Providing a default graphical environment on FreeBSD

[Garrett Cooper]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Zhihao Yuan <lichray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>> In message <CAGsORuBqiodwt_EmVqB+fO=tgOVeZOERopSE2y=mLa8Jp6ZOjQ at mail.gmail.com>
>> , Zhihao Yuan writes:
>>
>>>Well, let's make it more straightforward. I hope people can agree with
>>>this: a default, officially supported modern desktop environment is
>>>essential to FreeBSD.
>>
>> No, it is not.
>>
>> It would certainly be nice to have as an option, but I would hate
>> to have to deal with it, when I squeeze FreeBSD into embedded systems
>> which have neither graphics outputs nor keyboard or mouse inputs.
>
> "Default" does not mean you "have to" install it. Default means when
> you are looking for a DE, bsdinstall, handbook, official site, all of
> them answers "*DE".

*gathers breath for really tangential/OT rant*

<joking>
Sounds like we have someone volunteering to write a chapter in the
handbook and do some X11 development to make Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE,
Fluxbox, [...], or etc work better on FreeBSD!
</joking>

To be succinct: this is not OSX/Windows. True Unix and Unix clones can
be decoupled from a desktop environment enough that forcing everyone
to have one choice for desktop user experience doesn't make sense, and
the fact that there isn't a common GUI development toolkit (GTK, QT,
etc) encourages fragmentation of effort further (I think it's called
the Bazaar model of development :P).

It honestly sounds like what you're looking for is a custom
FreeBSD-based distribution (and PCBSD is one of those options) as
FreeBSD is a generic project. Even the Linux kernel//GNU/Linux OS
doesn't have a single adopted DE as its flagship DE. With all of the
choices I listed above (and more), getting everyone to agree on
working with one DE is like herding cats, in part because
end-users/developers have different requirements, opinions, work
styles, etc.

It makes more sense to provide hooks into several DEs (like Linux,
PCBSD, etc has done) to accomplish various tasks in a GUI-ish manner
(setting up networking, wireless, etc) and upstream those changes if
and when one has the chance to do so. Finally, one should then become
a devoted "testing resource"/"advocate" FreeBSD OS integration in the
future if one has interest in continuing to use said DE on FreeBSD.

Thanks,
-Garrett