7 ms·

Because running freebsd on a laptop is an edge case. Most people run it on servers. It’s not trying to be everything to everyone like Linux is.

cosmodisk 7y ago
Was about to write the same. I suppose WiFi support to an average FreeBSD user is as useful as floppy disk reader drivers to Win 10 users.
Koshkin 7y ago
Linux it is, then.
- dmix 7y ago
  Linux desktop is great in 2020, especially if you buy the right hardware with solid support, the experience is totally smooth and super-high performance with stuff like ArchLinux. Boots up immediatley, no annoying MacOS updates or having to install XCode while having multiple versions of core unix packages, because it pre-installs a bunch of out-of-date ones you replace immediately with brew. This causes problems, especially for newbies new to working with terminals, as it falls back onto the old ones when stuff isn't linked or set up properly. Nothing beats having a clean minimal /usr directory with only the stuff you decide to install and extremely fast startups with good battery use. I get Macbooks for work but use a Linux one on the side (which I used for 5+ yrs when I was working freelance) and I plan to convince my boss to let me get a thinkpad or dell for the next laptop update.
  - lsiebert 7y ago
    So I used to be a Linux mint/ubuntu/fedora user (I distro hopped a bit), but I really like how homebrew on macs is per user account rather than system wide, and I can just delete the folder to reset it for the most part (minus running programs, some GUI casks, and shortcuts). AFAIK, apt-get and most if not all linux package managers only work system wide, and I can't install something just for a specific user. Maybe arch is different? Homebrew definitely has issues though, agreed. Incidentally I ran all of those distros on a T430... which still works fine when I boot it up. Thinkpads are great linux machines, and just great easily repairable machines in general.
    - Galanwe 7y ago
      I think you should not compare package managers like that. The way I see it, a system is a stack: that is you put a number of layers on top of each other. The kernel is a layer at the very bottom, on top of which you stack a distribution. This distribution is managed through a package manager. On top of this distribution you could stack a user package manager. In this view, you cannot compare apt or yum to home brew, they don’t belong to the same layer. If you think about it, that makes sense. User package managers have to rely on the underlying layer to provide tools for e.g. compiling user packages. Now I agree that in real life, the limit between layers can be more blurry: - system package managers distribute end users softwares. Because most desktops are single user so having an extra layer is often not necessary. - some system package managers are re-purposed to be stacked as user package managers. E.g. you can use gentoo prefix. Still, to have a clear picture in mind the layers should be considered. That being said, there are a bunch of user package managers you can also use on Linux. Have a look at spack for instance. I think the nix package manager can be used like that also.
    - danieldk 7y ago
      AFAIK, apt-get and most if not all linux package managers only work system wide, and I can't install something just for a specific user. Not all. Nix and guix allow you to install packages into your own profile as an unprivileged user. Best of all, packages that are installed by multiple users are shared in the Nix store.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      Per user installs are unnecessary for most users. Firstly most machines are single user. In multi-user machines installing additional software/libraries system-wide has no downsides. If a particular piece of software can't be installed globally without conflicting with other software it probably needs stronger isolation than your user account and you have multiple better options to achieve this. The sole case that leaves are cases in which your company doesn't allow you the necessary privileges to install software which is an organizational challenge not a technical one. That said something like nix can allow you to install software per user.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ianai 7y ago
  FreeBSD vm for everything within a Linux host for hardware support.
loeg 7y ago
FreeBSD dev here — I don't like this line of argument. It is always used to rationalize any defect in FreeBSD. Sometimes we just have defects! That's just the truth of things; we don't need to pretend we're defective on purpose. Many developers run FreeBSD on their daily driver laptops or workstations because it is (perhaps tautologically) one of the best platforms to develop FreeBSD on. Our wifi support isn't 100% and this is a weakness. I believe that desktop usability is a large part of why Linux is as successful as it is today, and the modern laptop is so similar to the modern server that it's a bit of a moot distinction.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  I don't think the person you responded to was claiming or implying that FreeBSD's wifi support is incomplete on purpose. Rather giving a reason for why resources have not (yet?) been expended in that area. I have FreeBSD running on my home desktop workstation and everything is working fine, but I wouldn't try to install it on my laptop. Laptop hardware is just too variable and non-standard. Touchscreens, esoteric Wi-Fi chipsets, fingerprint readers, brightness controls, bluetooth, power management, suspend on lid close... I'd be quite surprised if FreeBSD supported all of this out of the box, so I stick with Ubuntu.
  - loeg 7y ago
    That's a very charitable read of GP's remarks. Kudos for the generosity, but I didn't get the same impression from the statements and the context. The phrases GP is repeating aren't novel; they're repeated time and time again in any messageboard discussion that ever touches on a missing feature in FreeBSD. You could say FreeBSD is missing SATA support (just for example; it isn't really) and someone would chime in with "FreeBSD isn't trying to be all things..." As far as laptops, it all tends to be a bit specific to the model. There aren't too many different wifi chipsets these days; bluetooth is pretty simple from the software side of things. Power management and lid suspend work on most systems (as they say, resume is the hard part). Brightness controls should also work well. I don't know about fingerprint readers. Recently we landed Thinkpad PrivacyGuard support from software, for example. It's not particularly significant in isolation, just as an example of random modern laptop features that might exist in only a handful of models, which we still try to support in FreeBSD.

cosmodisk 7y ago

Was about to write the same. I suppose WiFi support to an average FreeBSD user is as useful as floppy disk reader drivers to Win 10 users.

