On Wed, 8 May 2019 22:43:00 -0400 Charles <char...@cdaniels.net> wrote:
> I'd like to chime in here, on a slightly different subject. > > I think the OP (Clark) raises a point, but I suggest he's coming it > from the wrong angle. I think there's something here to discuss that I > have not seen mentioned in this thread thus far. > > TL;DR: the OpenBSD (and friends) way of thinking is falling further > and further out of fashion with respect to mainstream computing -- I > justify this statement, posit on the need for action, and propose a > starting point. Ex-actly! Certain OSes and distros, and OpenBSD is one of them, cater to the hands-on, DIY type of person. Turning OpenBSD into just another Ubuntu would be a disservice to such people. [ snip a bunch of true and insightful writing ] > However I don't think shipping a > different WM/DE is going to help. Back in 2010 or thereabouts, when I used OpenBSD on a laptop regularly, OpenBSD offered a bunch of WM/DE's in its package manager. That's a wonderful thing, because different people have different workflow techniques. I assume OpenBSD still has several different WM/DE's. I don't know whether OpenBSD has KDE or Gnome, and don't really care. I kicked KDE off all my boxes in 2012 because it's it's a massively entangled monolith. As far as Gnome, even if it *could* be used in the absense of systemd, I view Gnome as a gateway drug to the Freedesktop.org worldview of having every software strongly linked to every other software, and I want no part of that noise. One point I didn't see in RFC's post is stability. When I used OpenBSD back in 2010, subjectively it seemed more stable, more consistent, and less surprising than any Linux I'd ever used (and of course than any Windows I'd ever used). If my computer were just for web browsing, social networking, email, and storing photos and videos, Ubuntu or Mint would be stable enough. But the way I work, I often have over 50 windows open. I can't afford the massive instability bestowed by "we do it all for you" user interfaces. SteveT
