Goodbye

[David Raver]

To Whom It May Concern:

This is not merely a question, it's mostly a complaint. Let me explain.

Some time ago I started a (c++) project which I wanted to make as general
(in an OS sense) as possible.
Meaning: the same source (with as little of ifdefs as possible) should
compile, link and run on as many operating systems as possible.

So... out of the BSD family I chose FreeBSD as I'd read/heard that it had
been... well... the best.

I installed it into a VirtualBox. Can't remember how, but it was what a
developer needed: a graphical environment, everything easily accessible. As
it should be.

Then the project was put aside for quite some time until a couple of months
ago when it's extensive generalization was brought to a stage when it
worked on Linux, MacOS and Windows, it's primary systems.

So, I fired a VirtualBox up again meaning to try to build it on FreeBSD.
Sadly it didn't work. Not that it didn't compile. It did. The linker
failed, though.
Researching why, I came to a conclusion that it's version didn't support
what I'd needed. OK, I said, an upgrade should fix that.
Not being small-time I decided to not only upgrade the c++ (g++)
development platform, but rather the whole operating system. I looked up
(on Google) how to do it and... I did it. I mean I started the upgrade.

Pay attention now because here it's where it all starts: the upgrade failed
in such a way that not only the c++ development platform was unusable, but
the OS refused to boot. All I'd seen had been a black screen.

Steam started to blow out of my ears, but I still kept it together. OK, I
said, maybe the upgrade wasn't a good decision anyway.
Let's start from scratch and install the latest version (13) which will
automatically solve all of the problems.
Fired up a VirtualBox, created a new machine using the downloaded (
https://www.freebsd.org/where/) file. Booted up with the option 1 (multiple
users, as it should be the usual case, right?).
Instead of the expected GUI and some dialogs creating the user account I
was met with the console demanding username and password from me. What?!?
The first thing that went through my mind was that if this had been the
case with a certain Microsoft's operating system, it surely wouldn't have
had the market share it has today.

After a little research (man, I love the small print!) on your page I came
up with the account data and logged in. OK, I said, this isn't going to do.
I need a GUI and some developer tools. Let's install that.
But, the OS said, you can't do that unless you're a superuser. No problem.
Tried sudo as I'm used to from Linux. Nope. Tried su. It said: "Sorry".
What?!?
Google helped again: in order to do that one must choose option 2 while
booting. Fsck!?! Obviously one must have a BSD degree to use a computer.
OK, after a restart (and successful su) I googled about installing a GUI
(KDE to be exact). Being unpleasantly surprised that, instead of a
oneliner, one has to buy a new keyboard with an extended life expectancy in
order to type an equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
Man, how hard is it to put something in a shell script?!?

Before embarking on such an enterprise, I read some more small print and
found out that, before that, one has to install X (probably demanding
another fresh keyboard). And before that one has to install something else
still.
Can't remember what because I shut the OS down and hit a couple of dels
removing everything even remotely related to FreeBSD from my computer.

So, before yous geniuses decide to make an OS even remotely usable so that
an average developer doesn't need to have a doctorate of General BSDvity
Theory in order to use it, it's Goodby from me Argentina.

D.
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[Tomasz CEDRO]

BSD are general purpose (server, desktop, embedded) system for
advanced and aware users. Default installation won't do anything for
you except default base installation, nor the OS won't do anything
until you command it to do something. After FreeBSD install you only
get standardized base OS that you can then customize and adapt. But
when you do its rock solid. This is the strongest part of BSD. If you
don't like that philosophy probably it may not be the best OS for you,
or it's not the time yet. Sorry that you feel disappointed. It
requires some skills, knowledge, and persistence to learn new things.
Probably the error was on your side (it always is in my case I
shamefully admit). I have several workstations upgraded from 9.0
release upwards with no problem for many many years. I write this
email from a machine that started at FreeBSD 10 and went up through
all minor releases up to 13.0. But it is you who is responsible for OS
management, understanding how things work, so they work as you want.
FreeBSD is "raw" OS, some people love it for that, some people prefer
Linux with easy "click and do it for me" approach, some people work
with Open-Source on Windows.

Linux can do something for you but then it's not always what you want
and things will break for sure after several updates. See kernal api
changes with every minor release. See UX/UI changes enforced on most
popular distros (i.e. Ubuntu). Also beware of kernel/libc/glibc impact
on all system components, or even worse
quick-and-dirty-bleeding-edge-hacks that only works in one particular
case on particular version of Linux. Not to mention Windows or MacOS
because they are closed source so you cannot customize the OS itself.
BSD is the best environment to test software quality, so the idea to
test software portability on *BSD in the first place (there are
various flavors like OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD derivatives like
MidnightBSD, DragonFlyBSD, etc) is the best idea you can have. Good
approach. I also work like this not only with various computer
software components but also embedded toolchains for firmware
development on various CPU/MCU architectures (i.e. Zephyr RTOS, ARM
MBED, FreeRTOS, Arduino, etc).

