On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Zhihao Yuan wrote: > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Lorenzo Cogotti <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi, > > I was wondering about the possibility of FreeBSD to provide an official > > supported graphical environment. > > > > Currently FreeBSD doesn't provide any standard desktop environment, this > > means that, in a way much similar to Linux, a developer cannot know in > > advance which GUI will be available on the system. This leads to another > > problem, again much similar to Linux, tools are usually provided in a > > text based fashion only, because that's the only sure and reliable way a > > tool can work in a relatively dependency free and independent way. As > > another effect, many utilities and graphical tools are provided for a > > toolkit, but not for another, needlessly duplicating efforts and > > applications, achieving barely half the result. > > > > Though, in a different way than Linux, FreeBSD doesn't get much support > > from developers in this regard, mainly because development focuses over > > Linux rather than FreeBSD, which remains known only as a good and > > reliable server platform, many technologies remain relatively unknown > > and doesn't get attention from developers, like devd vs udev, and other > > solutions that FreeBSD provides since a very long time. > > > > The idea would be choosing a default desktop environment and providing > > it as the official supported way to develop GUI applications on FreeBSD, > > thus tools provided on FreeBSD would be able to get official GUIs and > > supported graphical tools in a standard and non-redundant fashion, like > > a GUI for tools like pkgng, geli(8), gpart(8). This choice would also be > > motivated by the fact that often technologies move toward Linux support, > > like GNOME3, dbus and consolekit, without taking into account BSD. > > > > In this regard CDE[1] is could be an interesting choice, since it was a > > diffuse and reliable UNIX environment, and it is lightweight, relatively > > Linux-like dependencies free solution, which could be updated to today > > standards and extended to support FreeBSD features. > > CDE was just recently released with open source license[2] and some > > effort is being made to support FreeBSD. > > > > Of course CDE isn't the only possibility, the idea is "desktop > > environment agnostic", also I don't mean that FreeBSD shouldn't work > > with other environments, which could still be installed and used as long > > as they support the platform properly. I don't mean forcing a graphical > > environment over installed FreeBSD systems either, which could be > > unwanted for server installations. > > > > [1] http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Home/ > > [2] > > https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/code/ci/978aff3dc9c7d009423a3d7fd0624d12f9df0734/tree/cde/COPYING?format=raw > > > > I see this as an interesting opportunity to let FreeBSD gain more > > visibility in the desktop field, would this idea be useful and worth > > implementing? > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Lorenzo Cogotti > > > > _______________________________________________ > > [email protected] mailing list > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[email protected]" > > I definitely agree with this. Sun has a book, "UNIX Essentials > featuring the Solaris...", and GUI takes a big part in the book. A > default GUI is essential to a modern UNIX. FreeBSD can no longer > regard GUI as a third-party bonus.
If you want a default GUI, install PC-BSD. It provides several graphical management tools for FreeBSD.
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