# proof that Linux ***



## graudeejs (May 4, 2011)

My sister bought new laptop - Dell Linux Inspiron M5030

Preinstalled Linux was Ubuntu 9.x
It worked fine, but since it was so old, first thought: "Let's upgrade" (Current version is 11.04)

Before upgrading I created backup DVD that was supposed to reset laptop to factory defaults.

After 3 hours of upgrade, it rebooted, but gnome was so laggy, that I decided to install fresh Ubuntu 11.04.
Nothing changed.

Then I downloaded OpenSuse and installed that, the result was about the same... quite unusable system. (I think my Pentium 3 @450Mhz performed better).

Then I tried to install ubuntu 10.x... guess what.... failed

After this I tried to installd Ubuntu 9.x that came with laptop.
Epic fail -- install didn't even started, something crashed...

After this I used backup dvd and tried to recover.... It hanged....

At this time it was about 3-4 am.

Being totally upset about "How great Linux is" I decided to try and see if I could Install FreeBSD on laptop.

I used script that I made for other laptop to create FreeBSD zfs system. everything worked fine.
Just installed KDE4 form ports. Every dam thing is working... 
So where all the Linux fan-boys come from?

Till now I could never imagine that I will not be able to install operating system on Laptop, that was pre-installed in first place.


P.S. Sorry if I made many mistakes in this post.. it's 6:26 am, and I haven't been sleeping yet
EDIT:
No flame-war, just telling like it is


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## carlton_draught (May 4, 2011)

If you are going to use Ubuntu, I would suggest using 10.04 LTS.

My method of deciding which version of Ubuntu to use:

Check out Ubuntu release EOL table.
Pick whatever has the longest time until EOL, that is more than a month or so old. In practice this usually means an LTS version.

Doing it that way will minimize the time spent upgrading and dealing with flaky stuff, somewhat at the expense of not having the latest and greatest.


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## vivek (May 4, 2011)

The only operating system allowed to use on laptop is RHEL here 4.x and 5.x. This is stable. If you want free go for CentOS. For cutting edge experience go with Arch or Fedora.


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## alie (May 4, 2011)

Both FreeBSD and Linux have pros and cons... can't tell which one is better.

Ubuntu, openSUSE are distros, they are not a Linux, the mistake made by the distro owner.


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## gkontos (May 4, 2011)

@killasmurf86,

What you just described is the result of "microsofting" linux.


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## graudeejs (May 4, 2011)

alie said:
			
		

> Ubuntu, openSUSE are a distro, its not a Linux, the mistake made by the distro owner.



Thanks, I know.
But my experience shows that different distros work very different on same hardware.


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## Pushrod (May 4, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> What you just described is the result of "microsofting" linux.



Every time I use a Linux desktop, which thankfully is not often, I get the feeling that they're trying to turn it into Windows 98.


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## roddierod (May 4, 2011)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Preinstalled Linux was Ubuntu 9.x
> It worked fine, but since it was so old, first thought: "Let's upgrade" (Current version is 11.04)



There is this saying that has worked very well for me:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."


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## ahavatar (May 4, 2011)

I always fresh-install Ubuntu because upgrading to a new release can fail. 

If your fresh-installed Ubuntu is very slow, it is usually because of a wrong video driver problem. Since the Linux kernel is quite new (less than a month old?) and a video driver depends on the kernel (this is a good thing (tm) you know?),  some video drivers (e.g. Nvidia proprietary one) do not work well yet.

Try to fresh-install Ubuntu 1 to 2 months after a new release to avoid this kind of problem. By then all these bugs will be ironed out.

One thing I like about the recent Linux distributions with the newest Linux kernel is that now I can play a video synced, flicker free. I hope FreeBSD will soon have the necessary kernel supports for this.


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## gkontos (May 4, 2011)

ahavatar said:
			
		

> One thing I like about the recent Linux distributions with the newest Linux kernel is that now I can play a video synced, flicker free. I hope FreeBSD will soon have the necessary kernel supports for this.


I play all my videos synced and flicker free. SD, HD, you name it... VLC


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## graudeejs (May 4, 2011)

ahavatar said:
			
		

> I always fresh-install Ubuntu because upgrading to a new release can fail.
> 
> If your fresh-installed Ubuntu is very slow, it is usually because of a wrong video driver problem. Since the Linux kernel is quite new (less than a month old?) and a video driver depends on the kernel (this is a good thing (tm) you know?),  some video drivers (e.g. Nvidia proprietary one) do not work well yet.
> 
> ...



Thanks for tip... but what's the point of releasing a distro which doesn't have proper driver support yet? (Ok, I know it's lInux... no logic needed).

