Desktop FreeBSD

[Willie Viljoen]

On Tuesday 09 March 2004 15:13, someone, possibly Narvi, wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 dashevil at sympatico.ca wrote:
> > I am against Joe Sixpack using FreeBSD. The reason I would argue for a
>
> 8-(
>
> so you would freebsd always be a fringe os?

It's not a fringe OS anyway. Why does an OS have to be used by Joe Schmo and 
Harry Desktop in order to be a mainstream OS?

Computer don't just come in desktops you know, some of us actually like using 
them for servers. As far as its use in the server market goes, FreeBSD, IMHO, 
has Windows and Linux well and truly outgunned.

Together with NetBSD and OpenBSD, the *BSD family infact, is in many cases 
considered and used as a viable alternative to Solaris.

That's what KDE and GNOME are for, to add desktops to UNIX operating systems, 
the operative word being "add". UNIXes were never meant to be desktops. 
Adding a desktop to a UNIX is a great idea as it opens up UNIX to a new 
market, but that's still no case for turning UNIX itself into a desktop 
system.

If that happens, FreeBSD would probably lose out all the market share it has 
built up in the server market, since nobody wants to install a 300MB GUI in a 
thin server.

Please, before you write off an OS, consider all possible uses for it. If you 
must, atleast rephrase and call it a "fringe desktop."

If being useful for one specific thing is all we can classify an OS's worth 
by, then let's turn it around and look at the server market, then by your 
argument, Windows becomes a fringe OS :-)

Will

-- 
Willie Viljoen
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