GhostBSD Reaffirms To Being TrueOS+BSD Desktop OS With Official MATE Desktop

[Space Heater]

Pretty much anything that exists in mainline and has been ripped out of linux-libre.

They remove drivers that call into that loadable proprietary firmware, they aren't removing things from the kernel that are actually proprietary.

I am making a point here - you guys want to rail against 'proprietary' then let's go at it without making exceptions. Firmware or no firmware, it's still proprietary blob. No 'if's' or 'but's'. Unless you can show the sources of the firmware.

What are you talking about? I'm not railing against anything, I'm pointing out something that I think you are confused about.

We could also discuss embedded Linux, like Android's kernel or Linux-based routers.. which are all exceptionally 'blobby'.. Especially components like cellular modems, which are in effect black boxes..

I never claimed these devices don't frequently have proprietary drivers.

And you know what's funny.. You hate BSD license because "it doesnt give back shit and let's people steal"?

You're just making things up, I don't hate any of the BSDs and I actually use them.

[Volta]

Volta's "problem" is ideologic. Idea of BSD license rubs this asshole simply wrong way, "take source, modify and close the source if you wanted to" simply is "bad" in his books. Thats all there is to his "problem". It's as much "moral problem" as anything. He has been raised with rigid set of values, which appear to be next best thing to marxist, so "his solutions" are also reflecting that upbringing - cries of "I wish them die" and stuff like this. There cannot be allowed any "gray" between his ideological "black" and "white" ideas or any tolerance. "Live and let live" are foreign concepts like with most religious zealots. No, we all have to line up like tin soldiers and walk in step along his ideological convictions, whether we wanted to or not. Or else.. That's his idea of freedom.

When comes to psychology it was shown in another thread you have mental problems. Furthermore, you're a hypocrite - above pal (aht0) was defending Code of Conduct while he doesn't give a shit about being polite.

Little facts that you cannot use DRM solutions on BSD (watch Netflix for example), that OpenBSD does not even allow binary blobs in it's kernel (while Linux does and is in fact, chock-full of mysterious blobs) are meaningless, since they are not fitting with his neat "good/bad reality", these little facts will be simply ignored.

OpenBSD didn't even have multithreading, so your analogy is dumb as usual. What about FreeBSD? It allows to run nvidia blobs just fine, but I know.. you're a hypocrite. The facts are verified by GPL. Nothing less, nothing more.

Having religious-level convictions over SOFTWARE is literally "box of rocks stupid" in my books. My neighbour belongs to Jehovah Witness sect, even she isn't half as passionate about her convictions, or hating..

It seems you like being whore and there's nothing religious about it. If someone writes code he should be rewarded. GPL rewards him while BSD treats him like some trash.

[Volta]

And you know what's funny.. You hate BSD license because "it doesnt give back shit and let's people steal"? You know, anybody who wants CAN use GPL software, modify it for their business AND NOT contribute back IF they want it so.. Doesn't take much..

For their business, yes. However, BSD doesn't put any demands on them. That's why Sony and Apple don't have to give anything back. It wouldn't pass with the GPL. If you're sharing the GPL code you have to share modifications as well. Just face the reality or keep being dumb.

[Space Heater]

OpenBSD didn't even have multithreading, so your analogy is dumb as usual. What about FreeBSD? It allows to run nvidia blobs just fine, but I know.. you're a hypocrite.

Well OpenBSD supports user-space multi-threading, it's just that in the kernel many things still have a giant lock so OpenBSD doesn't scale well when it comes to concurrent kernel access.

[Volta]

I get a little irritated when people who've never used FreeBSD or anything else they talk about say it's a bunch of garbage and then tell me I'm essentially a bad person for even using it because it isn't GPLv3 because of their bizarre ideas about what software is. I never once have told anyone that they just shouldn't use Linux or that the GPL is unacceptable. I'd expect to be able to have my preferences without being demonized just for talking about something in this age of tolerance we're supposed to be in.

That aside, I think aht0 is on point.

And why do you think I didn't use FreeBSD? It was real PITA and it took them many years to support installation from DVD. Aht0 is anti Linux hater, so I wouldn't say he has a point. Furthermore, long time ago BSD community was full of such dicks and they were spreading FUD about Linux everywhere. Thankfully, not many people buy their bullshit todays.