Anyway, trying CentOS 5.6 now.... looks promising.


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## bbzz (May 4, 2011)

CentOS is ok. Arch/Slack are other two I would've consider installing on laptop, if ever need be (hopefully not). 
It's still linux, however. Same kernel, same drivers.
Your story reminded me of when I was dealing with Fedora long time ago. It was like walking trough a mine field.


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## graudeejs (May 4, 2011)

Another thing I hate about GNU/Linux is output of dmesg..... what a spam


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## Zare (May 4, 2011)

Don't even start on that. I've worked (implemented/developed on) IPCop (Linux network device distribution). The thing logs network connections in /var/log/messages. Imagine a daemonized tcpdump sniffing on wan interface logging everything in the goddamn main system log!

When you take away all the ugly linuxisms every distribution has, I'm good with Debian on PCs running as servers, Red Hat on real servers, and Arch on desktops. The latter is closest to BSD philosophy. 

That being said, I'm far more comfortable with developing and administrating any kind of Linux, than Windows.


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## UNIXgod (May 4, 2011)

How is arch closest to BSD philosophy? Just because there is a rc.conf file which doesn't act like FreeBSD rc.conf doesn't make it BSD-like.


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## bbzz (May 4, 2011)

Speaking of that..which linux does _feel_ closest to *BSDs? How's OpenSuse and portage?


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## fwaggle (May 4, 2011)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> How is arch closest to BSD philosophy? Just because there is a rc.conf file which doesn't act like FreeBSD rc.conf doesn't make it BSD-like.



While I agree with you that calling it "BSD-like" is a huge stretch (I shudder when people say Gentoo is "just like FreeBSD"), I found Arch to be the most comfortable distribution for me to adjust to. I keep trying to get the feel of Linux, and keep going back to FreeBSD. Not because Linux is inferior, but just because I don't feel like re-learning something when at present I have absolutely no need to.

But Arch does feel at least _a little_ like BSD, except that when it deviates (as its rc.conf is wont to do) it really bites you in the arse because you're completely astonished that something trivial doesn't work as you'd expect. So I suppose in that respect, it's probably better to go with something completely alien.


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## UNIXgod (May 4, 2011)

bbzz said:
			
		

> Speaking of that..which linux does _feel_ closest to *BSDs? How's OpenSuse and portage?



I have used Gentoo and Funtoo. Though portage is a nice package manager which was "inspired" by FreeBSD ports it's still not FreeBSD. Once you have your environment set up they way you want you still feel like it's just a disorganized mess outside the distro mechanisms. 

The one thing that has always killed me was no proper use of /usr/local like we do with BSD. It was explained on to me ##freebsd@irc that everything is third party on linux so it makes sense that there would be no separation of configs and user installed programs.

As for my opinion of Ubuntu... My god man!!! have some faith that your users might be smart enough to make one technical or personal choice for crying out loud. They even removed dash in place of bash for their startup scripts due to bashisms found present in them later. Is it really that hard to write simple bourne style in the places needed for speed.

Also the man pages suck on linux and I'd be curious why... especially at this point in it's maturity. Shuttleworth can't afford decent documentors? Or the legion of Stallman's worshipers?

The mis-conceptions of the user base really gets me as well. At a local Ruby user group I had an interesting conversation with an ex-perl programmer who flipped out when I made the suggestion to another user about evaluating 'zsh' for interactive use as an option over bash on his mac laptop. His logic was that bash is the most installed shell so therefor can be found on many systems and thus must have the largest library of scripts to cherry pick from. derp!

I explained to him about the finer points of using the Almquist shell for scripting but I have an idea he had no clue what I was speaking about. Also I am positive since he was in 'debate' mode that he left the conversation thinking that I was just as mis-informed as he was as for him he felt bash was the 'one and only true shell' for shell programming and interactive use.

Mind you I am pretty shell agnostic. I have used them all at some point in my life. 

So my biggest diatribe with the whole of ubuntu/linux would be what everyone complained about with windows years ago. It is not vender neutral nor does it make any attempt to stop new users... well it actually encourages new users to learn and use improper and non portable programming technique which they will keep for the duration of their programming careers.

My case in point:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/061078.html

In reality this is where the real cancer exists.