In software world things break occasionally. Show me a commercial OS
that has no problems. Maybe you need more time to understand how
things work here? :-)

If you simply want to test compilation on FreeBSD based OS that has
already the Xorg in default install and provides live media that "just
boots what you need" try MidnightBSD :-)

https://www.midnightbsd.org/

I hope that you will eventually come back to FreeBSD (or its
derivative) one day.. and then you will know why :-)

Take care! :-)

--
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info

[Thomas D. Dean]

On 7/10/21 12:05 PM, Tomasz CEDRO wrote:
> BSD are general purpose (server, desktop, embedded) system for
> advanced and aware users. Default installation won't do anything for
> you except default base installation, nor the OS won't do anything
> until you command it to do something. After FreeBSD install you only
> get standardized base OS that you can then customize and adapt. But
> when you do its rock solid. This is the strongest part of BSD. If you
> don't like that philosophy probably it may not be the best OS for you,
> or it's not the time yet. Sorry that you feel disappointed. It
> requires some skills, knowledge, and persistence to learn new things.
> Probably the error was on your side (it always is in my case I
> shamefully admit). I have several workstations upgraded from 9.0
> release upwards with no problem for many many years. I write this
> email from a machine that started at FreeBSD 10 and went up through
> all minor releases up to 13.0. But it is you who is responsible for OS
> management, understanding how things work, so they work as you want.
> FreeBSD is "raw" OS, some people love it for that, some people prefer
> Linux with easy "click and do it for me" approach, some people work
> with Open-Source on Windows.

<snip>
I used FreeBSD from 0 up to 10. Then, moved to Linux for an application
that was too difficult to port.

Now, I have a problem with Linux. I can not stop it from accessing the
net for various and sundry reasons. Sending things to kernel.org.
Downloading updates. Checking and reporting to me the status of
updates, etc. I have several hours in this. Maybe I should have put
more effort into the port...

So, I am back to FreeBSD 13.

Tom Dean

[Tomasz CEDRO]

On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 9:39 PM Thomas D. Dean wrote:
> I used FreeBSD from 0 up to 10. Then, moved to Linux for an application
> that was too difficult to port.
>
> Now, I have a problem with Linux. I can not stop it from accessing the
> net for various and sundry reasons. Sending things to kernel.org.
> Downloading updates. Checking and reporting to me the status of
> updates, etc. I have several hours in this. Maybe I should have put
> more effort into the port...
>
> So, I am back to FreeBSD 13.

Awsome! In the long term, especially maintenance and
self-compatibility, it is worth to do the homework with FreeBSD and
stay independent of other people crazy ideas :-) :-)

--
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info

[The Doctor via freebsd-questions]

On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 10:56:32PM +0200, Tomasz CEDRO wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 9:39 PM Thomas D. Dean wrote:
> > I used FreeBSD from 0 up to 10. Then, moved to Linux for an application
> > that was too difficult to port.
> >
> > Now, I have a problem with Linux. I can not stop it from accessing the
> > net for various and sundry reasons. Sending things to kernel.org.
> > Downloading updates. Checking and reporting to me the status of
> > updates, etc. I have several hours in this. Maybe I should have put
> > more effort into the port...
> >
> > So, I am back to FreeBSD 13.
>
> Awsome! In the long term, especially maintenance and
> self-compatibility, it is worth to do the homework with FreeBSD and
> stay independent of other people crazy ideas :-) :-)
>

I rather BSD than Lin$ucks any day!

> --
> CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-...@freebsd.org mailing list
> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org"

--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca
Yahweh, Queen & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism https://www.empire.kred/ROOTNK?t=94a1f39b
Evil isn't good because someone else does it. -unknown Beware https://mindspring.com

[Simon Hoffmann]

Hey David,

I'd like to add something.

> So, I fired a VirtualBox up again meaning to try to build it on FreeBSD.
> Sadly it didn't work. Not that it didn't compile. It did. The linker
> failed, though.
> Researching why, I came to a conclusion that it's version didn't support
> what I'd needed. OK, I said, an upgrade should fix that.
> Not being small-time I decided to not only upgrade the c++ (g++)
> development platform, but rather the whole operating system. I looked up
> (on Google) how to do it and... I did it. I mean I started the upgrade.
>
> Pay attention now because here it's where it all starts: the upgrade failed
> in such a way that not only the c++ development platform was unusable, but
> the OS refused to boot. All I'd seen had been a black screen.

Which commands did you use?

I am also new to FreeBSD. I've setup a NAS with FreeBSD last year on 12.0.
A month ago I upgraded to 13.0 without any problems.

I just followed the docs:

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/

In a nutshell:

pkg update
pkg upgrade
reboot
freebsd-update fetch
freebsd-update install
reboot
freebsd-update -r 13.0-RELEASE upgrade
freebsd-update install
reboot
freebsd-update install
pkg-static upgrade -f


All of this is listed with detailed explanations. I was able to perform the update on
first try without any problems.

>
> Steam started to blow out of my ears, but I still kept it together. OK, I
> said, maybe the upgrade wasn't a good decision anyway.
> Let's start from scratch and install the latest version (13) which will
> automatically solve all of the problems.
> Fired up a VirtualBox, created a new machine using the downloaded (
> https://www.freebsd.org/where/) file. Booted up with the option 1 (multiple
> users, as it should be the usual case, right?).
> Instead of the expected GUI and some dialogs creating the user account I
> was met with the console demanding username and password from me. What?!?
> The first thing that went through my mind was that if this had been the
> case with a certain Microsoft's operating system, it surely wouldn't have
> had the market share it has today.

