# irkkaaja's little UI links thread



## irkkaaja (Jul 12, 2011)

I'm using this thread to post various links which I think present a good idea about desktop user interfaces. I come across these things regularly, and I'm tired of forgetting them, plus, putting them here has the potential to inspire someone. The other obvious motivation is that some people still aren't happy with free unix.

I'm leaning towards primarily articles that make specific suggestions, not complaints.

http://cafbit.com/entry/rapid_dhcp_or_how_do

http://usersinhell.com/unhappy-security-dialogs/

http://www.elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines/design-philosophy -- most of this is silly, but the philosophy is good


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 12, 2011)

Unless there is any FreeBSD-specific material in your link collection there isn't much point in using the FreeBSD forums as a general purpose bookmarks folder about generic desktop development. So where is this going?


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 12, 2011)

Since FreeBSD does not _have_ a desktop, does not _come_ with a desktop, does not _develop_ a desktop, does not _favor_ a desktop, and does not _endorse_, _recommend_, _suggest_ or _need_ a desktop to operate as an operating system, I'm dropping this in Off-Topic.

Still no idea where this is going.


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## irkkaaja (Jul 13, 2011)

Yeah, this could be going somewhere. I've got a few ideas, but nothing specific yet. Plus, I'm lazy and patient, not industrious and eager, so I have time in excess and effort in short supply.

There are sections of the handbook devoted to desktop usage. FreeBSD isn't a desktop system, but it is widely used as a basis for one, and I'm a fan of both the design and the culture. Adding a graphical execution manager to the kernel is currently considered a high priority by the project, so I'd say they're at least minimally aware of and concerned about the desktop. Besides, I've been through-and-through discussions like this for years (haven't we all?), so I hope you can believe me when I say I've got a decent idea of what I'm doing and where I'm going with it, which is basically to improve the user experience for people who choose to use graphical environments with FreeBSD without making any really significant changes (perhaps even no changes!) to the base system, and without introducing anything graphical into the base system. I've finally convinced myself it's possible to do that in a meaningful way.

The first link, should you read it, isn't just about graphical user environments: it's a change to the wifi authentication method that makes it significantly faster in a majority of cases, and has the potential to improve the end-user experience.

Let me put it this way: The ports tree works just fine. Does that mean portmaster was a waste of time?


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## wblock@ (Jul 13, 2011)

The DHCP speedup is interesting, and might be usefully discussed on the freebsd-net mailing list.

Dialogs are specific to applications or desktop environments, not FreeBSD.  For that matter, most users don't read more than the first few words of any dialog, if that. They'll hit Okay just as fast as they can, regardless of the warning.


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 13, 2011)

A graphical installer is still not a desktop


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