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## bbzz (May 4, 2011)

I feel that most of linux user base is there due to successful marketing. Users get sucked/locked into linux. Rarely does one switch directly from Windows to *BSD. In most cases they heard from a 'friend' or 'friend's friend' to try linux. 
I'm so positive that half of users would switch to FreeBSD if only they knew about it or had easier time setting up basic system/gui (no, PCBSD doesn't break it, it's just not the same thing. The feeling of successfully setting your own working environment is what works). I met dozens of people who switched to FreeBSD from linux. I've never met anyone who actual gave FreeBSD a chance, and said 'screw it, I'm going back' and went back to linux. FreeBSD is _easier_ to use than any linux distro.
Yeah getting off topic here but I think it would be better for FreeBSD to popularize/advertise itself more.


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## _martin (May 4, 2011)

Hm.. This sounds more like a problem between chair and keyboard than linux itself. You didn't even share any errors or comments on hiccups you ran into. 

Don't get me wrong - I love FreeBSD and I prefer it over Linux. But world is not just black or white. 

I never had any problems using Slackware or Debian (and I still use it on some servers). Oh, wait .. sorry - once. When I was not "informed" enough about LVM/raid and had trouble configuring it via debinstall.

You know - sometimes shi!t happens. And you have to deal with it - doesn't matter when or what with.


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## ahavatar (May 4, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> I play all my videos synced and flicker free. SD, HD, you name it... VLC



My understanding is when you use a compositing window manager, without a proper kernel support, you can't achieve that.


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## kpedersen (May 4, 2011)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> Every time I use a Linux desktop, which thankfully is not often, I get the feeling that they're trying to turn it into Windows 98.



Open-source desktop operating systems would never get their shit together to manage that lmao

Too busy adding stupid bloated 3D effects rather than a working desktop.

Only Microsoft and Apple can get away with this because at least they already have underlying working desktops (and monopoly of the desktop market).


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## graudeejs (May 4, 2011)

CentOS works great.
I even (manually) got wifi working for the first time


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## Zare (May 4, 2011)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> How is arch closest to BSD philosophy? Just because there is a rc.conf file which doesn't act like FreeBSD rc.conf doesn't make it BSD-like.



No Linux is BSD-like. And BSD-like doesn't equal similarity to BSD philosophy.

To clarify - "no bullshit" text mode installer, minimal base system, package manager doesn't touch system configuration files (contrary on Debian, where you install Apache for example, and it's automatically added to boot scripts and started), clear and commented configuration files.

Yes, it's a narrow set of characteristics, but it's IMHO more closer to the way you operate BSD than any other Linux distribution.


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## ian-nai (May 4, 2011)

In my not so great experience, Linux usually has better driver support than FreeBSD.  But, let's face facts, not even Mac OS X has driver support to rival Windows.  User interfaces aside, it's hard to run a free (beer/speech) OS in a desktop environment with limited/oddball driver support.  

I usually just refer family to whatever OS they're most familiar.  Giving them something they don't know is only going to make them call me more often and later at night   (That might sound cruel, but I have a HUGE family and I'm no sys-admin.)  But...if the driver problem were better resolved* I might be more inclined to push family toward a free (beer/speech) OS.

*I define driver issues to be "resolved" if I can walk into a brick and mortar store and either:
1.)  Be safe in assuming whatever shiny new piece of hardware I pick up will work with the free (beer/speech) OS.
2.)  Tell freely (given information on the package) whether or not a new piece of hardware will work with the free (beer/speech) OS.


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## Zare (May 4, 2011)

> Linux usually has better driver support than FreeBSD. But, let's face facts, not even Mac OS X has driver support to rival Windows



Drivers are nothing without hardware, and hardware is nothing without application software. You can do top grade multimedia production on both of them. You can't on Linux, and even less on FreeBSD.

If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.

Frankly, a new game or two, and composing, is the only thing that keeps Windows installed on this computer. I could live without those games, but not the latter.


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## kpedersen (May 4, 2011)

Driver support is a major issue for me too. The solution is to stop so many hardware manufacturers using so many different chipsets. It always astonishes me why manufacturers use completely closed undocumented chipsets rather than open ones which don't even need driver disks on windows.

Due to bad design and insanity, Windows Vista and above don't fully support my old GeForce 4600 graphics card, so in this case Linux (some, some not) / FreeBSD do provide better support.


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## ian-nai (May 5, 2011)

Zare said:
			
		

> D
> If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.



Hmm...audacity is in ports (though I haven't used it there).  In no way am I claiming much audio experience, but that seems like a really capable audio program.

You make a great point, though.


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## gkontos (May 5, 2011)

ahavatar said:
			
		

> My understanding is when you use a compositing window manager, without a proper kernel support, you can't achieve that.



I am not sure what you mean. But for video playback I use VLC on my Macbook my FreeBSD desktop and my wifes Windows7 workstation with the same results. I do use the nvidia driver so yes in a way a kernel module is loaded but I think that this is OS irrelevant.


