It may not look like it now, but I think Linux is not viable long-term as a desktop OS. There should probably be an effort to specifically make FreeBSD a gaming-ready OS. We know it can be done since Sony already did it for PlayStation (but that's proprietary).
FreeBSD also needs an OS-level graphics/window API just like Windows. Linux is still trying to pretend like its the 60s where text was the only way to interact with a computer. Graphics is integral to all mobile and desktop computing and should be part of the operating system.
heavyset_go · 3h ago
> There should probably be an effort to specifically make FreeBSD a gaming-ready OS
This will only happen for consoles as it is the case already, due to the driver issue.
It's one thing to create a specialized Linux distribution, it's another thing to try to support thousands of SKUs found in common desktops, roll your own modern WiFi stack, etc.
bigyabai · 3h ago
None of this is really related to the issue though. You could fix this by uprooting all of your software and switching to another OS... or with Bubblewrap and a Steam Flatpak. Containerization was always the future of UNIX-like gaming, even "native" Steam installations use it with pressure-vessel. Same goes for Linuxulator on FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is an excellent example of how much development you can expect from a license that allows full commercial exploitation of it's codebase. You will sooner see Sony sell $600 PS3s than you will have a graphical installer or hardware-accelerated Chromium. If Linux is running the race with a bum leg, BSD is drafting it's will in the hospital bed.
TacticalCoder · 3h ago
> It may not look like it now, but I think Linux is not viable long-term as a desktop OS.
I'm using Linux on the desktop since the early Slackware days, in the nineties.
The one thing that changed since then is that Linux now powers 500 of the world's Top 500 supercomputers and that's it. Wait, no, I forgot... It powers as well as billions if not tens of billions of phones, routers, servers, TVs, etc. It's in space, in cars, at sea, underground, etc.
It's typically also powering OCI containers, containers host, VMs, Kubernetes (even Talos is still Linux), etc.
Now of course the one thing that hasn't changed is the "This year is the year of Linux on the desktop" joke. But somehow, in the face of billions of devices running Linux, that joke doesn't have the same punch to it anymore.
What makes you think that an OS that basically now powers the entire world isn't suitable long term as a desktop OS?
It's become so easy to use Linux as a desktop OS that even my wife is on Debian: not exactly a "newbie friendly desktop distro".
Is the whole Gnome/KDE/Xorg/Wayland a mess? Sure is. And yet Linux is definitely here to stay.
Linux shall still exist, even on the desktop, long after I'm gone.
FreeBSD also needs an OS-level graphics/window API just like Windows. Linux is still trying to pretend like its the 60s where text was the only way to interact with a computer. Graphics is integral to all mobile and desktop computing and should be part of the operating system.
This will only happen for consoles as it is the case already, due to the driver issue.
It's one thing to create a specialized Linux distribution, it's another thing to try to support thousands of SKUs found in common desktops, roll your own modern WiFi stack, etc.
FreeBSD is an excellent example of how much development you can expect from a license that allows full commercial exploitation of it's codebase. You will sooner see Sony sell $600 PS3s than you will have a graphical installer or hardware-accelerated Chromium. If Linux is running the race with a bum leg, BSD is drafting it's will in the hospital bed.
I'm using Linux on the desktop since the early Slackware days, in the nineties.
The one thing that changed since then is that Linux now powers 500 of the world's Top 500 supercomputers and that's it. Wait, no, I forgot... It powers as well as billions if not tens of billions of phones, routers, servers, TVs, etc. It's in space, in cars, at sea, underground, etc.
It's typically also powering OCI containers, containers host, VMs, Kubernetes (even Talos is still Linux), etc.
Now of course the one thing that hasn't changed is the "This year is the year of Linux on the desktop" joke. But somehow, in the face of billions of devices running Linux, that joke doesn't have the same punch to it anymore.
What makes you think that an OS that basically now powers the entire world isn't suitable long term as a desktop OS?
It's become so easy to use Linux as a desktop OS that even my wife is on Debian: not exactly a "newbie friendly desktop distro".
Is the whole Gnome/KDE/Xorg/Wayland a mess? Sure is. And yet Linux is definitely here to stay.
Linux shall still exist, even on the desktop, long after I'm gone.
Linux is perfectly viable on the desktop.