Koshkin 7y ago

Linux it is, then.

dmix 7y ago
Linux desktop is great in 2020, especially if you buy the right hardware with solid support, the experience is totally smooth and super-high performance with stuff like ArchLinux. Boots up immediatley, no annoying MacOS updates or having to install XCode while having multiple versions of core unix packages, because it pre-installs a bunch of out-of-date ones you replace immediately with brew. This causes problems, especially for newbies new to working with terminals, as it falls back onto the old ones when stuff isn't linked or set up properly. Nothing beats having a clean minimal /usr directory with only the stuff you decide to install and extremely fast startups with good battery use. I get Macbooks for work but use a Linux one on the side (which I used for 5+ yrs when I was working freelance) and I plan to convince my boss to let me get a thinkpad or dell for the next laptop update.
- lsiebert 7y ago
  So I used to be a Linux mint/ubuntu/fedora user (I distro hopped a bit), but I really like how homebrew on macs is per user account rather than system wide, and I can just delete the folder to reset it for the most part (minus running programs, some GUI casks, and shortcuts). AFAIK, apt-get and most if not all linux package managers only work system wide, and I can't install something just for a specific user. Maybe arch is different? Homebrew definitely has issues though, agreed. Incidentally I ran all of those distros on a T430... which still works fine when I boot it up. Thinkpads are great linux machines, and just great easily repairable machines in general.
  - Galanwe 7y ago
    I think you should not compare package managers like that. The way I see it, a system is a stack: that is you put a number of layers on top of each other. The kernel is a layer at the very bottom, on top of which you stack a distribution. This distribution is managed through a package manager. On top of this distribution you could stack a user package manager. In this view, you cannot compare apt or yum to home brew, they don’t belong to the same layer. If you think about it, that makes sense. User package managers have to rely on the underlying layer to provide tools for e.g. compiling user packages. Now I agree that in real life, the limit between layers can be more blurry: - system package managers distribute end users softwares. Because most desktops are single user so having an extra layer is often not necessary. - some system package managers are re-purposed to be stacked as user package managers. E.g. you can use gentoo prefix. Still, to have a clear picture in mind the layers should be considered. That being said, there are a bunch of user package managers you can also use on Linux. Have a look at spack for instance. I think the nix package manager can be used like that also.
  - danieldk 7y ago
    AFAIK, apt-get and most if not all linux package managers only work system wide, and I can't install something just for a specific user. Not all. Nix and guix allow you to install packages into your own profile as an unprivileged user. Best of all, packages that are installed by multiple users are shared in the Nix store.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    Per user installs are unnecessary for most users. Firstly most machines are single user. In multi-user machines installing additional software/libraries system-wide has no downsides. If a particular piece of software can't be installed globally without conflicting with other software it probably needs stronger isolation than your user account and you have multiple better options to achieve this. The sole case that leaves are cases in which your company doesn't allow you the necessary privileges to install software which is an organizational challenge not a technical one. That said something like nix can allow you to install software per user.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ianai 7y ago
FreeBSD vm for everything within a Linux host for hardware support.

loeg 7y ago

FreeBSD dev here — I don't like this line of argument. It is always used to rationalize any defect in FreeBSD. Sometimes we just have defects! That's just the truth of things; we don't need to pretend we're defective on purpose. Many developers run FreeBSD on their daily driver laptops or workstations because it is (perhaps tautologically) one of the best platforms to develop FreeBSD on. Our wifi support isn't 100% and this is a weakness. I believe that desktop usability is a large part of why Linux is as successful as it is today, and the modern laptop is so similar to the modern server that it's a bit of a moot distinction.

umanwizard 7y ago
I don't think the person you responded to was claiming or implying that FreeBSD's wifi support is incomplete on purpose. Rather giving a reason for why resources have not (yet?) been expended in that area. I have FreeBSD running on my home desktop workstation and everything is working fine, but I wouldn't try to install it on my laptop. Laptop hardware is just too variable and non-standard. Touchscreens, esoteric Wi-Fi chipsets, fingerprint readers, brightness controls, bluetooth, power management, suspend on lid close... I'd be quite surprised if FreeBSD supported all of this out of the box, so I stick with Ubuntu.
- loeg 7y ago
  That's a very charitable read of GP's remarks. Kudos for the generosity, but I didn't get the same impression from the statements and the context. The phrases GP is repeating aren't novel; they're repeated time and time again in any messageboard discussion that ever touches on a missing feature in FreeBSD. You could say FreeBSD is missing SATA support (just for example; it isn't really) and someone would chime in with "FreeBSD isn't trying to be all things..." As far as laptops, it all tends to be a bit specific to the model. There aren't too many different wifi chipsets these days; bluetooth is pretty simple from the software side of things. Power management and lid suspend work on most systems (as they say, resume is the hard part). Brightness controls should also work well. I don't know about fingerprint readers. Recently we landed Thinkpad PrivacyGuard support from software, for example. It's not particularly significant in isolation, just as an example of random modern laptop features that might exist in only a handful of models, which we still try to support in FreeBSD.