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## gkontos (May 5, 2011)

Speaking of driver support...

There is a difference in the way UNIXes handle drivers from Windows. While drivers can load as modules most of them are build in the kernel at least critical ones. But even modules interact with the kernel in a total different manner. This can not happen with Windows or any other closed source OS for obvious reasons unless Microsoft decides to invest time and money. Manufactures have limited resources an API usually but they know that they have to release a driver if they want to sell their product. This often leads to poor software implementation.

With linux on the other hand there are tons of developers out there trying to bring the new drivers and most of the time they do an amazing job. It is not that rare to see a device working better on a linux box than on a windows box. But unfortunately this support has lead to a very heavy kernel. 

Personally I prefer FreeBSD the way it is with a kernel its modules and a world. Having a kernel only OS is something that really doesn't inspire me.


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## wokko (May 5, 2011)

Hey guys, if you want a good Linux Distro to put on a laptop try Sabayon (Gentoo base).

All my the laptops I've had Sabayon installed with out any problems and if there is , an update of the system fixes everything.


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## UNIXgod (May 5, 2011)

Zare said:
			
		

> Drivers are nothing without hardware, and hardware is nothing without application software. You can do top grade multimedia production on both of them. You can't on Linux, and even less on FreeBSD.
> 
> If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.
> 
> Frankly, a new game or two, and composing, is the only thing that keeps Windows installed on this computer. I could live without those games, but not the latter.



There is funding being provided for dvr support and such apps to be supported better on FreeBSD according to the last status update I read. I agree a push for multi track recording on FreeBSD would be awesome. I know linux has support for rme and m-audio cards. I don't know the reality of how well it fares to doing the same thing on windows or even mac. Last time I worked on a daw was a 400mhz mac running OS7. FreeBSD was around 4.3 and real time software synthesisers where just hitting the dsp plugin market. 

I had an opportunity to play with some sort of jack interface on my buddies debian setup years ago. I remember it was cool as you could "pipe" the output of one program into the other graphically. He also had this cool mastering utility called jammin. Without support for the prosumer audio cards though it doesn't matter how many audio ports we have since they will all be stuck for post production purposes anyway. 

shifting gears I recently picked up a lenovo x220 which I know currently has no video support under X as it's sandy bridge. I understand there is work being done on this as I am not going to be the only person effected. Will I still be able to run X with vesa driver? If not I'll run some sort of linux distro on the interim and ssh for my FreeBSD needs. Also is there a site to follow the progress of the sandy bridge graphics driver development?


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## Zare (May 5, 2011)

> I remember it was cool as you could "pipe" the output of one program into the other graphically



That's the way I've been doing it with Steinberg ASIO for the last 6-7 years. Basically you have physical sound interface channels, and a number of virtual ASIO channels. Route physical input into one virtual channel, then all sorts of programs can hook themselves to that channel to process audio in real time, and at the end you route it to physical output.



> I know linux has support for rme and m-audio cards. I don't know the reality of how well it fares to doing the same thing on windows or even mac



...and support for E-MU Systems. There are several capable programs for multitrack recording and MIDI sequencing, however there's a huge lack of professional effects. Just take a look how many guitar effect/rig simulators you have in form of VST, how many in LADSPA. Again, it's not the issue of quantity, it's the lack of a single professional effect that can do guitar modeling, for example.



> Without support for the prosumer audio cards though it doesn't matter how many audio ports we have since they will all be stuck for post production purposes anyway



I wanted to port drivers from ALSA for my E-MU sound interface. It's basically snd_emu10k1 but it requires firmware injection before device can operate. First of all, FreeBSD can't assign "real-time" privileges to standard user processes, meaning Jack or any other audio router won't really operate in low/no latency mode. Second of all, godddamn Linux and their ways, 90% of their audio software depends on ALSA. Yes, there's Ardour and Rosegarden in ports, just go and see what versions.



> Will I still be able to run X with vesa driver?



It should run ok, if your panel has a native resolution supported by VESA standard.


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## ahavatar (May 5, 2011)

gkontos said:
			
		

> I am not sure what you mean. But for video playback I use VLC on my Macbook my FreeBSD desktop and my wifes Windows7 workstation with the same results. I do use the nvidia driver so yes in a way a kernel module is loaded but I think that this is OS irrelevant.



For example, if you run Compiz and rotate the cube while playing a video. Is the video synced and flicker free? Stuff like this needs a kernel support and the recent Linux kernel started to support this. I don't know about Nvidia's closed binary driver, though.