I just downloaded the FreeBSD "bootonly" image.

First I was asked whether to run the Live CD or to install. You should choose
install.
I was then asked to choose the installation disk and a network interface.
The next questions was then to specify the root user password.

After this, more questions are asked for timezone, which features to enable etc.

Then, you can directly create an additional user that you work with. The user
creation process is very self explanatory, as it asks each parameter of a user in
natural language.

After this, the installation is finished and you can boot into your system and login
with your credentials.

Time: 5 min.

>
> After a little research (man, I love the small print!) on your page I came
> up with the account data and logged in. OK, I said, this isn't going to do.
> I need a GUI and some developer tools. Let's install that.
> But, the OS said, you can't do that unless you're a superuser. No problem.
> Tried sudo as I'm used to from Linux. Nope. Tried su. It said: "Sorry".
> What?!?

Sudo is not installed per default, but can be installed with pkg add sudo.

su says sorry if your user is not in wheel.

Sounds to me like you were in Live CD mode?

> Google helped again: in order to do that one must choose option 2 while

Quick question: you are aware of the very detailed FreeBSD Handbook that answers
pretty much every question?
Please take a look at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/

> booting. Fsck!?! Obviously one must have a BSD degree to use a computer.

No, one must read the manual. BSD is not Linux.

> OK, after a restart (and successful su) I googled about installing a GUI
> (KDE to be exact). Being unpleasantly surprised that, instead of a
> oneliner, one has to buy a new keyboard with an extended life expectancy in
> order to type an equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
> Man, how hard is it to put something in a shell script?!?

Again, the Handbook is your best friend. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/

You even have two ways of installing! Using pre-configured and pre-compiled binaries
that can be installed via pkg add, or using ports to configure and build yourself, to
fulfill all your needs. Such wow!

In a nutshell:

pkg install xorg
pw groupmod video -m <user>
pkg install urwfonts
pkg install x11/sddm
echo dbus_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo proc /proc procfs rw 0 0 >> /etc/fstab
echo sddm_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf

I don't know about you, but I count 7 lines of commands, which you can basically
copy-paste. I don't know what type of keyboard you have, but mine can handle a few
keystrokes.


Took me about 5 minutes aswell.

> Can't remember what because I shut the OS down and hit a couple of dels
> removing everything even remotely related to FreeBSD from my computer.

You know, you could always ask politely to get help...

>
> So, before yous geniuses decide to make an OS even remotely usable so that
> an average developer doesn't need to have a doctorate of General BSDvity
> Theory in order to use it, it's Goodby from me Argentina.

Again, the Handbook is your friend.
Right at the top of the page for X11 it says "Users who prefer an installation method
that automatically configures the Xorg should refer to GhostBSD, MidnightBSD or
NomadBSD."


You do know that for example Ubuntu does come with lots of different ISOs?
There is the Server ISO without a GUI, Desktop ISO with whatever Canonical thinks is
the best Environment, Ubuntu Mate, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu.
It's almost as if you should read a minute beforehand to know which ISO to choose.
Or choose the server ISO and install a GUI yourself, which, you know, requires to
install xorg, a login manager, a window manager......


So, before you genius start to work with FreeBSD again, you maybe should take 30
minutes to read the important parts of the Handbook.
I'm even nice and tell you the important chapters:
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 10 maybe for development
Chapter 24




---

Simon

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 15:16:53 +0200
Simon Hoffmann <fre...@simonhoffmann.net> wrote:

> I just downloaded the FreeBSD "bootonly" image.

<snip>

> After this, the installation is finished and you can boot into your
> system and login with your credentials.
>
> Time: 5 min.

Things have certainly become much easier than they were in 1.x
days. First download and write about thirty floppy images, boot the first
one and start answering questions before swapping floppies for the next
hour or so. Say words that may not be printed when the twentieth floppy
gives a read error and you have to start all over again. Once you have it
all installed build a kernel with the drivers you need and without the ones
you don't so that you can actually use all the hardware.

<mutter>yooferterday dunno how easy they have it</mutter>

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>

[Tim Daneliuk via freebsd-questions]

On July 11, 2021 10:39:18 AM "

>
> <mutter>yooferterday dunno how easy they have it</mutter>
>
> --
> Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>

Entitled lot, aren't they... I remember when we didn't have 1s and 0s.
Had to make do with ells and ohs...

[Paul Procacci]

It's okay to fail and blame your failure on your lack of abilities. No one
here will hold that against you.

FreeBSD is superior to most others in many many ways.
Surely it has some warts, but they are far and few between.

I've been saying this for 3 decades now and I continue to say it. FreeBSD
is an administrators' OS at heart.
Whether true or not at this point in time is mostly irrelevant to me only
that I still say it.

YOU failed to conquer it; that's no one else's fault but your own.

~Paul

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 11:23:19 -0500
Tim Daneliuk via freebsd-questions <freebsd-...@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On July 11, 2021 10:39:18 AM "
> >
> > <mutter>yooferterday dunno how easy they have it</mutter>
> >
> > --
> > Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>
> Entitled lot, aren't they... I remember when we didn't have 1s and 0s.
> Had to make do with ells and ohs...

