[PC-BSD Testing] PC-BSD 8.1 RC1 - thoughts and ideas

Thu Jul 8 13:27:21 PDT 2010

On 07/07/2010 3:28 PM, finid at linuxbsdos.com wrote:
>> On 07/07/2010 12:01 PM, finid at linuxbsdos.com wrote:
>>      
>>>> On 07/07/2010 4:25 AM, Johann Kois wrote:
>>>>
>>>>          
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>>>>> On 07.07.2010 02:20, Mike Bybee wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Johann Kois<jkois at freebsd.org
>>>>>> <mailto:jkois at freebsd.org>>    wrote:
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>        Hash: SHA1
>>>>>>
>>>>>>        On 07.07.2010 01:02, finid at linuxbsdos.com
>>>>>>        <mailto:finid at linuxbsdos.com>    wrote:
>>>>>>        >>>
>>>>>>        >>    I actually like the development tab and use it regularly -
>>>>>> I'd
>>>>>>        vote to
>>>>>>        >>    keep it. Realistically very few actual 'end users' use
>>>>>> PC-BSD,
>>>>>>        but a lot
>>>>>>        >    of devs do.
>>>>>>        >
>>>>>>        >    Mike, those "end users" are actually waiting, desperately
>>>>>> waiting for
>>>>>>        >    PC-BSD to become a lot more end user-friendly, so that they
>>>>>> can
>>>>>>        use it.
>>>>>>        >
>>>>>>        >    --
>>>>>>        >    Fini D.
>>>>>>        >     ___________________________
>>>>>>
>>>>>>        Hm, you want to clarify what makes the system so "totally
>>>>>> unusable" at
>>>>>>        the moment?  So that "the end-users" cannot use it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>        jkois
>>>>>>
>>>>>>        - --
>>>>>>         Johann Kois
>>>>>>         jkois(at)FreeBSD.org
>>>>>>         FreeBSD Documentation Project
>>>>>>         FreeBSD German Documentation Project - https://doc.bsdgroup.de
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you mean that seriously, I can provide notes from my most recent
>>>>>> pilot project. If you're being facetious, then I would recommend you
>>>>>> go
>>>>>> find a random business person and ask them to use PC-BSD for 2 weeks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>              
>>>>> I am always serious.  No time for joking around on mailinglists.  But
>>>>> if
>>>>> such a statement as above is made (and "cannot use a system" for me
>>>>> equals "is not usable, therefore unusable") I just want to know what
>>>>> exactly the encountered problems are.
>>>>>
>>>>> But that is not the real point here.  I agree there are several issues
>>>>> regarding the usage of PC-BSD which will/can create problems
>>>>> especially
>>>>> for end-users (by that I mean newer/less experienced users).
>>>>>
>>>>> But:
>>>>>
>>>>> - - Are all these problems documented somewhere?  And I am not talking
>>>>> about a post on a mailinglist here, because it is pretty easy to miss
>>>>> such reports within all the posts on the list.  Maybe they are all
>>>>> reported on http://trac.pcbsd.org as feature requests/problem reports?
>>>>> - - If they are all documented/reported.  Is there enough manpower to
>>>>> investigate/implement all these changes?  Does the PC-BSD Project even
>>>>> have the possibility to change/fix all of them?  I think we know the
>>>>> answer to that questions (unfortunately) ...
>>>>> - - What is/should be the ultimate goal of PC-BSD?  Making
>>>>> experiencing
>>>>> "BSD on the desktop" easier?  Or make it the "perfect desktop
>>>>> experience"?  In reality it is probably the first one, but what many
>>>>> people would like to see is the second one (again mostly a problem of
>>>>> available manpower/ressources).
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> <two cents>
>>>>
>>>> I've been reading the posts and didn't want to chime in until now
>>>> because the common theme
>>>> I'm seeing running through some of the messages can be translated to:
>>>> BSD to Windows users
>>>> is alien because stuff is not where they're used to seeing it. And
>>>> being
>>>> a 20+ years Windoze guy,
>>>> I can understand.
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> Arthur,
>>>
>>> I don't think that's what this is all about. The gist is lots of stuff
>>> don't work, or don't work well enough. We do not need to put apps and
>>> admin tools where Windows users are used to finding them. That's the
>>> mistake the DE devs (KDE, GNOME) made. Instead of innovating, they chose
>>> to copy Windows because they were targeting Windows users. Look at what