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## Zare (May 5, 2011)

I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.


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## ahavatar (May 5, 2011)

Zare said:
			
		

> I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.



I guess that you don't need that, but that does not mean others don't need it. For example, if someone does some 3D CAD works, having synced, flicker free 3D images and videos is definitely a plus.


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## kpedersen (May 5, 2011)

ahavatar said:
			
		

> I guess that you don't need that, but that does not mean others don't need it.



An issue arises in that people with fast desktop machines can still use the desktop without the 3D effects, however those who do not have fast machines *cannot* use the desktop at all if it has 3D effects.
If desktop environments impose these effects on the user (like almost all desktop environments are doing (windows and OSX included)) then it is effectively like not even having those environments available to us at all. Which is obviously a massive regression from like 5 years ago before all this nonsense started.

I think eyecandy is a virus that needs to be destroyed. Not to mention that it looks childish. Though perhaps this is due to the younger generation starting to take over lol

(central package repositories and online activation which are similarly stupid should also be destroyed).


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## da1 (May 5, 2011)

Zare said:
			
		

> I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.



That pathetic eye-candy is one of the main reasons why people are attracted to Linux. Rotating the cube while playing a movies proves that Linux can better make use of resources than Windows (another reason why people are attracted to it). 

For those of us that do not use a X, it doesn't make much sense, but have in mind that 90% of the Linux community has a Windows background. I myself have started with Windows, went through Linux (several distro's) and ended up at FreeBSD and what attracted me the most, was compiz. The fact that I ended up with FreeBSD is a personal choice but I do not thik that more than 10% of the Linux users migrate to FreeBSD, the way I did.

Simply said, marketing helps


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## adamk (May 5, 2011)

One of the things to bear in mind about kernel modesetting is that it's about much more than pathetic eye-candy...  For example, Xorg provides no method for sync'ing to vblank normal 2D operations, making it impossible to get a truly tear free environment for any window, much less videos.  Perhaps this is not a big deal for some, but it certainly is for others.  Wayland should solve this problem, but requires KMS support in the open source drivers.  How about effectively using all the memory on your GPU?  That requires a memory manager, one of the features of KMS.  

Of course, the Xorg developers don't want to do double the work, adding new features (and new hardware support) to KMS drivers and UMS drivers, so now we have a situation where the latest intel and radeon GPUs won't work with acceleration (or HD modes) in FreeBSD.

FreeBSD is currently trying to play catch-up when it comes to KMS (and only for Intel GPUs) while falling further and further behind, unfortunately.


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## roddierod (May 5, 2011)

adamk said:
			
		

> For example, Xorg provides no method for sync'ing to vblank normal 2D operations, making it impossible to get a truly tear free environment for any window, much less videos.



The Nvidia driver has an option for this. Quite frankly, I really have no idea what this vblanking and tear free environment means as I'm not into graphics that much. But I have enabled and disabled this option and really have noticed no difference either way. How would I test this to see if it actually works?


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## adamk (May 5, 2011)

They actually have an option for this for 2D?  Because every time I've heard the subject of 2D tearing brought up on the nvnews forum, the response from nvidia developers has been that it's not possible without compositing.  

I can easily see tearing over here.  I'm not sure if there's a way, other than by looking for tearing, to see if that option is doing anything.

Adam


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## roddierod (May 5, 2011)

There is a option using the nvidia-setting program for sync'ing to vblank. I forget what section it is in off hand...not at my FreeBSD machine to check.


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## adamk (May 5, 2011)

Right, that's going to be for 3D acceleration.  You can test it by checking the output of 'glxgears' and seeing if it's the same as your monitors refresh rate.

Adam


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## ahavatar (May 6, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> I think eyecandy is a virus that needs to be destroyed. Not to mention that it looks childish. Though perhaps this is due to the younger generation starting to take over lol



Well, maybe I should have offered a better example than an eye candy like rotating a 3D cube while playing a video. I chose it because it was an easy example to make others understood.

The real issue is when you mix 2D and 3D on the same desktop, without proper kernel support, it can't be cohesive, synced and flicker free. It has nothing to do with the performance of the machine. And some people need to display 2D and 3D on the same desktop not for an eye candy but for a real work.


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## kpedersen (May 6, 2011)

Indeed, getting 2D and 3D on the desktop flicker free is very important. I see it as a benefit having modifications in the kernel to improve this.
3D Modelling and stuff works great on FreeBSD, so keeping up to date with that sounds like a good plan.

However, having great 3D support on FreeBSD (as with any OS) runs the risk that people will use it for the hell of it, such as eye candy etc... Which is absurd.