There was a big box of zeroes under the paper tape punch of the
teletype I first learned to program with. Every time you punched a zero
shard out it left a one hole in the tape.

Some people learned the hard way that the zeroes made terrible
confetti - paper cuts!

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>

[Graham Perrin]

On 09/07/2021 21:02, David Raver wrote:
> … VirtualBox, created a new machine using the downloaded (
> https://www.freebsd.org/where/) file. …

New bug:

257115 – Some columns for virtual machine images lack a link to the
README at /where/
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=257115>

The README could be much better, but that's another story.

> Instead of the expected GUI …

At <https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/faq/> some of the answers to
frequently asked questions are outdated. Someone might like to improve
this book. If possible, make it shorter. Much shorter.

In my opinion the book of questions, and pages such as
<https://www.freebsd.org/about/>, should make it easier for a newcomer
to tell – at a glance – that FreeBSD does not include a GUI.

David, if you want a disk image with a desktop environment, you might be
interested in topics such as this:

FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-amd64-KDE-Plasma (2021-06-23)
<https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/81030/>

– tl;dr work in progress, it's not yet understood why the image is not
_immediately_ compatible with the most recent guest additions for
VirtualBox.

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2021 at 7:54 PM Paul Procacci <ppro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's okay to fail and blame your failure on your lack of abilities. No one
> here will hold that against you.
>
> FreeBSD is superior to most others in many many ways.
> Surely it has some warts, but they are far and few between.
>
> I've been saying this for 3 decades now and I continue to say it. FreeBSD
> is an administrators' OS at heart.
> Whether true or not at this point in time is mostly irrelevant to me only
> that I still say it.
>
> YOU failed to conquer it; that's no one else's fault but your own.
>
> ~Paul
>
>
>

I am reading these messages to learn very good ideas and I am pleased to
read them .

My opinions are "good" plus some "bad" ones .

My computing adventure started in 1965 when I was an elementary teacher in
a village in Turkey at the age of 18 .
In those days their name was "electronic brain" in the field of mathematics
"priests" meaning people having very high IQs .
I have decided to attend a university but with English language teaching .
In Turkey they were Middle East Technical University
belonging to the State and Robert College ( a private and ex[ensive one ) .
In 1970 at the METU I learned Fortran with my efforts
and then I have continued .

I have started with FreeBSD 2.x . Since it was unusable , I have waited up
to 7.x . I have started to use it upto 9.0 ( still a few hard disk
are containing them with a server staying unused , because it could not be
possible to run them due to unacceptable slow execution .
It could not be possible to find a solution to remedy this problem . I have
switched to ( Linux ) Mandriva . Some time later Mndrive has died
and I have switched Fedora and I am now using it continuously on all my
computers including a NFS server .

What is the problem with FreeBSD ?

There is no problem with FreeBSD . The problem is it requires an MSc
degree ( as exaggerated ) in "How to use FreeBSD" .
Always , approximately many persons are saying that use of FreeBSD requires
"expertise" to use it . In that case the problem is
how to acquire that expertise .

If memory of a person is not very sharp , it is necessary to use a thick
binder of flash cards about how to install and "adjust" parameters
to be able to use it .

When KDE is used , it is possible ( perhaps easy ) to use peripherals like
in Linux or Windows : No CD , DVD record , no USB stick usage ,
etc. , if you do not know how to use them through your expertise .


Documentation is very excellent , but with a "SINGLE" Handbook or Manuals
attempting to cover ALL of the active versions , which is not possible to
represent them correctly . I have suggested that "Please make Handbook and
Manuals ( these may be ) a part of sources and
and a version branched continue to improve Handbook about that version . I
think that this idea is not supported .
This common Handbook contains many errors due to not being updated
correctly with respect to versions
( I say that doing this in that way makes it extremely difficult ) . ( I
want to say that my PhD is about
"A Multi-Media Information Management System . The more correct name would
be... Knowledge ... , but
the system is able to design , manage ( Data , Information , Knowledge ),
their average may be considered Information ... )


If FreeBSD does not change it policy to move toward "average" ( in the
sense of "not expert" ) user level , for me , its future will be
difficult because if the user base is small it will likely not many people
will support it because , especially commercial companies will not
be able to recover expenses about supporting the FreeBSD , meaning their
efforts will be on the "loss" side ( excluding exceptions ) .



I have opened many bug reports many years before . To my knowledge at least
many of them have been resolved .
At present I am a subscriber of many mailing lists of FreeBSD and
continuously I am reading them .
My primary aim is to take a copy of FreeBSD and start from scratch to
develop a new one with a very different development
structure to improve it because I need such an operating system to support
my knowledge base design and management
system . The current structure and development system is not able to
support it . The best operating system seems to be FreeBSD ,
if it is not , the next one is DragonFly BSD . Perhaps the other BSD
variants are also good , I do not know in detail .


