User friendliness
Moderator: Developer
User friendliness
When will the issues of the Broadcom driver be the thing of the past? Microsoft Windows is very powerful and seem professional . If they didn't provide the tools, they would provide a link to the tools. In this project's case, a link to the driver, the ndis like rapper, and link to the instructions ought to be provided. A link to a script that would install the driver automatically would be too much to ask. It would be good for the developers to test out the Linux MX16 (antiX & MEPIS collaboration) That OS helps is very intuitive and user friendly. They ought to test out DesktopBSD, it had an effortless mouse pionter that swept across the entire screen with minimal effort. Why is this project directing people back to the kernel developers? Arch provides a full Wiki. DesktopBSD didn't rely on FreeBSD to lead the show. They received the kernel and ran hard with the desktop. These are modern times, there ought to be links to at least download the driver, the wrapper and its instructions.
Last edited by Prince on Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:13 am, edited 5 times in total.
Re: User friendliness When will the
Hi Prince,
the actual problem with Broadcom is in fact that the policy of that company completely sucks. If you're not on one of the major operating systems they don't care about you at all. Not only do they not provide drivers (which is completely understandable) but they also are not helpful when people are trying to still support their products. Everything that we can do is trying to work around those obstacles.
My personal stance on this is: Don't buy crappy devices in the first place! For a project like GhostBSD this is not feasible, of course. People have that kind of hardware and when they test another OS they expect things to work. I agree that Linux Mint is very user friendly in the modern sense of the word. And yes, Arch Linux has a great wiki! Don't know about Windows, though. When I left that platform because WindowsXP was simply unbearable (forced registration, dictating the user what to do, ...) there was nothing remotely professional about that system. If you ever needed help you'd get nonesense from the built-in help and obscure "error codes" when things went bad. It's been years. Maybe things have improved. Maybe not (considering all those stories about forced upgrades that break systems...). I'm not to judge them.
So you're suggesting to take a look at others that do things right and apply things to GhostBSD. Fair enough! There's just one little problem with this: For most of its existence GhostBSD has been driven forward by one person (Eric). Right now we are more or less three people here trying to improve things - one of which (me) has not been on the team for a full month yet and slowly has to get into things first. I totally agree with you that there's a lot of room to improve GhostBSD, but it's completely impossible for us to provide a wiki of Arch quality. They have > 26,000 (!) registered users with more than 400 having been active in the last month... If we had a community of that size, I predict that GhostBSD would certainly live up to those standards!
You can help with improving the situation for GhostBSD, though. I've answered your other feature requests and made you an offer (regarding awesome).
the actual problem with Broadcom is in fact that the policy of that company completely sucks. If you're not on one of the major operating systems they don't care about you at all. Not only do they not provide drivers (which is completely understandable) but they also are not helpful when people are trying to still support their products. Everything that we can do is trying to work around those obstacles.
My personal stance on this is: Don't buy crappy devices in the first place! For a project like GhostBSD this is not feasible, of course. People have that kind of hardware and when they test another OS they expect things to work. I agree that Linux Mint is very user friendly in the modern sense of the word. And yes, Arch Linux has a great wiki! Don't know about Windows, though. When I left that platform because WindowsXP was simply unbearable (forced registration, dictating the user what to do, ...) there was nothing remotely professional about that system. If you ever needed help you'd get nonesense from the built-in help and obscure "error codes" when things went bad. It's been years. Maybe things have improved. Maybe not (considering all those stories about forced upgrades that break systems...). I'm not to judge them.
So you're suggesting to take a look at others that do things right and apply things to GhostBSD. Fair enough! There's just one little problem with this: For most of its existence GhostBSD has been driven forward by one person (Eric). Right now we are more or less three people here trying to improve things - one of which (me) has not been on the team for a full month yet and slowly has to get into things first. I totally agree with you that there's a lot of room to improve GhostBSD, but it's completely impossible for us to provide a wiki of Arch quality. They have > 26,000 (!) registered users with more than 400 having been active in the last month... If we had a community of that size, I predict that GhostBSD would certainly live up to those standards!
You can help with improving the situation for GhostBSD, though. I've answered your other feature requests and made you an offer (regarding awesome).
Re: User friendliness
I do tender my apologies. That thank you for the previous post would properly be the first in order. Thank You, that was a great answer. I wouldn't want GhostBSD to aim for the sheer numbers of people on those other systems. For the most part, GhostBSD been such a cinch to use it may not miss a Wiki. GhostBSD's font and icon size is very professional. Only Budgie desktop can compare. You are quite right about crappy hardware. I'm not even a fan of Intel. I can't help using X86, I hope RISV, Qualcom 8 core, AMD ARM Ryzen or another RISC based CPU or APU take the lead for software support.