Kinda like using a server as a foot stool... Sure you *could* but it isn't an ideal use of a server


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## adamk (May 6, 2011)

There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy".  True transparency (being able to see behind a window without having to move it), zooming in on the entire desktop or magifying a portion of it, updated live thumbnails of windows, etc.

Adam


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## kpedersen (May 6, 2011)

adamk said:
			
		

> There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy".
> Adam



I think it is this argument that is winning out and causing Desktop Environments to get slooower and slooooooower.

Sure you can see what is behind a window because it is transparent... Good thing too because if you tried to actually move that window out the way you will probably overcook your CPU lol.

Was using Microsoft paint a few days back on Windows 7.. Even with all the eyecandy features and supposed functionality, I decided it was easier to boot up a windows 2000 VM and use an altogether much better older version of MS Paint. If this isn't a classic case of usibility regression... what is?


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## vertexSymphony (May 7, 2011)

adamk said:
			
		

> There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy".  True transparency (being able to see behind a window without having to move it), zooming in on the entire desktop or magifying a portion of it, updated live thumbnails of windows, etc.
> 
> Adam



Taking the load off the CPU for interface drawing is another win, also when it comes to video playing, or ... what about just doing some graphical computation ? (there is a very interesting academic background in this, not just "bling bling in my desktop" )

There are a lot of wins in having a proper (forget about eye-candy, that's just a side-effect and natural consequence of having things working), or at least minimal graphical support, but ... I see some people that tends to act with disdain when FreeBSD lacks in one area (and usually takes the question to another topics).

At the moment it's possible just with nvidia blob (btw, the version in ports it's a little outdated), not having opencl and cuda (just vÃ­a linux compat layer, stuff that saved me from linux/windows)

FreeBSD is just A-WE-SOME, but it kinda lacks in this department. 

Alex.


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## Crivens (May 7, 2011)

Soemhow I feel like piping in and doing some rant work also.

Some weeks ago, the laptop of my wife went connectors-up and was replaced by my old one. Simple transplantation of the disc and the ubuntu worked after setting up the new network interface. Some issues remain, which are that the system will still not boot when a DVD is in the drive (errors from the ata driver for the HD) and playing any DVD leads to a deadlock sooner than later. 
Ok, so I was slapping in a new HD and tried Fedora F14 out, only that one will also deadlock during install. Ubuntu also shows this, and I am under the impression that it has something to do with GEM/KMS being now part of the kernel and not liking the R200 based graphics of both hardwares. 

8.0 and 8.2 installed fine with no suprises. Ok, one suprise. You can install all of the DE of choice and then realize that you also have to install xorg to actually be able to use them :stud

So now checking if the account will be usable as before and if all linux software has a counterpart, connecting to the university VPN being one of the more important ones.


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## B0o-supermario (May 7, 2011)

No match for BSD+fluxbox/twm


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## B0o-supermario (May 7, 2011)

*Eye candy*



			
				ahavatar said:
			
		

> Well, maybe I should have offered a better example than an eye candy like rotating a 3D cube while playing a video. I chose it because it was an easy example to make others understood.
> 
> The real issue is when you mix 2D and 3D on the same desktop, without proper kernel support, it can't be cohesive, synced and flicker free. It has nothing to do with the performance of the machine. And some people need to display 2D and 3D on the same desktop not for an eye candy but for a real work.



Rotating cubes and high-level eye candy consume high resources... And high electric bills


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## sossego (May 8, 2011)

What's up and all?

Okay.

(Personal opinion here; you're free to argue against it.)
Utility and equipment are the first determinants of operating system base. From here, one can choose aesthetics or performance. If it is aesthetics, then cost and commonality are the deciding factors. When performance directs choice, we can progress to the argument at hand.
Generally, the populace of users want to transition more easily to a more secure solution. Professionally supported distributions of Linux+GNU-userland become the easiest selection. Be aware that nothing can change humanity's complacency, impatience, and other limitations except the individual from which it originates. Curiosity may drive another to choose a different operating system.
What was stated earlier in this thread holds true to some degree. People are not locked into Linux; they don't know or don't care how to learn another system. The standards for base applications are nearly parallel to the development and use of words. Most of us at this forum speak at least two languages, and many of us understand the differences between dialects. Try looking at the Linux-BSD choice argument the same way.