Thank you to all of the developers and users of FreeBSD , and my best
wishes are for you in this CoVid-19 pandemic and all other days ,
forever .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk

[Jerry]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 12:54:30 -0400, Paul Procacci stated:

I have never considered a PC or an OS something to be conquered. The PC
runs an OS. The OS's job, and its various applications, sole
purpose is to make my life easier. Yoda's most memorable line, "Do Or
Do Not. There Is No Try" is most apropos here. I don't care who the
author is or what the cost is, if it doesn't make my job, hobby, or
whatever I am employing the OS for more effortless, then it is not very
helpful to me.

I have found several things that FBSD does that make my life easier
and more productive. I have also discovered numerous examples of where
it is counterproductive. I have learned the hard way; you can't make a
silk purse out of a sow's ear. The following bug made FreeBSD 12+ and
13.0 unusable for several users.
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=237666>. It took
over a year to squash that bug. Once upon a time, I would have
considered that absurd, now I just think of it as business as usual.

I think the OP needs to understand that no single OS is the ultimate
answer to his problems. The OP had set his sights way too high. In all
honestly, I did sort of the same thing. In my years of using FBSD
alongside other OSs, I have mellowed. I have learned that banging my
head against a wall only hurts my head.

I hope one day after the OP settles in with whatever OS he has
determined best suits his needs, he will consider giving FBSD another
look. Hopefully, this time with more realistic expectations.

And that is my 2¢.

--
Jerry

[David Raver]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2021 at 3:17 PM Simon Hoffmann <fre...@simonhoffmann.net>
wrote:

>
> Which commands did you use?
>

Can't remember anymore. They went out of my head along with the steam
blowing out of my ears.

> All of this is listed with detailed explanations. I was able to perform
> the update on
> first try without any problems.
>

Lucky you.


> Time: 5 min.
>

You must be the one with the doctorate of General (or is it Special?)
BSDvity Theory then.

> su says sorry if your user is not in wheel.
>
> Sounds to me like you were in Live CD mode?
>

Sounds like your hearing must be impeccable.

> > Google helped again: in order to do that one must choose option 2 while
>
> Quick question: you are aware of the very detailed FreeBSD Handbook that
> answers
> pretty much every question?
>

I am, yes. I just don't like the idea that in order to do some little thing
one must read it in its entirety.

> Please take a look at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/
>

No thanks. Also, your hearing must be somewhat less than perfect in this
case. Let me repeat myself (for the tenth time): reading extensive
handbooks to solve something that should've been solved automatically is
not my favourite thing in the world.

> > booting. Fsck!?! Obviously one must have a BSD degree to use a computer.
>
> No, one must read the manual. BSD is not Linux.
>

OK, for the eleventh time: you know the drill by now

> > OK, after a restart (and successful su) I googled about installing a GUI
> > (KDE to be exact). Being unpleasantly surprised that, instead of a
> > oneliner, one has to buy a new keyboard with an extended life expectancy
> in
> > order to type an equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
> > Man, how hard is it to put something in a shell script?!?
>
> Again, the Handbook is your best friend.
> https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/
>

Note to self: man, some people choose to turn the blind eye even if you
practically stick it to them.

> You even have two ways of installing! Using pre-configured and
> pre-compiled binaries
> that can be installed via pkg add, or using ports to configure and build
> yourself, to
> fulfill all your needs. Such wow!
>
> In a nutshell:
>
> pkg install xorg
> pw groupmod video -m <user>
> pkg install urwfonts
> pkg install x11/sddm
> echo dbus_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
> echo proc /proc procfs rw 0 0 >> /etc/fstab
> echo sddm_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
>

Nope, that's not what the handbook says. It's definitely more than seven.
Quite a bit more. Moreover, if one makes one little spelling mix-stake,
that could be your excuse for why the whole thing failed. I'm not into
that. It has to be failsafe.

> I don't know about you, but I count 7 lines of commands, which you can
> basically
> copy-paste. I don't know what type of keyboard you have, but mine can
> handle a few
> keystrokes.
>

Mine handles "del BSD" (8 chars, incl. enter) pretty well.

> Took me about 5 minutes aswell.
>

Took me about two seconds. Incl. handling the "Are you sure?" question.

> You know, you could always ask politely to get help...
>

As polite as possible: HELP!
Then again, it would be useless now. The del I mentioned above took care of
that.

> Again, the Handbook is your friend.
>

Oh, man, I will not even bother anymore.

[Jacques Foucry]

FreeBSD is user friendly, it just choose very carefully who's friend whith. :-)

I use Unices since 1984, Aix, HP-UX, sco, SunOS, Solaris, MacOS X, Linux, NetBSD,
OpenBSD, FreeBSD. My everyday computer is a laptop lenovo X280 running FreebSD
13.0. It work, like a charm. But yes, I am a Unix guy, not afraid by command
line (and every day more afraid by GUI which hide a lot of things to the user,
and a lot of options`).

A developer is not a sysadmin and I understand the frustration for a
developer to not have the comfort of MacOS, Windows or even Ubuntu. But the
goal of all those OS are different from the goal of *BSD.

In fact, the persons who use a GUI (even a minimal one like i3wm) on *BSD use
those OS exactly at the inverse they are made for. To be clear *BSD are not
made to run blender, gimp or inkscape. And even less for developping IDE
(AndroidStudio for example).

