have been using it as a desktop for more than 3 years, yeah no new flash... but youtube works with linux-flashplugin7.


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## Djn (Dec 17, 2008)

I've never understood the trouble people have with X. It's a reasonably solid, quite extensible system that has worked well for ages and still does fine. It's not even slow, despite what people claim now and then.


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## gullit (Dec 20, 2008)

Depends on your needs.
I could use FreeBSD as desktop, but i think Linux meets better my needs as Desktop, so I use FreeBSD as a server.


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## jackie (Dec 20, 2008)

I'am using freebsd as my desktop ,and I think it's great!


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## cracauer@ (Dec 20, 2008)

Still run it on two notebooks, one of them my main notebook.

These days the biggest annoyance is usually some Xorg breakage, so it really doesn't matter much whether you run FreeBSD or Linux 

I don't use GNOME or KDE, though.


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## Maurovale (Dec 20, 2008)

My Destkop runs only FreeBSD, and I have no problems, except nvida drivers for 64bits.

I'have flash9 with some patches running and its great, there is nothing that vista or linux do that I can't do in my FreeBSD box, except playing games.

But for games there is the consoles right ? also I only play a game or too


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## tomh009 (Dec 20, 2008)

Djn said:
			
		

> I've never understood the trouble people have with X. It's a reasonably solid, quite extensible system that has worked well for ages and still does fine. It's not even slow, despite what people claim now and then.



There is no doubt that X works and is stable, and on modern hardware it can even be fast.

But as *Pushrod* implied, one of the big problems is that "X" doesn't define enough: it's only the windowing, not the environment or the application look and feel, which is instead defined by the toolkit libraries used by the application developer.  The end result is that in general the applications are not consistent -- unless you choose them based on the toolkit (for example, GTK) they use.

Like *Pushrod*, I use Vista on my laptop.  I get the application choice, while still having access to cygwin tools -- and to my FreeBSD servers!


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## Djn (Dec 20, 2008)

I don't really see how that is a problem with X, though. 

It's not like the display layer in windows or OS X defines a look+feel or a windowing toolkit, either - what happens on those platforms is that one toolkit (Win32 and Appkit, if I'm not entirely mistaken) is bundled and supported by the OS vendor, so developers tend to use it. [1] If there was just one big linux distro, and it was put together by Trolltech, you'd see much the same effect with Qt there.

Oh, and windows is even worse at this than my current FreeBSD+KDE desktop - I don't think I have two windows apps that look the same.


[1] And of course, the apple HIG seem to have a certain influence on their thirdparty developers - I'm not about to speculate on why, but that's _definitely_ not enforced by their display layer.


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## tomh009 (Dec 20, 2008)

Djn said:
			
		

> It's not like the display layer in windows or OS X defines a look+feel or a windowing toolkit, either - what happens on those platforms is that one toolkit (Win32 and Appkit, if I'm not entirely mistaken) is bundled and supported by the OS vendor, so developers tend to use it. [1] If there was just one big linux distro, and it was put together by Trolltech, you'd see much the same effect with Qt there.



Yes, this is essentially the issue.  Win32 includes the whole set of tools, so almost everyone uses it.



			
				Djn said:
			
		

> Oh, and windows is even worse at this than my current FreeBSD+KDE desktop - I don't think I have two windows apps that look the same.



Really?  Apart from little skinned applets (MSN Messenger, ThinkVantage tools) the core Windows apps I use tend to be fairly consistent.  But of course I only use a small subset of what's out there ...


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## Gemini (Dec 22, 2008)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> I just don't have time for X and the applications written for it. Having a GTK app next to a QT app next to a Motif app (etc etc) makes me feel like I'm using 10 OSes at once.



I agree.  The widget toolkit war in X between GTK, QT, Wx and Motif is a major issue that the FreeDesktop folks need to iron out.  This isn't just an issue for FreeBSD, but rather, for all open source operating systems that mainly rely on X.

Looking back in history, AmigaOS went through a similar war.  Commodore introduced a standardized toolkit for the Amiga called Gadtools in their second version of AmigaOS.  However, due to development stagnation, a pair of third party toolkits, Class Act and Magic User Interface, were released around the time of the third version of AmigaOS.

Custom visual preferences could not easily be shared between the different toolkits.  Each toolkit varied in the level of customization they offered, as well as utilizing their own preference utilities.  The result was the degradation of application GUI uniformity.

Meanwhile, petty flame wars tore through various segments of the user community, with some users praising Class Act, others praising MUI, and still more thinking that everyone else was crazy and needed to get a real life.  Smaller independent programmers often developed their application at a feverish pace to stay ahead of their competition, who often used the opposing 3rd party toolkit.  Larger commercial developers tended to stick with Commodore's Gadtools.

Even after the collapse of Commodore and the discontinuation of the classic Amiga line, this war continued to play on.  The later intellectual property owners of the Amiga chose to integrate the Class Act code base into the fourth release of AmigaOS.  Meanwhile, the open source AROS and mixed source MorphOS projects integrated the MUI into their respective operating systems.

Amusingly, many of the issues being debated between QT, GTK and the like were the same ones fought between Class Act and MUI.  Unless a specific effort is made to merge the QT and GTK trees, I suspect that the two will continue to develop in parallel for some time, splitting the X community in half.


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## Djn (Dec 23, 2008)

tomh009 said:
			
		

> Really?  Apart from little skinned applets (MSN Messenger, ThinkVantage tools) the core Windows apps I use tend to be fairly consistent.  But of course I only use a small subset of what's out there ...



XP + winamp + firefox + lightroom + ventrilo + MSN + netbeans + openoffice.org. Oh, and I've been known to use Kate from the windows port of KDE 3, but that's sort of asking for it.