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## pkubaj (May 8, 2011)

Linux sucks, but:
1. The only OS even remotely close to Unix that I can use on my laptop is Linux, because of lack of GMA HD and Broadcom drivers for any other UNIX or UNIX-like OS than Linux.
2. My parents are not really tech-savvy. When they bought a separate computer for themselves I was told to "make it work well" (translation). I could install Windows for free (I have Technet subscription), Linux, or BSD (Mac was out of choice since I'd have to meddle with Hackintosh). I chose Ubuntu, because Windows has a lot viruses and BSD isn't really suitable for such people (even PCBSD). Ubuntu is just the most simple OS I've ever seen, perfect for them.


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## roddierod (May 9, 2011)

pkubaj said:
			
		

> I chose Ubuntu, because Windows has a lot viruses and BSD isn't really suitable for such people (even PCBSD). Ubuntu is just the most simple OS I've ever seen, perfect for them.



If you were to set up a FreeBSD/PC-BSD desktop using the same DE as Ubuntu - I don't know what it is Gnome or KDE I assume - with the same features and applications. What would be the difference to a "normal user". And by normal, I mean a person that calls "some that knows computers" when the font is too big.


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## adamk (May 9, 2011)

roddierod said:
			
		

> If you were to set up a FreeBSD/PC-BSD desktop using the same DE as Ubuntu - I don't know what it is Gnome or KDE I assume - with the same features and applications. What would be the difference to a "normal user". And by normal, I mean a person that calls "some that knows computers" when the font is too big.



Could be a big difference.  If the normal user has a recent Intel or radeon HD GPU (or an laptop with nvidia's Optimus), they are left using the vesa driver on FreeBSD.

And, trust me, there's a big difference between non-accelerated Xorg with vesa on FreeBSD, and the performance this normal user would see on Ubuntu.

Adam


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## Zare (May 9, 2011)

NetworkManager isn't supported in FreeBSD. AFAIK there's no tool available for FreeBSD that does that kind of job (central profile-based network management regardless of protocol (Ethernet, 802.11, Bluetooth)). A lot lesser consumer peripheral hardware support. You need to manually load kernel modules for devices. 

GNOME desktop relies on Linux-specific mechanisms that aren't normally used on FreeBSD. Linux kernel has more hardware support than FreeBSD. Installing Ubuntu's GNOME shell on FreeBSD won't give you same functionality.


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## ManaHime (May 9, 2011)

roddierod said:
			
		

> If you were to set up a FreeBSD/PC-BSD desktop using the same DE as Ubuntu - I don't know what it is Gnome or KDE I assume - with the same features and applications. What would be the difference to a "normal user". And by normal, I mean a person that calls "some that knows computers" when the font is too big.



I haven't tried with PC-BSD as I don't know it enough and I made my father migrate from Ubuntu (which use GNOME by default) However as I was configuring his Toshiba laptop I realised a couple of things that might a big difference for a "normal" users

For one, the WIFI configuration on FreeBSD is far from being use-friendly. If you want to share folders with a windows computer (with SAMBA) you can't use the GNOME interface to do so, you have to use either configuration files or SWAT (as far as I know).

It's not all that much but if you travel just a little with your laptop (like my father) ubuntu might come easyer to use


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## roddierod (May 9, 2011)

@Zare
I did not mean to use Ubuntu version of gnome on FreeBSD but to, use what is available in FreeBSD to do the same things as Ubuntu.

I guess for me, I never think of graphics when I think of normal desktop applications users so the intel, radeon driver may be a problem, but then again I remember when CGA was bleeding edge.

I have found this far easier than the wi-fi configuration utilites on my daughters Win7 laptop.

http://opal.com/freebsd/ports/net-mgmt/wifimgr/
net-mgmt/wifimgr


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## pkubaj (May 9, 2011)

roddierod said:
			
		

> If you were to set up a FreeBSD/PC-BSD desktop using the same DE as Ubuntu - I don't know what it is Gnome or KDE I assume - with the same features and applications. What would be the difference to a "normal user". And by normal, I mean a person that calls "some that knows computers" when the font is too big.



There would be no difference (they have old Geforce, no problem with support), but there would be a huge problem with updates. Ubuntu can update itself without any doing, but FreeBSD can't. Of course, there's cron, but many updates still must be done manually. They don't need to have the newest software, but security updates are the must, since they've already had their social website accounts hacked. And they need Skype and their webcam working well. I myself still haven't got Cheese to work properly (they need it) and there's no official Skype, except for some old version for Linux. So no, Ubuntu is really the best


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## ManaHime (May 10, 2011)

I don't see what's so bad about "some old version for Linux." for skype though, as long as you get voice chat (No idea about webcam as I don't have one)


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## biniar (May 10, 2011)

*My two cents*

I am a "Windows User" who switched to FreeBSD and is loving every minute of it!

