Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

[Polytropon]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:39:02 +0200, Jerome Herman wrote:
> On 19/07/2011 01:21, Gary Gatten wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> > This may get me flamed (probably will) but I'm wondering what
> > the relationship is between FreeBSD and PC-BSD?  PERHAPS if
> > they were to somehow join forces, share development load, etc.
> > and "unify" the FreeBSD offerings under one roof; ie: PC-BSD and SERVER-BSD.
> Basically, PC-BSD is just a layer of candy over an almost untouched 
> FreeBSD, so it is not the same at all than what you can see with Linux 
> distros.

PC-BSD offers a new interactive installer, and comes with KDE
preinstalled and preconfigured. There's also some autodetect
magic under the hood. On sufficiently recent hardware, it works
very well. However, its hardware requirements are _high_ above
those of a "normal" FreeBSD system.



> PC-BSD offers a graphical and simple installer, and an arguably easier 
> package system.

As far as I know, the downside of the forced interactivity
is now gone, as there's also a command line tool for using
PBI packages.

Arguing... what is easier at manually locating software using
a web browser, manually downloading it and interactively
holding the installer's hand while installing software? :-)



> Also it installs KDE and automatically makes a few decisions.
> You can actually just use the graphical installer in order to install a 
> standard FreeBSD, even if some tricky options won't be available from 
> the installer (but you can still run sysinstall later to activate them)

The default installation works quite well, there's only few
things you need to configure (especially if you're not
comfortable with the default settings). I have some friends
being long-term PC-BSD users, it's just no _my_ cup of tea
as I don't like KDE much.



> I personnally use it as an easy installer for Crypto-ZFS servers.

The installer can even be used to install configurations that
sysinstall can't.



> > I believe several flavors of Linux have successfully done
> > this.  Perhaps for licensing reasons more than technical,
> > but nonetheless there were two offerings each focused on
> > either a desktop or server deployment strategy.

But there are "mixed forms" of systems. Precisely differentiating
between "a server" and "a PC" isn't always possible. For
example, if you have a workstation that is used by more than
one user, is this a PC, a _personal_ computer anymore? Or
what if you use a laptop computer (maybe due to energy
consumption) to act as a server, and once a week you use
it as a desktop?



> > Just a thought.  I'm not married to any particular OS -
> > it's a tool and I use what suites my needs best.  I
> > enjoy FreeBSD and like what it stands for - I would
> > like to see it grow; both technically and in popularity.
> 
> Well the PC-BSD layer gives a great installer, now the only thing needed 
> would be a great server/daemons management layer.

And better german language support in KDE. :-)



> A FreeBSD distro with LDAP, ACL and MAC management would be nice though.

You could create a port that brings all this functionality
in one rush. Remember that the ports collection is more than
just about installing software - it can be used to even
bring such features to the system and configure them.





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...