[skeevy420]

You're mixing things up. Windows isn't Linux and you said Sony uses 'proprietary' BSD. So, while Sony uses BSD you should be able to run Sony's BSD applications on your *BSD.

Why not? All we need, just like with Windows, is a compatibility layer. It's Vulkan, AMDGPU, and a FreeBSD base...possibly easier than Wine in the long run...

It's exactly opposite. Linux is God and proprietary whores like nVIDIA and others can't come even close to it. That's why they're being 'smuggled' into distributions

The same can be said with ZFS.

So, you're whining, because Open Source didn't conquer everything yet and recommend some closed source friendly crap same time?

Well, people act like Linux is this free and open source world when it's 95% Open with 5% still reliant on closed off, proprietary blobs and non-free software to control major functionality. I'm just pointing that out. I'm reliant on those closed source blobs and non-free software like unrar and x264 and drm firmware blobs.

I bet FreeLinux can run Steam games with similar success as Ubuntu. If you use Linux friendly hardware like AMD. FreeBSD even with proprietary blobs is far away from Ubuntu in this case. It uses Linux emulation, so without Linux it wouldn't run a thing.

Depending on one's hardware, maybe. There's still a good chance that you'll have to install some firmware that the FSF-approved distribution doesn't ship for things like bluetooth and wifi.

No, they just allow to run proprietary software and it's not so bad. It would be bad if they were supporting it like BSD. What's BSD? Piece of code which hasn't turned into proprietary yet.

A freer OS than Linux that allows people to fork it and do what they want without the worry of legal ramifications. I don't necessarily like that Sony or whomever can fork it, add neat shit, release and sell that, and not contribute anything back.

To be frank, Linux suffers from that too. There is nothing stopping me from taking any distribution, doing no changes to it whatsoever, adding my own closed source proprietary interfaces, and selling a SkeevyRecoverySystem...all I have to do is leave some links to Debian or Fedora and a disclaimer along the lines of "includes proprietary software from Skeevy Enterprises" added somewhere.

There is nothing stopping me from making a front-end to a bunch of open source applications, like what HandBrake is, and selling that. Hell, I can fork them, do my own changes, and as long as I push those changes to GitHub and keep the license the same (provided the license says I have to share back), I'm not breaking any laws selling my GasPedal transcoding suite. My QT based front-end is what would be proprietary. I can even bundle that on a Live Disk with Fedora or Debian and I can sell that without breaking any laws.

Basically, assholes ripping off the community isn't a BSD exclusive. It can just as easily happen with Linux with only a few disclaimer lines added in the fine print -- that's the difference.

[Volta]

Why not? All we need, just like with Windows, is a compatibility layer. It's Vulkan, AMDGPU, and a FreeBSD base...possibly easier than Wine in the long run...

Don't forget Linux graphic stack is much more advanced. That could be good, but why there's no compatibility layer? Linux can run Android apps natively as far as I know.

The same can be said with ZFS.

Yes, it has been smuggled the same way as blobs and I wouldn't count on it. There's no guarantee it will run with future kernels. While Linux developers don't disallow to run such software on Linux, they tend to break compatibility with blobs or ZFS with easy.

Well, people act like Linux is this free and open source world when it's 95% Open with 5% still reliant on closed off, proprietary blobs and non-free software to control major functionality. I'm just pointing that out. I'm reliant on those closed source blobs and non-free software like unrar and x264 and drm firmware blobs.

For many people it's not there yet. However, Linux is in good position to enforce proprietary vendors to switch to Open Source model - break compatibility and make their lives a nightmare.

A freer OS than Linux that allows people to fork it and do what they want without the worry of legal ramifications. I don't necessarily like that Sony or whomever can fork it, add neat shit, release and sell that, and not contribute anything back.

It seems you have problems Linux allows to run blobs, but you have no problem if entire BSD code can be turned into blob.

To be frank, Linux suffers from that too. There is nothing stopping me from taking any distribution, doing no changes to it whatsoever, adding my own closed source proprietary interfaces, and selling a SkeevyRecoverySystem...all I have to do is leave some links to Debian or Fedora and a disclaimer along the lines of "includes proprietary software from Skeevy Enterprises" added somewhere.