Before I ever installed FreeBSD on my desktop successfully and kept it there... I tried a few Linux distributions. Some that I recall specifically are: Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, Debian and Gentoo. All those were great but what I really didn't like was having so much pre-installed software. Then realizing each distribution has a different take on installing software/dependencies. I thought the whole idea of using linux/unix as your desktop OS was to experience a completely custom setup system based on your needs (software, license, hardware, budget). It's my personal opinion to say Linux is all about marketing to new users with simplicity which is a great. I choose FreeBSD because it's a whole operating system not just a kernel and a bunch of third party add-on's and I can install just what I want.


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## ManaHime (May 11, 2011)

What made me choose FreeBSD and install it on my father's laptop was FreeBSD's OSS which, ihmo, is so much better then PUlse/ALSA :e


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2011)

I think we're starting to copy already existing topics more and more here, so I advise everyone to make their closing statements on this topic.


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## graudeejs (May 11, 2011)

Simply be care full: The fact that you bought laptop with certain Linux preinstalled doesn't necessary mean, that you will be able to upgrade or reinstall it.

That's what I learned


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## UNIXgod (May 11, 2011)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Simply be care full: The fact that you bought laptop with certain Linux preinstalled doesn't necessary mean, that you will be able to upgrade or reinstall it.
> 
> That's what I learned



I don't think ubuntu is really ready for prime time yet. Though I am amazed how far it's come since the project began since 2004. I'm sure the growing pains will stop eventually with the upgrade process. Even Apple and M$ has had their mis-fires in the past with incremental upgrades here and there as well as dealing with cruft. OSX wasn't primetime for almost 4 release cycles. 

I guess this is where FreeBSD benefits from a step by step semi automated single user mode driven upgrade process for world and separation of OS and third party ports. But I digress, FreeBSD suffered some issues as well during the 5.x era so nothing is infallible.

Shuttleworth announced that their goal is to build a user base up to 400 million in the next several years. It will be interesting to watch them attempt to hit that target. If it does how much does that offset M$ monopoly on consumer grade desktops. If anyone is interested here is the first bug report for ubuntu posted by Shuttleworth:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1


> Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
> This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.
> 
> Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
> ...



The laptop I just bought has certifications in linux under Redhat, Novell, and Ubuntu. Though I had no option for those OSes and was forced to pay the M$ tax per say.

It is cool that they market with the open source community in mind. Would also be nice if FreeBSD was on that list. Do we have a hardware certification program? Especially for laptops where changing out parts is not really an option.


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## Crivens (May 11, 2011)

There is a scene in "Around the world in 80 days" where they run a train over a weak bridge fast enough that the bridge collapses only after they are trough. The current linux way of releases and design reminds me of this. They try to go as fast as they can but sacrifice their ability to step back and rethink the result in that process because whatever they just did and what is now behind them is crumbling in some chasm behind them. This may leave them on some remote place, stranded. 

The fast pace makes abandoning of old structures mandantory, as they would serve as the 10. circle of hell for configuration management when you try to keep all the balls in the air at once. You would get stuck in the web. As one linux advocate had put it, it is fun to simply code away and not care. You have to not care or you would not get anything done. 

On the other hand, if something you threw overboard in, say, version 1.3 suddenly would be better now due to changes in the infrastructure, you have a hard time getting it back.

What i see on the *BSD side is the other approach which goes slower, but is more steady. How long did it take for the 4BSD scheduler to be officially replaced by the new one? Would some ten-fold increase in code complexity of it be worth the benefit of the improved performance and the time to get it as solid as the simple one? (This is only an example, I want to state that before I get flamed for this.) On Linux, you likely can not go back 2 or 3 versions because the rest of the other subsystems you used to depend on have changed and what did not change for you now depends on some aspects of the new solution. A good engineer tries to avoid that.

Thinking of this, would it be a good idea to strip the disc block elevator from the I/O queues for SSDs? These were put there to reduce head movement for "spinning rust" type of storage, but I think on SSDs they will more likely add latency to the IOPS.

Yes, I do not like the current way of the Linux development, and I prefer the BSD way. But on the other hand I see how it has come to pass, and I can not blame them.

How is that as a closing statement from my side?


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## ManaHime (May 11, 2011)

pkubaj said:
			
		

> [...]And they need Skype and their webcam working well. I myself still haven't got Cheese to work properly (they need it) and there's no official Skype, except for some old version for Linux. So no, Ubuntu is really the best



Well apparently they updated the port for skype and we have the last version of skype too now =)


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2011)

Thanks all! I think it's time we move on


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