Providing a default graphical environment on FreeBSD

Mike Meyer mwm at mired.org
Mon Sep 17 17:06:31 UTC 2012


On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:40:33 -0500
Zhihao Yuan <lichray at gmail.com> wrote:
> GUI is a concept. People can use WM or DE as their GUIs. X11 is not
> usable from a user's point of view, so it's out of the question. So
> far, your statement "Assume X11 _is_ the graphical environment" is
> already nonsense.

As someone who's used X without a WM or DE, I have to disagree. I
think PHK is dead on - X11 is a collection of protocols for working in
a bit mapped display + pointer (aka "graphical") environment. As
compared to a character-mapped display + keyboard (aka "command line")
environment.

> And then, a modern GUI should take care of Wifi, automount, and many
> things can't be done with a single WM.

You seem to be using GUI in a different manner than I'm used
to. Graphic User Interfaces don't *do* things, they provide a
graphical communications path (the Interface in GUI) between the user
and tools. Asking for a GUI that takes care of Wifi and automount and
other such things makes no more sense than asking for a mouse that
does those things. Those things are done by *tools*. You can have
tools with GUIs that do those things - a desktop manager, or a window
manager (and if you think a single WM can't do all those things, you
are looking at wimpy WMs), or a taskbar manager, or even a web-based
systems manager.

Until you two can agree on what the terms mean, you're going to be
talking past each other. But PHK seems to be using the common
definitions.

Or maybe you should start over, and describe the behavior of the
program you think FreeBSD should adopt, rather than trying to name it.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/
Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information.

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