Ars Technica article on FreeBSD new user experience

[Daniel Ebdrup Jensen]

On 4/10/20, Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd at quip.cz> wrote:
> Rick Macklem wrote on 2020/04/09 23:39:
>> Ed Maste <emaste at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>> Jim Salter has an article in Ars Technica discussing his experience
>>> with FreeBSD 12.1 as a desktop:
>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-distro-review-freebsd-12-1-release/
>>>
>>> There are some points in there that might involve misunderstanding,
>>> but there are also a number of real issues raised about the experience
>>> a new (or newish) desktop FreeBSD user will have. It will be a good
>>> idea for us to examine these, and offer advice or corrections if
>>> appropriate, and otherwise look how we can improve the FreeBSD
>>> experience for new users.
>> Since this is a public mailing list, I'll repost here...
>>
>> One thought here that I'll throw out (I have no idea if others have
>> suggested
>> this before)…
>> What about creating a separate release for desktops/laptops that installs
>> X Windows etc from a simple installer "out of the box"?
>> --> To keep it simple, don't try to support all hardware, just stuff that
>> is widely
>>        available and already well supported by the drivers in FreeBSD.
>>        Obviously amd64 only plus a few widely available display chip sets
>> that work
>>        well, etc and so on...
>>
>> If it doesn't support the hardware someone has, then they can go the
>> regular
>> release/install route. (It would be nice to maintain an up to date list of
>> what
>> hardware it supports, but it might be easier to just have it start up live
>> CD
>> style and then see if the hardware it needs is there.
>> --> Sorry, can't do this display chipset to that sound chip or...
>
> There has been some attempt to create simple script to setup desktop /
> workstation with Xorg
> https://euroquis.nl/freebsd/2019/08/12/instant-workstation.html
> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adriaandegroot/FreeBSDTools/master/bin/instant-workstation
>
> The biggest problem is graphic driver detection.
>
> If something like this can be available on newly installed machines then
> any new user can run just the one command to get Xorg up and running
> with KDE / GNOME / Xfce / Mate...
>
> Kind regards
> Miroslav Lachman
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>

Is devmatch(8) [1] not intended to solve the problem of auto-detecting
hardware? [2] suggests that it works for i915 thanks to johalun@, but
I wasn't immediately able to find the equivalent for radeon or amdgpu
drivers  - and based on [3] it looks like patches are more than
welcome.
I'm just a docs contributor, but I know we have smarter people than
me, so I think it would be awesome if someone could find the time for
it.

[1]: https://man.freebsd.org/devmatch(8)
[2]: https://github.com/FreeBSDDesktop/kms-drm/commit/9a0b7d0cebc2f6acf4f05ba6ae4b0a191a16afee
[3]: https://github.com/FreeBSDDesktop/kms-drm/issues/68