NetBSD Has Some Wayland Support But X11 Is Far More Mature

[skeevy420]

Nobody really uses old stinky FAT32. As for NTFS it is not popular on Linux either, with userspace NTFS-3g based on FUSE long having been the best option with the in-kernel NTFS been crappy. So NTFS isn't popular on Linux either. Lately I've read about some option for ext4 to behave case insensitive.

Perhaps the file system should be case insensitive by default then tools that really care about case sensitivity can be behave case sensitive even if the underlying file system is not. But then again, maybe it should be the other way around, that the file system is case sensitive but certain userspace tools like Nautilus, GTK and Qt file dialogs, etc is case insensitive.

The way that it's starting to work is the userspace tools can take advantage of case insensitivity if it's available. Wine tests for case insensitivity and some things can be faster since things can behave more like on Windows where case doesn't matter. It's as "simple" as this for Ext4. I keep a case insensitive ZFS dataset on my multimedia zpool just for Windows games . I hope BTRFS picks it up since Fedora and SUSE use it by default and it'd be nice to set ~/wine CI on those systems.

I prefer it being case sensitive by default and letting tools use it if it's available/enabled by the user. To be frank, it isn't available in enough Linux/BSD/OpenSource file systems to be considered to be the default nor does the Ext4 method handle Eastern languages very well. CI by default would limit people to basically Ext4 or ZFS and English or English based languages.

[uid313]

Very true. For casual consumers, Windows is great for them.
But also using Windows-like non-case sensitive filesystems like NTFS and Fat32 on Linux is also fine for them.

Linux and BSD doesn't need to change here because it already caters for these guys.

Nobody really uses old stinky FAT32. As for NTFS it is not popular on Linux either, with userspace NTFS-3g based on FUSE long having been the best option with the in-kernel NTFS been crappy. So NTFS isn't popular on Linux either. Lately I've read about some option for ext4 to behave case insensitive.

Perhaps the file system should be case insensitive by default then tools that really care about case sensitivity can be behave case sensitive even if the underlying file system is not. But then again, maybe it should be the other way around, that the file system is case sensitive but certain userspace tools like Nautilus, GTK and Qt file dialogs, etc is case insensitive.

[kpedersen]

Well for most normal users who don't use Git and software development and use version control systems they don't care about uppercase or lowercase. Like people who just use the web browser, download stuff, watch videos, listen to music, maybe write something in LibreOffice, mail some, touch up some photos, they don't care about case sensitivity.

Very true. For casual consumers, Windows is great for them.
But also using Windows-like non-case sensitive filesystems like NTFS and Fat32 on Linux is also fine for them.

Linux and BSD doesn't need to change here because it already caters for these guys.

[uid313]

I do care about that kind of stuff. If I see any of my colleagues commit source files into Git with a blatant disregard for case, I will notify them that they are making a mess.

If you really want to treat files like MSDOS, with no concept of case-sensitivity. Just use an MS-DOS filesystem on Linux like vfat.

Well for most normal users who don't use Git and software development and use version control systems they don't care about uppercase or lowercase. Like people who just use the web browser, download stuff, watch videos, listen to music, maybe write something in LibreOffice, mail some, touch up some photos, they don't care about case sensitivity.

[s_j_newbury]

That's a slightly strange position to take on libinput: libinput was always intended as a system agnostic input abstraction library instead of having compositors/Xserver talking to evdev or hardware devices directly, it's focused on Linux because the developers use Linux. It's entirely up to the NetBSD devs to implement NetBSD input support in libinput, or create their own API compatible implementation.

[kpedersen]

Well, Linux should be more like Windows. Windows is actually very sane, and Linux is a bit weird and stupid.
Example Linux file system is case-sensitive, that is just dumb, I don't care of my document is named "My Apples.txt" or "My apples.txt", to me its the same.

I do care about that kind of stuff. If I see any of my colleagues commit source files into Git with a blatant disregard for case, I will notify them that they are making a mess.

If you really want to treat files like MSDOS, with no concept of case-sensitivity. Just use an MS-DOS filesystem on Linux like vfat.

And on Linux when you install applications, they all put them in the same place everywhere, some goes in /bin/, some goes in /usr/, some goes in /etc/, some goes in /var/, etc, mean while on Windows everything gets neatly tucked under its own directory under the C:\Program Files\ directory instead of scattered all over.

Remember that Windows doesn't just put things in Program Files. It chucks a little bit in ProgramData, some in System32 and as for the DRM hooks, you don't quite know where it puts them. Not to mention in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in the registry it puts random crap.
macOS is the same. In theory it is nice an neat in /Applications, but in reality it spams the system with random things on first run. These days most software even has an installer where it does god knows what after you double click on it and give it the admin password.