>>> Apple did with Mac OS X.
>>>
>>> We just need to make stuff that works, and put out a default
>>> configuration
>>> that's intuitive to use.
>>>
>>> The interesting part of this is while we are still fixing the
>>> traditional
>>> desktop, the (computing) world is gradually moving away from it. When
>>> are
>>> we going to stat working on something that can be installed on a
>>> tablet-like device, with touch capabilities? Or does that already exist?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Fini D.
>>> http://LinuxBSDnews.com
>>>
>>>        
>> Fini,
>>
>> Yes, I see you point. If I were inferring that BSD/Linux be contoured
>> towards Windows folks, GUI or otherwise, that wasn't what I meant. I was
>> trying to make the analogy of how to get the Linuxes and BSDs to the
>> point that the average shmoe could be productive to the level of
>> whatever they are currently using. How do you get adoption of a
>> different platform from an entrenched platform? To me, *nix has always
>> been the domain of servers and not average consumer desktop so I
>> sometimes wonder if it's the square peg in the round hole that's
>> happening in the *nix world. Again, I'm no expert, it's just what I
>> perceive.
>>      
>
> "*nix has always been the domain of servers..." because the *nix world
> didn't think the desktop was worth fighting for, or they did not have the
> vision of Steve Jobs. Solaris should have worked on the desktop as well as
> it did on the server, but Scott McNeally did not care enough to direct
> resources at it.
>
>    
>> Yes, a lot of stuff is broken or barely half there. And even what's
>> there is sometimes butt ugly. Much of the effort in the community is
>> often free whereas the established commercial OSes out there (Windows /
>> Mac OS) have huge pools of cash and devs to throw at their problems. Can
>> you imagine if Linux / BSD had that kind of cash and that amount devs to
>> innovate and improve upon their respective platform? And let's face it,
>> commercial apps makers are always going to go where there's money to be
>> made. Don't forget what happened when Walmart teamed up with Everex back
>> in 2007.
>>
>>      
> Availability of cash was just part of the problem. For a very long time,
> the BSD folks had a very dim view of graphical user interfaces. Much of
> our problem was attitude and mindset. It's what's killing the openBSD
> community. They have a very negative attitude towards graphical user
> interfaces that's just mind blowing.
>
>
>    
>> In some form or another, I feel there's always going to be *some* kind
>> of desktop interface / GUI to get the job done. It's hard to say if it's
>> too little to late. The technology will never supersede the user or it
>> will fail miserably. I don't know that tablet-touch is the way the world
>> is going just because Apple and some no-count bloggers have deemed it
>> so. Is it innovative, hardly. It's just another "me too" device for
>> consumers to buy. And forget the whole 3D-floating-in-the-air GUI
>> a-la-Avatar thing, not gonna happen. I remember sitting on the toilet 12
>> years thinking it would be great to get rid of a newspapers / magazines
>> and have some flat device that connected to the Internet to grab news
>> while doing #1. Should have patented that one. :-)
>>
>> Didn't a lot of "touch" code get introduced in xserver 1.7 or 1.8? I'd
>> guess there's *nix powered touch stuff out there for PC hardware but I
>> don't follow that news close enough. And hey, Android is Linux based and
>> does touch. I guess Android OS is coming to vanilla x86/x64 hardware so
>> perhaps there's some evolution that might occur there. We'll have to see
>> where the wind blows I guess.
>>
>>      
> There will always be the desktop, but at some point, it will, in the
> jargon of evolutionary biology, become a peripheral isolate. The future is
> in mobile devices, and thanks to major players like Google, intel and
> Nokia, it's all gonna revolve around Linux (Android, MeeGo, Linaro and a
> bunch of other spinoffs). Even the traditional desktop, or what remains of
> it, will be touch-capable.
>
> How are we going to evolve?
>    

Fini,

Here's your evolution: 
http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/29145/sugar-os-getting-touch-support-xo-175-have-touchscreen

Arthur