Last edited by Prince on Sat Jan 14, 2017 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: User friendliness
When it come to drivers on GhostBSD we rely to FreeBSD, no body in here is kernel/drivers developers, The only thing I know is that Intel are great to help making there product work with open source, and that AMD always at lees provide the schismatics, but is not helping much. Nvidia in the other and is providing good supports for most major OS including FreeBSD, but their support is proprietary, but for me it is not a problem.
When it come to Broadcom, it is company that I make sure to avoid have in my hardware at purchase time, their supports in not that great for open source at first and for all the problem kraileth have provide.
Their is some product from Broadcom that work on FreeBSD/GhostBSD, and other need the firmware that is in ports, but there is still a lot that is not supported and without any help of Broadcom it is hard to get the rest to work.
When it come to Broadcom, it is company that I make sure to avoid have in my hardware at purchase time, their supports in not that great for open source at first and for all the problem kraileth have provide.
Their is some product from Broadcom that work on FreeBSD/GhostBSD, and other need the firmware that is in ports, but there is still a lot that is not supported and without any help of Broadcom it is hard to get the rest to work.
Re: User friendliness
This laptop was a gift. I was so excited to have GhostBSD, that I've, impulsively, wiped the entire MS Windows operating system. Now, I am conveying this message through a cell phone. Growing up, I recalled that Intel was the most hostile towards installing Unix. If you managed to install it, due to the junk quality code, it would clap out on you and self destruct. It's not dissimilar to the ugly experience with Windows, if you would remove or replace the original optical drive, MS Windows would invalidate the product key or self destruct the OS with a blue screen with no Windows repair possible. For Window users, if you would install Word Perfect or a competitive software it, too, would self destruct ( that was by design and intentional programming). AMD and Citrix brought us to modern CPUs and Nvidia sold out AMD, because of Intel's money, until Intel backstabbed them real hard. Microsoft, whichever company contracted with them for business to provide them with crucial software, they would ultimately destroy. It's like the tradeoff of dealing with gangsters or the government. So much for politics .... For the past decade or so, they realized the value of open source and the need for programmers and developers so they are, now, in full support of open source projects. Just check out how they swamped phoronix.com. They might as well give Intel their own category. They are supporting enough projects to make someone's head spin. Make no mistake, Microsoft, these BIOS makers, Intel and other giants are welcoming open source projects because their very existence was in jeopardy, not because they are friendly. If it wasn't for the likes of AMD, Arm, VIA, Qualcom, etc. Intel would charge an arm and a leg for their inferior coded CPU. I am suspect of any company that would pour possibly billions into a poor CPU platform (x86), instead of embracing a robust high quality code with virtually no undefined behavior (RISC). AMD's programmer contributed, big time to Core boot. Linux's round-about-system, inefficent code, undefined behavior (spooky kernel), and poor implementation of unix, complicates matters, too. A Linux developer commented on how his most difficult experience was creating games for Linux. An AMI support tech explained how Linux complicate matters rather than creating a more intuitive Unix like system like the BSD systems. BSDs are way more efficient and have a more sensible in their approach. We are living in a world where the worse becomes the standard. Despite my gripes, GhostBSD is my top choice. On my other desktop, I just love to watch it download software from the CLI, with the Mate desktop environment. As I recalled, Atheros was the most supportive of Unix Wifi and Networking.
Re: User friendliness
My mistake. I didn't mention the laptop with the network issues ... the Dell Latitude E6410. I should have known, because Dell was, predominantly, Unix hostile throughout my experience. Recently, I even watched a video of how Ubuntu froze on a modern Dell and required a reboot. This was a stock Ubuntu from Dell! What the ...?
Re: User friendliness
I am also a Dell laptop user, and usually I found them working pretty well, of course, except for Broadcom wifi.Prince wrote:My mistake. I didn't mention the laptop with the network issues ... the Dell Latitude E6410. I should have known, because Dell was, predominantly, Unix hostile throughout my experience. Recently, I even watched a video of how Ubuntu froze on a modern Dell and required a reboot. This was a stock Ubuntu from Dell! What the ...?
The nice thing, especially on Latitude series, is that you can remove the Broadcom and change it with a more supported device (I'm using Intel 3945 and 5100).
Re: User friendliness
At one time, I have regarded Dell as a decent quality laptop. However, in hardware class, we've went through a lot of hardware. With the Dell D630, it was very dissapointing. The annoying buzz that emanated from the monitor. Plus, the embarrassing error beep noise, on an OpenIndiana, at the command line, at the central library. Finally, one morning, it refused to boot. Acers been more trouble free.