# Having a unified Desktop enviroment



## geos (Mar 3, 2011)

Hello

I know we have the ability to choose between different desktop enviroments (GNOME, XFCE, KDE) and windows managers for X. As FreeBSD roots to UNIX, wouldn't it be best to promote a unified UNIX windows manager as the default? The development would be easier and so the support. Also it would be easier for the newbies. OPENCDE looks good and promising - much more unix like than the others. XFCE maybe or JDE. This would contritube for wider spread of the operating system.


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## SirDice (Mar 3, 2011)

X and everything related like Gnome, XFCE, etc. are not part of FreeBSD.

If you want something that installs a complete desktop environment out of the box have a look at PC-BSD.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 3, 2011)

And the 'fun' of it being add-on software is that you're spoiled for choice. FreeBSD is just the engine underneath.


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## kpedersen (Mar 3, 2011)

If OpenCDE became the standard unified desktop environment for Unixes such as FreeBSD, that would be an awful lot of stress for the (obviously highly skilled and awesome ) developer.

Though some consistency would be cool. I do find that things in the (open-source) unix world do change very quickly. Unlike lets say... Windows 95's GUI shell type thing 

However stagnant software probably shouldn't be confused with being unified haha.


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## SirDice (Mar 4, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> If OpenCDE became the standard unified desktop environment for Unixes such as FreeBSD, that would be an awful lot of stress for the (obviously highly skilled and awesome ) developer.


That's highly debatable. For every person that would like OpenCDE I can probably also find one that doesn't. And that's the great thing about FreeBSD, nobody is _forcing_ you to use anything. You can _choose_ which window manager or DE you want.


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## geos (Mar 4, 2011)

I mentioned opencde as an example- i do like it. You can have gnome or jde as solaris does by default. I don't like KDE but that is my opinion.


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## SirDice (Mar 4, 2011)

geos said:
			
		

> I mentioned opencde as an example- i do like it. You can have gnome or jde as solaris does by default. I don't like KDE but that is my opinion.



Or, you can install nothing by default and let the user choose. Oh wait, that's how it's done right now :e


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## ckester (Mar 4, 2011)

As far as I'm concerned, the standard unified desktop environment consists of the programs in /bin and /usr/bin. 

Some of us still hold to the original idea of the "Unix programming environment".  If you don't recognize that quotation, however, you probably won't get the point.


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## jnbek (Mar 13, 2011)

I thought Vim was the unified desktop environment for UNIX.


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## kpedersen (Mar 13, 2011)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Or, you can install nothing by default and let the user choose.



I choose gnome 1... but I guess that isn't really a choice :/

I guess it is similar to the fact that I can choose any color car... as long as it is red, slow, bloated, requires a modern CPU and shedloads of ram!



			
				jnbek said:
			
		

> I thought Vim was the unified desktop environment for UNIX.



Unix geeks cannot even agree on that 

vi
nvi
vim
...

(And that isn't taking into account that some find emacs preferable for a simple console text editor)


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 13, 2011)

So long as 'a desktop environment' is not part of FreeBSD's base system (even X itself is an add-on, let alone what X uses when no specific WM/DE is selected), suggesting or discussing 'a unified one' is not really useful, so I'm closing this one.


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