diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'content/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it.md')
-rw-r--r-- | content/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it.md | 120 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 120 deletions
diff --git a/content/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it.md b/content/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it.md deleted file mode 100644 index 723c82c4..00000000 --- a/content/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,120 +0,0 @@ -+++ -title = "FreeBSD on the Desktop won't improvide unless people are using it" -author = ["Michał Sapka"] -date = 2023-03-29T22:09:00+02:00 -categories = ["bsd"] -draft = false -weight = 2002 -abstract = "I have hits from /r/bsd, but almost none of those people are using BSD" -[menu] - [menu.bsd-varia] - weight = 2002 - identifier = "freebsd-on-the-desktop-won-t-improvide-unless-people-are-using-it" - name = "Desktop FreeBSD won't improve unless people are using it" -+++ - -Shamelessly, I posted my previous post, [FreeBSD on a Thinkpad Extreme G2](https://d-s.sh/2023/freebsd-on-thinkpad-x1-extreme-g2/) on [/r/bsd Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/124v5cm/freebsd_on_a_thinkpad_x1_extreme_g2/). - -The result, some 24 hours later, is 100 visitors. -Out of that 100, 57 are using a desktop. -Out of that 57, only 2 used FreeBSD—2%. No other BSDs are recorded. - -People who are into BSD don't use BSD. -This seems to be a reason for lacking hardware support. -If no one uses FreeBSD, no one will encounter those problems. If no one encounters them, no one will fix them. - - -## Update 2023-04-14 {#update-2023-04-14} - -The article, got quite the round around the internets, gathering some interests from [Reddit](https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/126fvkz/desktop_freebsd_wont_improve_unless_people_are/), [Hacker News](<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35378367>), Twitter, Discover BSD, or [Vermaden](https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/04/03/valuable-news-2023-04-03/). -With all that interest come quite a few questions and comments. -The following is an attempt to summarize it all. - - -### People who use FreeBSD don't care about FreeBSD hardware {#people-who-use-freebsd-don-t-care-about-freebsd-hardware} - -This makes perfect sense. -If your FreeBSD installation on X220 works flawlessly, you may not care about anything more modern. -But there will come a time when you will need to replace the hardware. - -{{< img-r "freebsd-beastie.png" >}} -FreeBSD Beastie -{{< /img-r >}} - -This comment, however, came as a proof that the sample from my blog is invalid. -This may be the case, but I don't buy it. -All traffic on the aforementioned post came from Reddit's BSD forum. -It's the one place where you could expect that people using BSD would hang. -It may also be that it's quite a random sample - it's small, and people who have yet to become into BSD but are BSD-curious opened my blog post. -I am in no place to debunk or confirm this. -I, however, know that many people presenting at FreeBSD conferences do it using Macs or Windows. -So even if the numbers are dubious, the overall feeling remains sorrowful. - -To add to the above: there are also stats for the commented opinion piece. -Two hundred forty-four people opened it from /r/freebsd. -Of that, 24 people were using FreeBSD, and just 2 were using OpenBSD. - - -### Your statistics may be invalid as people mask their browser agent. {#your-statistics-may-be-invalid-as-people-mask-their-browser-agent-dot} - -This also may be the case. -Why, then, is the referer not spoofed? -It's a much more invasive data point than the underlying OS. -But I'm a simple Firefox user, never used Librewolf. - - -### FreeBSD is a server OS {#freebsd-is-a-server-os} - -Yeah, this is the sentiment I've read before jumping aboard. -My problem with this idea is that each and every FOSS OS is a value in itself. -The current poster boy, -Linux, also had huge problems getting to work on various machines. -In my opinion, it's limiting OS to a single use case is a completely valid point - your use case for FreeBSD is on a server, and this is where it currently shines (or not, depending on your experience). -Some folks despise allocating any FreeBSD dev time to the desktop as there are many server issues. - -But again, I don't see it this way. -Limiting FreeBSD to the server only is short-lighted. -Unless you are already powering your servers with BSD, there will always be a question: "Why not Linux. It's what everyone else is doing". -And Linux got into its current position not by being a great server machine but rather by attracting the interest of some very skillful people. -And it did it by allowing more and more people to free themselves from Windows on their machines. - -I see FreeBSD problems as having two primary causes: the [Unix wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars) of the past and limited resources now. -If FreeBSD were easier to use on a wide range of end-user machines (which tend to be laptops), the easier it would for people to want to develop it. -BSDs are now a far second choice. -Why would someone invest time? -They may fall in love with the OS, but unless they try it, it will never happen. - - -### I like our small userbase {#i-like-our-small-userbase} - -I'm as elitist as the other person. [DWM](https://dwm.suckless.org/) stated that - -> "This keeps its userbase small and elitist. -> No novices asking stupid questions. - -I can't find this quote anymore, but the sentiment seems similar. -However, there are two aspects here. - -FreeBSD comes with no graphical interface by default. -This makes it much closer to minimalist distros than Ubuntu. -This still allows anyone to feel like a hacker. - -The second, however, is that some problems are unsolvable by end-user. -Writing drivers is EXTREMELY difficult, and, as I've recently learned (thanks, Jeff!), this is especially true when it comes to WiFi drivers, as there is no open implementation. -This means that any progress requires a trial-and-error process based on reverse engineering. -No one without deep knowledge of low-level programming will be able to make any progress, and even those few will need people with real hardware for testing. - - -### Hardware support is years behind Linux {#hardware-support-is-years-behind-linux} - -Yes, and this is what I was referring to. - - -### Why would anyone use BSD on a desktop? {#why-would-anyone-use-bsd-on-a-desktop} - -It's a great system, just needs a lot of work on hardware support :-) - - -### Your post is worthless, and only the comments are interesting {#your-post-is-worthless-and-only-the-comments-are-interesting} - -It's more than I anticipated. That post was small and written without any deeper research. But the discussion around it makes me believe that I hit something real. |