This is just my small contribution to this thread, thanks for reading me.

[snip a lot of very interesting things but why read them twice]

--
Jacques Foucry

[Simon Hoffmann]

One last mail and I promise to never bother you again.

Did you just one day fall out of bed and knew how to use Linux perfectly?
Are you able to use all different Linuxes to the same degree and know everything
there is to know? So are you a master/doctorate in Debian, Suse, RHEL, Fedora, ... to
use your words?
Oh, and you also spoke about Windows. So I guess you are also a Microsoft MVP?



Because you cannot tell me that a Linux install, whatever the distro, has everything
set up exactly the way you want it to be out of the box and automatically.




---

Simon

--


Viele Grüße
Simon Hoffmann

[Nyakov Nyakovski]

On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 22:02:29 +0200
David Raver <david...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, before yous geniuses decide to make an OS even remotely usable so that
> an average developer doesn't need to have a doctorate of General BSDvity
> Theory in order to use it, it's Goodby from me Argentina.

Hi, this was pretty long goodby :)
Anyway, I recommend you really look into GhostBSD https://www.ghostbsd.org it should provide you with more user friendly experience.
It is FreeBSD based system that provides a simple desktop-oriented operating system with MATE, OpenRC and OS packages for simplicity.

>Pay attention now

Honestly, your message looks like a joke :3

>Being unpleasantly surprised that, instead of a
>oneliner, one has to buy a new keyboard with an extended life expectancy in
>order to type an equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
>Man, how hard is it to put something in a shell script?!?

Overall, you will get similar user experiences on lots of Linux distributions. Linux not equal Ubuntu.

--
Kira <Nyak...@gmail.com>

[Dale Scott]

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 01:53:30 +0300, Nyakov Nyakovski wrote:

>On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 22:02:29 +0200 David Raver wrote:
>>Being unpleasantly surprised that, instead of a
>>oneliner, one has to buy a new keyboard with an extended life
>>expectancy in order to type an equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
>>Man, how hard is it to put something in a shell script?!?
>
>Overall, you will get similar user experiences on lots of Linux
>distributions. Linux not equal Ubuntu.

Hi,

For a wonder bread suitable for toasting isn't crisp after cooking it
in a pot of boiling water.

One user might be annoyed, if it requires a lot of work to enable
countless needed services, while another user might be annoyed, if it
requires a lot of work to disable countless counter-productive services.

One user might be annoyed, if the workflow of a needed application does
change with a weekly update and another user might be annoyed that
after a weekly update, a need application doesn't provide the latest
and greatest features introduced by upstream.

Taking care to get advance information, is not the same as the need to
have a doctorate.

I never read War and Peace, how much reading, copying and pasting was
done by Tolstoy?

Without getting information in the first place, even the user-friendly
OOTB approaches of Linux distros such as Ubuntu have got serious
pitfalls. Even Ubuntu provides several approaches. While Ubuntu always
follows the release model approach, not all releases are maintained for
the same amount of time. The lifetime of a LTS release is longer, than
that of non-LTS releases. After installing Ubuntu from the server
image, the installed Ubuntu doesn't provide a GUI by default. While
Ubuntu provides a lot of software easy to install by packages, not all
packages are well maintained [1].

Some software updates are exceptions from the general update policy.
Broadly speaking, in general software "foo" version 1.5 will never be
updated to version 1.6 within a release cycle. Instead it will stay
with version 1.5, but might get security patches, backported by
maintainers, or it stays vulnerable for the rest of the release cycle
[1]. Some software, Firefox comes to mind, gets updates even
from version 1.5 to version 28.7 within a release cycle.

Just to understand the policy of a user-friendly OOTB working Linux
distro requires to get a lot of information in the first place, to
avoid rude surprises subsequently.

Regards,
Ralf

[1]
"Main

The main component contains applications that are free software, can be
freely redistributed and are fully supported by the Ubuntu team [...]
and that the Ubuntu security and distribution team are willing to
support. When you install software from the main component, you are
assured that the software will come with security updates [...]." -
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories#Main

"Universe

[...] Canonical does not provide a guarantee of regular security updates
for software in the universe component, but will provide these where
they are made available by the community. Users should understand the
risk inherent in using these packages. [...]" -
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories#Universe

Actually most don't understand, since they just fire up the
user-friendly GUI to install software, without being aware that even
software installed from official Ubuntu repositories could be a
security risk.

[David Raver]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2021 at 11:00 PM Simon Hoffmann <fre...@simonhoffmann.net>
wrote:

> One last mail and I promise to never bother you again.

>
> Did you just one day fall out of bed and knew how to use Linux perfectly?
>

Nope. It was like that:

1. The installation went perfectly. Meaning: after the installation the
desktop showed up. I would've settled for shell and one command, say
"install desktop", even if it didn't. Show up in the first try, that is. I
wouldn't have settled for an equivalent of typing what should've been put
into a shell script anyhow.
2. I was able to start using it, learning little by little without reading
books about it.

> Are you able to use all different Linuxes to the same degree and know
> everything
>

No, not to the same degree. But I'm pretty sure the procedure would've been
pretty similar to the one I described above.