It is a bit like saying that all 3rd party software in Linux gets installed into /opt... Yeah, in the "ideal" world

Also, have you considered how awkward it is to try to build software on Windows and not have a defined "sane" location for development libraries. You can't rely on the fact that it will always look in /usr/local/include for header files. All of this needs to be set ad-hoc for every dependency. It is why building software on Windows is a pain without some sort of POSIX-like emulation.

Also, BSD does separate base software from packages. We have a concept of /usr/local/* for packages. I am surprised more Linux distributions don't follow that convention. It was even better in the Solaris 10 days where you would have /opt/csw, /opt/sfw, /usr/gnu, etc. In some ways I prefer this to creating fairly large chroots (like Flatpak, Snap, etc).

[skeevy420]

...and that's one of the biggest problems with Linux: applications are part of the "system layer", and there is no true "user layer".
I complained and proposed a solution in a previous post:

That's why I keep trying Fedora Silverblue. They're actually trying to do system and user layers in a way that keeps the system layer pristine and to encourage the user to use Flats or Containers when a program isn't part of the system layer.

[tildearrow]

And on Linux when you install applications, they all put them in the same place everywhere, some goes in /bin/, some goes in /usr/, some goes in /etc/, some goes in /var/, etc, mean while on Windows everything gets neatly tucked under its own directory under the C:\Program Files\ directory instead of scattered all over.

...and that's one of the biggest problems with Linux: applications are part of the "system layer", and there is no true "user layer".
I complained and proposed a solution in a previous post:

Exactly! This is *exactly* what has to be fixed in Linux userspace in order for it to become a good desktop OS.

Here I propose a solution:

- Separate the userland into 2 spaces: the base system one (the monolithic and glued together one), and the other "variable" one (for user applications, macOS style).

- The base system provides an "SDK" which can be used to develop applications for the "variable" space, and it must consist solely of very stable (as in API) libraries.

- Developers can still target the base system, but they are encouraged to use the "SDK".

Although Flatpak and AppImage are trying to do something like this, they have problems. In Flatpak it demands sandboxing. In AppImage there is no standard "library base", resulting in developers having to pack in many libraries (which sometimes are often used like Qt), and as such AppImage versions of apps are generally bigger than their macOS/Windows counterparts. Furthermore, they don't want the developer to use newer versions of certain libraries (such as newer versions of glibc) to "achieve broad compatibility". What if he/she really needs to use the new features?

Also, it requires the user to "make it executable", something the Windows/Mac user doesn't do when he/she downloads an application.

Flatpak, Snap and AppImage aim to fix this, but they're still not as good as... e.g. macOS bundles.

[skeevy420]

Yeah, I don't think any developer wants to bother trying to port GNOME or KWin to some very little used BSD that nobody uses. NetBSD should just change their system so that it can run unmodified GNOME or KWin. NetBSD should work like Linux.

Uh, um, something, something, systemd. Well that stops unmodified GNOME in its track.

Well, Linux should be more like Windows. Windows is actually very sane, and Linux is a bit weird and stupid.
Example Linux file system is case-sensitive, that is just dumb, I don't care of my document is named "My Apples.txt" or "My apples.txt", to me its the same.
And on Linux when you install applications, they all put them in the same place everywhere, some goes in /bin/, some goes in /usr/, some goes in /etc/, some goes in /var/, etc, mean while on Windows everything gets neatly tucked under its own directory under the C:\Program Files\ directory instead of scattered all over.

You do know that there's at least one distribution that actually does Linux like Windows and adopts something similar to "C:\Program Files", right? You should check out GoboLinux. I think you'll like their approach.

[uid313]

The vast majority used to provide this same old-fashioned "insight" as early as the 90's about how Linux should just be like Windows.

Turns out they were wrong (and just producing pointless noise). Just like your above statement is.

Imagine what a mess we would be in if people who mattered actually listened to these luddites.

Well, Linux should be more like Windows. Windows is actually very sane, and Linux is a bit weird and stupid.
Example Linux file system is case-sensitive, that is just dumb, I don't care of my document is named "My Apples.txt" or "My apples.txt", to me its the same.
And on Linux when you install applications, they all put them in the same place everywhere, some goes in /bin/, some goes in /usr/, some goes in /etc/, some goes in /var/, etc, mean while on Windows everything gets neatly tucked under its own directory under the C:\Program Files\ directory instead of scattered all over.