Well, the GPL covers.. GPL licensed code.. I don't see anything wrong with that.

There is nothing stopping me from making a front-end to a bunch of open source applications, like what HandBrake is, and selling that. Hell, I can fork them, do my own changes, and as long as I push those changes to GitHub and keep the license the same (provided the license says I have to share back), I'm not breaking any laws selling my GasPedal transcoding suite. My QT based front-end is what would be proprietary. I can even bundle that on a Live Disk with Fedora or Debian and I can sell that without breaking any laws.

Like above. With BSD you can tear off half of the kernel and replace it with proprietary code. I hope you see the difference?

Basically, assholes ripping off the community isn't a BSD exclusive. It can just as easily happen with Linux with only a few disclaimer lines added in the fine print -- that's the difference.

It's not a rip off. If they decided they want to use proprietary license for THEIR OWN code then it's more or less ok. The problem starts when they're playing with actual code and GPL comes as a savior here.

[aht0]

For their business, yes. However, BSD doesn't put any demands on them. That's why Sony and Apple don't have to give anything back. It wouldn't pass with the GPL. If you're sharing the GPL code you have to share modifications as well. Just face the reality or keep being dumb.

Clueless bashing over and over.. Feels like asshole is performing google queries in order to find pieces to whine over without bothering to check or think.

You DON'T HAVE TO pressure or demand. It's in fact cheaper for commercial user to back-contribute significant changes to BSD sources, since it would shift maintenance load from that particular company's devs to BSD devs. Or that company would face patching the fuck out of each release (and figuring out what has changed if patching doesnt work out) with their own modifications. Having contributions committed back, BSD devs have to ensure changes would keep working from release to release.

FreeBSD code used by Apple is in fact open-sourced (mostly userland was used anyway). If you bothered to search, you could find relevant sources just fine. If you are interested in further contributions by Apple, then just look for commit messages authored by Apple, Inc. There are quite a lot. Not to mention LLVM/Clang which was originally Apple's brain child and is now used by half the BSD's as system compiler-

And you would have done precisely what with Sony's contribution? Considering that Sony's used BSD code in a CONSOLE, which does not have single compatible graphic API used to PC platform. It would have been next best thing to useless.. Add facts that Sony apparently re-wrote the kernel in significant portions (adding bunch of syscalls) - do you think that FreeBSD core-team would have definitely went along with all their changes AND that AMD most likely put Sony under NDA to top it off..
Whining over this is like beating the dead horse anyway, you can use R9 cards since 11.2-RELEASE.

[aht0]

Like above. With BSD you can tear off half of the kernel and replace it with proprietary code. I hope you see the difference?

It's not a rip off. If they decided they want to use proprietary license for THEIR OWN code then it's more or less ok. The problem starts when they're playing with actual code and GPL comes as a savior here.

And? If anybody want's they can do same on Linux-powered device and use various tricks for keeping device 'black box'. In real world, difference is non-existing.

Furthermore, license permits it, people who wrote the code were okay with the license. Who are you to comment on that, you who haven't written single relevant loc you whine about? You have zero rights for pressuring other people to do your will when you havent contributed shit to their work.

[skeevy420]

To get a little on topic....

I ran the GhostBSD live image for their 19.09 release last night and my RX 580 works with AMDGPU now. It didn't with the previous release. Outside of some screen tearing that's likely fixed by enabling TearFree in xorg.conf, my only noticeably bad issue was font rendering...but I suspect an actual install would fixing that because their live session graphics stack doesn't have the automagic that Linux installers have... I had to manually select AMDGPU which had a broken GLX. I don't want to comment much farther because it was only a live session and it isn't fair to use those as the basis for a review (unless one is literally comparing live sessions).

Gonna actually install it to disk later today or tomorrow, time permitting, install Plasma because I prefer it over Mate & XFCE*, and try to get it as close as I can to my Manjaro desktop to do a fair comparison between the two and try to get an idea on where BSD stands as an everyday desktop OS.

*nothing bad about them; Plasma just offers everything I need and want in a desktop; I actually enjoyed the Mate session last night, though I did find it a bit lacking due to being used to having so many of Plasma's configuration options available