> there is to know? So are you a master/doctorate in Debian, Suse, RHEL,
> Fedora, ... to
> use your words?
>

Not by a long shot. I never claimed that. I'm merely a lowly developper,
like I also described. But... I'm used to a certain set of tools and
behaviours.

> Oh, and you also spoke about Windows. So I guess you are also a Microsoft
> MVP?
>

No. But somewhat similar tools I mentioned above are available on Windows
also. So I don't complain too much. I'll also concede that most of the
ifdefs in my project are due to Windows functionality. But I managed that
also.

> Because you cannot tell me that a Linux install, whatever the distro, has
> everything
> set up exactly the way you want it to be out of the box and automatically.
>

I never claimed that. Moreover, if you're still prepared to listen...

I'm pretty sure that if I had a desktop (preferably KDE) set up on any of
the BSDs, I most probably wouldn't even had known the difference between
that and my current Linux. Because that was my aim in the first place:
merely verify that my project builds and runs on BSD. Moreover, I'm pretty
sure that someday I'll do it. Successfully. I just have to cool down a
little and find a distribution that meets my needs.

D.

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 23:29:41 +0200, David Raver wrote:
>I'm pretty sure the procedure would've been pretty similar to the one
>I described above.

Hi,

not at all. Even not for some major distros, such as Arch Linux (that's
what I'm using) and even not when using the Ubuntu server image.

>I'm pretty sure that if I had a desktop (preferably KDE) set up on any
>of the BSDs, I most probably wouldn't even had known the difference
>between that and my current Linux. Because that was my aim in the
>first place: merely verify that my project builds and runs on BSD.
>Moreover, I'm pretty sure that someday I'll do it. Successfully. I
>just have to cool down a little and find a distribution that meets my
>needs.

It depends ;). I could imagine some software that just needs to be able
to run under KDE, nothing else matters, but not that seldom the
underlying file system, sound architecture, display server, maybe even
the login shell, let alone the kernel, might make a big difference.
Some keywords come to mind, "HAL", "udev" ...

FWIW a virtual machine might have some pitfalls, too. How about an
user-friendly OOTB working bootable persistent USB stick FreeBSD?

"About

NomadBSD is a persistent live system for USB flash drives, based on
FreeBSD®. Together with automatic hardware detection and setup, it is
configured to be used as a desktop system that works out of the box,
but can also be used for [...]" - https://www.nomadbsd.org/index.html

Regards,
Ralf

[Tomasz CEDRO]

I will share back my previous response with some update - having
standard bare base OS allows you to do directly exactly what you want
with one environment setup script then perform your work, you need no
GUI for that, just script `pkg install gcc-arm-embedded cmake` then
build your application. Imagine how small and fast this approach is
compared to installing fully featured GUI OS, downloading packages,
etc, but you need to know how to do it - usually it is very similar
across other platforms because you are using the same build tools
among them, if you really want top portability I would consider using
Python + VirtualEnv packages verification - you can run it on top of
bare BSD install over the local/remote shell :-)


Sorry I forgot about BSD portables, but did not use them a lot myself:
NomadBSD: https://nomadbsd.org/
GhostBSD: https://ghostbsd.org/
MidnightBSD: https://midnightbsd.org/screenshots/


We all know your pain - in this day by day more complex and less
coherent computer world - "well it was supposed to work out of the
box", then after some months you start sending patches :-) :-)

