Chris's Wiki :: blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux Commentshttps://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux?atomcommentsDWiki2014-08-11T14:21:37ZRecent comments in Chris's Wiki :: blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux.By Chris Siebenmann on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:325598d5e8bac1ff6e101645829f822236098db0Chris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>I've now written up the problems I have with self-contained application
bundle style packaging <a href="https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/sysadmin/ApplicationBundleProblems">here</a>.</p>
</div>2014-08-11T14:21:37ZBy Matt Campbell on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:4d85b167f01023827a94825cddd6610bb93aef82Matt Campbell<div class="wikitext"><blockquote><p>I also fundamentally disagree with an approach of distributing applications as giant self contained bundles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why? Mac OS X, iOS, and Android all use self-contained app bundles, and so do the smarter third-party developers on Windows. It's a proven approach for packaged applications.</p>
</div>2014-08-10T19:24:45ZBy Chris Siebenmann on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:34552c47341eb5756615732e42030b43592753e4Chris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>The upstream I'm thinking of here is people like Gnome and Firefox and
Go, who are in a position to not bother with making things work on
FreeBSD or outright adopt Linux-only things (which unfortunately may
happen with Gnome and systemd). Maintaining an entire port of Gnome or
the like themselves without upstream support is probably not feasible
for the FreeBSD ecosystem (and also not necessarily a sensible use of
scarce developer resources).</p>
</div>2014-07-31T00:12:08ZBy David Magda on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:68a2605d84e6a8f7eebc8fb52bc38703c00a6f12David Magdahttp://www.magda.ca/<div class="wikitext"><blockquote><p><em>[…] but I don't personally believe that anyone can port major libraries or applications single-handedly without upstream support.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The PC-BSD build infrastructure actually leverages the Ports tree AFAICT, but instead of putting things in /usr/local, it tweaks things so it's self-contained. PC-BSD's contribution seems to be a "wrapper" around all the work that's already done to get a Port working.</p>
<p>Similar perhaps to how Mint leverages Debian and Ubuntu (which also leverage Debian).</p>
<p>I wasn't thinking about the glitz, but more about the extra work in streamlining installation and such.</p>
</div>2014-07-30T23:10:56ZBy Chris Siebenmann on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:49378305b4c74c2383c06c05533dd15986424127Chris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>I took a brief look at PC-BSD and I don't think it does anything that
makes me more interested in FreeBSD. My issues aren't very much in a
lack of graphical glitz but at a somewhat lower level than that, and
I don't think that PC-BSD can do much about upstream issues with, say,
Firefox or Gnome and KDE libraries and so on. I also fundamentally
disagree with an approach of distributing applications as giant self
contained bundles.</p>
<p>(PC-BSD can pile effort into building them well and some amount of effort
into porting them, but I don't personally believe that anyone can port
major libraries or applications single-handedly without upstream support.)</p>
</div>2014-07-30T20:25:19ZBy David Magda on /blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinuxtag:CSpace:blog/unix/FreeBSDvsLinux:d2acce125611bddc707d8eadbd8d245b80adcb4fDavid Magdahttp://www.magda.ca/<div class="wikitext"><p>If you ever do want to try running it on the desktop, it may be worth checking out PC-BSD, where a group of folks took FreeBSD and polished it up so it's a lot less manual:</p>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.pcbsd.org">http://www.pcbsd.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p>It's much more GUI based (to the point where major applications can be installed like with Apple's .app system: a directory-contained bundle), but you can still get in under the hood and do it the Old School Way(tm).</p>
</div>2014-07-30T11:10:54Z