Of these, Ventrilo and most of XP itself are straightforward Win32 apps with the default look. Firefox, O and netbeans make attempts to fit in, and Lightroom + MSN + Winamp look completely different.

I guess it comes down to how you count the "attempts to fit in". Using Firefox as the example, it's slightly off: Consider how the toolbar buttons are custom, while konqueror uses the same ones as the rest of KDE. Or look at the "tabs" in the option menu - I quite like the way you chose subsections, but it's not exactly a standard Win32 widget.  Not that it's a bad integration job, far from it - but it's good theming + use of native dialogs, not a native Win32 app.

This Ars Technica article is also relevant, and I quite like the screenshot.


@ Gemini:
Remember that the Gtk/Gnome and Qt/KDE camps contain much more than GUI toolkits. Qt is mainly a C++ environment, while gtk itself is C with a homebrew object model - of course, both have assorted bindings. Gtk apps generally use glib, while Qt provides similar things. Gnome and KDE have very different ideas about usability/defaults/configurability. They use different licenses - Qt is GPL, while Gtk is LGPL. 

This goes on, but basically: They're separate camps of people that prefer different things, and the GUI toolkit part is not really the biggest divide. Trying to unite them in a Qtk/GnomeDE - mashup would end in tears, and picking just one throws away too much.

On the positive side, the problems are rather overrated. I just wrote a lot of text in KDE, with LaTeX, kate, konsole, konqueror, okular, and the odd one out: dia. The theme is slightly different and I hate the gnome file selector dialog, but as problems go that's peanuts. The fact that I'm using an app from this entirely different background and those two are my largest complaints illustrates how _well_ this works, if anything.


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## Gemini (Dec 23, 2008)

Djn said:
			
		

> This goes on, but basically: They're separate camps of people that prefer different things, and the GUI toolkit part is not really the biggest divide. Trying to unite them in a Qtk/GnomeDE - mashup would end in tears, and picking just one throws away too much.




Interestingly, the same issues plagued the products I mentioned earlier.  One was a more minimalistic product that acted as a natural extension of existing GUI functionality, the other was a revolutionary feature-rich suite.  They came with radically different programming interfaces, resource consumption and flexibility.  The camps were very polarized because they played to very different segments of the user base.

While a complete merger of the multiple X/GUI kits, as you noted, may be philosophically impossible, cooperation between them is not.  I was very pleased to see my GTK applications under KDE4 pick up at least some of the system preferences, as well as KDE4 including a dedicated sub-panel to tweak it even further.

I think the X community, including FreeBSD, would be better served if certain areas of each project were standardized.  Applications from both camps would then be able to inherit a set of common, global preferences.  While the engine under the hood might be different, the exterior would be similar.  That would quiet some of the complaints.

IMHO, the more the major projects can share, the better.  It takes a lot of time and computing cycles to build all of the various toolkits required by apps in the Ports tree.  The more that gets consolidated, the easier it'll be for everyone.


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## Pushrod (Dec 23, 2008)

My complaints about incoherence between different toolkits or whathaveyou doesn't stop at the look and feel of them. 

On an X system, if I select text in Firefox, and right-click and choose Copy, then paste into another app using right-click paste, it will work as expected. This is how it works on win32. Now, if I just select text in Firefox, and then middle click in another app, that will work too. The only problem is, these two methods are using two different clipboards!

Not only that, but what the hell is with copy-on-select anyways? I sometimes select text on a webpage while I am reading it to keep track of where I was, or because the site colour scheme sucks and I have to. This of course copies it to the clipboard, which I in no way wanted. On Windows, ^C and ^V or right-clicking always works, without failure. Not only that, but copying _formatted_ data between remote desktop sessions works as well. And isn't the whole point of X to be the client/server thing?

Don't get me wrong, I hate Windows too, but I at least know what I am dealing with. I'd rather deal with the enemy I know than 25 enemies that are ever-changing.


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## Djn (Dec 23, 2008)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> My complaints about incoherence between different toolkits or whathaveyou doesn't stop at the look and feel of them.
> 
> On an X system, if I select text in Firefox, and right-click and choose Copy, then paste into another app using right-click paste, it will work as expected. This is how it works on win32. Now, if I just select text in Firefox, and then middle click in another app, that will work too. The only problem is, these two methods are using two different clipboards!
> 
> ...




Copy on select is actually one of those things I miss in windows. It's an extremely quick and easy way to move small snippets of text from one window to another, and that it's separated from the other clipboard is a bonus - exactly because it would be too easy to overwrite your (normal-style) copied data otherwise.

Clipboard integration over forwarded X is indeed a bit iffy, but it's also a separate issue.


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## Djn (Dec 23, 2008)

Gemini said:
			
		

> I think the X community, including FreeBSD, would be better served if certain areas of each project were standardized.  Applications from both camps would then be able to inherit a set of common, global preferences.  While the engine under the hood might be different, the exterior would be similar.  That would quiet some of the complaints.
> 
> IMHO, the more the major projects can share, the better.  It takes a lot of time and computing cycles to build all of the various toolkits required by apps in the Ports tree.  The more that gets consolidated, the easier it'll be for everyone.



As you might already know, freedesktop.org is working on exactly these things with reasonable success. Which is why I'm just vaguely annoyed by the doomsayers, instead of worried: Gnome and KDE apps already work fine together and people are working on improving it further, so thinking that _this_ is what's holding OSS desktop adaption back is silly.

And no, I'm not really counting you in the "doomsayer"-group.


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## syadnom (Dec 26, 2008)

PC-BSD is stock freebsd7 packaged and ready for the desktop.  Of coarse you can take a stock freebsd7 system and install your favorite desktop environment also, PC-BSD just packs it up nice for you.

freebsd is not just for servers though it is awesome for them..


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