https://soundcloud.com/digitals-jpn/computer-world-cover-early

Take care :-)
Tomek


On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 10:52 PM Tomasz CEDRO <to...@cedro.info> wrote:
>
> Hey David :-)
>
> Please give a try to MidnightBSD - this may be something you need if
> you do not want to waste your time to learn new OS. I fully understand
> your approach. You want to focus on your solution, not the rest of the
> world :-)
>
> Sorry if you feel offended by "may not be for you", that was not my
> point, I apologize. The point is that BSD are in fact raw operating
> systems, its not Ubuntu, its more "fire and forget" but you need to
> make its configuration from scratch, this really takes times and
> learning curve. FreeBSD is in fact base for a product - server,
> desktop, embedded - so you cannot make such wide application universal
> for everyone. Instead you get strong base with lots of Ports to
> install to make your life easier. You start at standardized base OS
> that you can extend with that you want. Look at macOS, PlayStation,
> Netflix based on FreeBSD. You may consider it more "industrial grade"
> rather than user friendly easy to use. On the other hand you can
> configure it with only several text files and one script. But you need
> to create that script on your own that is not a trivial thing :-)
>
> There are thousands of Open-Source software running on FreeBSD. All
> are what you describe in your project. These are called FreeBSD
> Ports. I have created several of these from scratch myself (i.e. port
> for OpenOCD), and I update some of them when necessary. Each Port
> (located in /usr/ports) is a set of Makefile scripts that allow
> download, build, install and upgrade automation for a given program
> (and its dependencies from other ports). You can then just `cd
> /usr/ports/misc/mc; make install` to build it from sources, or `pkg
> install mc` to download and install binary package. You can also
> upgrade all packages with just `pkg update; pkg upgrade`. As simple as
> that.
>
> It is nice of you that you want to provide your software to BSD
> platforms, thank you, however you may want to create a GitLab / GitHub
> repository in the first place, show what you have created, and when
> someone feels this is interesting, they may create a Port for your
> application. This is the standard process.
>
> People that use BSD are very sensitive to freedom of choice (thus BSD
> license allows you to do whatever you want with the software even
> close source it and sell on your own). Maybe you should give them that
> freedom by presenting your software in the first place, and then let
> them decide if they want to port it to FreeBSD. You cannot demand that
> OS will bend to your expectations. We are old-school computer geeks,
> mostly highly experienced developers that can modify kernel or its
> drivers when necessary, we do not expect others to make that work for
> us. Most of us don't care about what is trendy at the moment, we like
> conservatism of the BSD line, we care about our own projects, products
> and services, and how to make them in best possible way. This is why
> we get a minimal common starting point (called FreeBSD Base System)
> and adapt it to our needs and expectations. We do not want anything
> "extra" except what we want. This is really important from a long term
> maintenance standpoint of your product :-)
>
> I am sure that if you want to create a new software that runs on
> FreeBSD you may want to create a Port in the first place to simplify
> your own build process. This port can even fetch sources directly from
> the git repository!
>
> https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/
>
> If you want to get familiar with how things work in FreeBSD I would
> recommend to start with FreeBSD Handbook. Please note that this was
> also the first kind of documentation for the OS (starting in early
> 1990's) that contained all information about how things work in a form
> of a book. This Handbook is also coherent with the releases of the OS.
> If you look at Linux until now there is no such Handbook, just lots of
> scratches of information spread around the net and mostly outdated.
>
> https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/
>
> Have a great weekend and good luck with your project :-)
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 10:11 PM David Raver <david...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Like you say: it may not be the best OS for me.
> >
> > Well, I didn't think it was the best OS for me even before you sent me your mail, but thanks for pointing that out so plainly.
> > I just meant to provide some tools to people for whom it is, in fact, the best OS. I guess you'll not be getting them now. Your loss.
> >
> > The tools I mention are not meant to be something so fundamental that, in order to make them work on BSD, would require all the knowledge you mention or allude to.
> > Let me repeat: 1. with as little of ifdefs as possible, and 2. should compile, link and run on as many operating systems as possible.
> > In my book that means that I don't have to deal with the low level stuff like kernels (or their versions) or even hardware/architectures.
> > Using functions/methods from standardised libraries and building (compiling, linking and whatnot) on/for them resolves almost all my problems.
> > That, among other things, means that, if I'm being a bit picturesque, I don't have to read the whole four books of War and Peace (plus the epilogue) merely to find out that it's about Russia.
> > Nope, a few pages should be enough. If/when I'm going to feel the need to know more, I'll read the whole thing.
> >
> > Next: maybe I need "more time to understand how things work here?" Yup, that's what I've been telling you in the first place.
> > But! I'm not willing to invest into that when I know in advance that I'll not be using 99% of them. Ever!
> >
> > And lastly, thanks for the midnight tip. ;-)
> >
> > D.

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 12:56:57 +0200, Tomasz CEDRO wrote:
>orry I forgot about BSD portables, but did not use them a lot myself:
>NomadBSD: https://nomadbsd.org/
>GhostBSD: https://ghostbsd.org/
>MidnightBSD: https://midnightbsd.org/screenshots/

To funny that you and I sent more or less the same in parallel, quasi
at exactly the same time :D.

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2021-July/date.html

I'm to lazy to compare the links/abilities of those derivatives. At
least https://nomadbsd.org/ is a persistent live system. I have to
admit, that I just have a nomadbsd USB stick, but it never was used the
_hard_ way.

Btw. for persistent Linux live media I'm using

[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ pacman -Qi ventoy-bin | grep URL
URL : http://www.ventoy.net/

already successfully used the _hard_ way.

For the OP it's important to check, if persistence is granted by
ghostbsd and midnightbsd, too.

[James B. Byrne via freebsd-questions]

On Sun, July 11, 2021 12:23, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> On July 11, 2021 10:39:18 AM "
>>
>> <mutter>yooferterday dunno how easy they have it</mutter>
>>
>> --
>> Steve O'Hara-Smith <st...@sohara.org>
> Entitled lot, aren't they... I remember when we didn't have 1s and 0s.
> Had to make do with ells and ohs...
>

ells and ohs, ells and ohs? we wou'da killed for ells and ohs. Sticks and
stones! That were all we had. None o' that fancy bones and teeth stuff mind
you. . .


--
*** e-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel ***
Do NOT transmit sensitive data via e-Mail
Unencrypted messages have no legal claim to privacy
Do NOT open attachments nor follow links sent by e-Mail

James B. Byrne mailto:Byr...@Harte-Lyne.ca
Harte & Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada L8E 3C3

[Graham Perrin]

On 11/07/2021 22:29, David Raver wrote:
> … if I had a desktop (preferably KDE)

Quick start:

<https://community.kde.org/FreeBSD/Setup#Quick_start>

Edited by me. Unfortunately the underlying wiki makes it appear longer
than it is (lack of distinction between heading levels). The quick part
ends at step 5.

(Note to self: question the effect of _not_ adding the user to the
operator group. Over to IRC.)

> … my aim … verify that my project builds and runs on BSD. …