OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#91

Post by smoldesu » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

mustache_kimono wrote: post #90

smoldesu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only taking issue with the "Just Works" comment, because it's most certainly not true when you're talking about development workflows. If you're a video editor or a music producer, MacOS becomes a much better value proposition. For developers though, MacOS gets treated like a second-class citizen. Entire swaths of Open-Source software will not run on MacOS out of the box. You don't even get a package manager with…

> I'm only taking issue with the "Just Works" comment, I take your point, but "Just Works" on Linux can be a more difficult road than maybe we often care to acknowledge. If you didn't go through the "OMG why won't my laptop suspend properly" years (which maybe still haven't left us...?), then let me tell you UGH, give me a Macbook as my Unix desktop/laptop experience. I really think it's mostly what you're comfortabl…

NixOS is definitely more complicated than an OS snapshot - but that's why I like it. That kinda flexibility is what makes Linux great and completely unapproachable, which is why I won't make a bid for Linux domination any time soon. For developers and certain gamers, though, Linux could be a direct upgrade from Windows on their current hardware.

PS, if you are interested in shooting the shit about NixOS, it's actually quite neat. All the time-consuming Linux setup that people loathe can be mostly automated with a config file or two[0]. The package manager (Nix[1]) is pretty badass, and worth checking out if you are on Mac. I much prefer it to Homebrew for dependency management.

[0] https://gist.github.com/domenkozar/9071879

[1] https://nixos.org/download.html#nix-install-macos

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#92

Post by smoldesu » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #66

darrmit wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was true 3-5 years ago, but you can now buy OEM laptops with Linux preinstalled that "just work" the same as a Mac. Granted, in the long run I don't expect many to be able to maintain Linux unless they're pretty technical. But the whole "waste hours" idea just isn't true these days.

> This was true 3-5 years ago, but you can now buy OEM laptops with Linux preinstalled that "just work" the same as a Mac. With the trackpad working as good as it does in Mac? And Bluetooth/WiFi? And as good of battery life due to strong hibernate/standby/sleep when you close the lid working? And equal support for external displays? If Ubuntu is really 1:1 on par with Mac OS X in all categories, I'd be surprised.

I'm currently using a Magic Trackpad 2 with my KDE desktop (5.26). Gesture support is now 1:1 with MacOS, giving you silky-smooth kinetic gestures for changing desktops, going into Overview, etc. If you're using Wayland, it should also have fairly good support on GNOME too. The only thing you're missing is Force Touch, but I didn't even use that on MacOS.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#93

Post by doublepg23 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

chungy wrote: post #29

CoolCold wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first one would be "can I hire any reasonable sysadmin for that at all?" Among others - is it supported by any hosting vendor or I'll be forced to tinker with it myself without even cloud-init tooling?

Honestly, any competent Linux or FreeBSD admin should adapt to OpenBSD easily.

Something tells me they’ll type “sudo” into the shell pretty fast and be very surprised.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#94

Post by doublepg23 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #71

doublepg23 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve posted it here before but the frustrating state of OpenBSDs filesystems is a big issue for me putting it into production.

Yeah. I don't quite remember now, but I think many of the packages don't work if you don't have a separate /usr/local fs, since the packages need wxallowed. Unless you want to enable wxallowed on / or /usr. Then of course there's the fact that they don't do journalling. It's not my expertise but if literally everyone is doing journalling instead of softdep, then maybe they're right. I've used OpenBSD off and on since…

> journaling

Yup, the journaling is the nail in the coffin for me. I scratch my head when people recommend it as a network appliance due to the data loss issues.

> retro computing

I kind of do use it in that niche. I enjoy finding the oddball hardware OpenBSD runs on with, at least partial, -current support.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#95

Post by hd99 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 11:41 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #40

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #18

This is my long term safe place desktop if Ubuntu slides further down the slippery slope of advertising.

Ubuntu and OpenBSD are at completely opposite in the user friendly spectrum. You're a better off moving to Debian.

ubuntu is just the apple of linux world ubuntu is everything working out of the box ubuntu is made with the foundation of an ex businessman whom dislikes win/mac

ubuntu is a linux among hundreds of linux distros

openbsd is a rock-solid safe regarding security everything is handlymade to get a taylored-made computer.

if I had to compare, ubnutu is a bit like a high rank standing appartment in a big city where openbsd is a very nice home handly made to answer to all your choices and decision, whom might not be delivered with several defaults when you receive the keys ;)

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#96

Post by sph » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 12:10 AM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #69

znpy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very easy to be minimalistic when you’re doing very little.

Like Linus the creator of Linux? Is he really doing "very little"?

Admittedly he does very little with his computer. He often said these days it's mostly reading and writing emails and merging patches. And he often stated he does not know nor care much about how his desktop works. He uses stock Fedora and spends his time inside his Micro Emacs clone, and laments he's not even doing much coding these days.

I wouldn't be surprised if he had a harder time than an average sweng to set up a LAMP server or troubleshoot networking issues.

Being central to the kernel development doesn't automatically mean you're a computer wiz.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#97

Post by CoolCold » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 7:19 AM UTC

doublepg23 wrote: post #93

chungy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, any competent Linux or FreeBSD admin should adapt to OpenBSD easily.

Something tells me they’ll type “sudo” into the shell pretty fast and be very surprised.

I guess that's part of "adaptation" and for humans probably not a bit deal

But I feel that would be the top of the iceberg - bottom part would be - how much of other tooling, say Ansible will fail? Homegrown scripts will fail?

Amount of efforts seems to be very high for, let's say politely unknown and unclear benefits.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#98

Post by tinus_hn » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:38 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #96

nix23 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Linus the creator of Linux? Is he really doing "very little"?

Admittedly he does very little with his computer. He often said these days it's mostly reading and writing emails and merging patches. And he often stated he does not know nor care much about how his desktop works. He uses stock Fedora and spends his time inside his Micro Emacs clone, and laments he's not even doing much coding these days. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a harder time than an average sweng to set u…

Writing version 0.1 of a kernel from scratch very much does mean you are a computer wiz, how else are you going to make it run? You need to program the base hardware of the computer manually!

Of course if to you a computer wiz is someone who knows how to write a web page, or how Windows works, or how you use Photoshop, then no that’s not what you need. Then again the people who know that probably aren’t enough of a computer wiz to write a kernel from scratch.

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#99

Post by tinus_hn » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #47

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I run default gnome. That's why I run Mac OS X and don't waste hours setting up a machine/operating system that could just work out of the box.

After you log in to iCloud, of course. And then you have to download the Xcode tools, which is fine because it only takes ~8 hours. You'll probably want to reboot after the latest version of Monterey downloads, but make sure you do this after the Xcode tools are done downloading. While you're at it, you should also disable SIP so you can use the filesystems on your external drive, and you'll also want to double-check…

Why would you do all that when the minimalist desktop apparently is running a mail client, an irc client and an ftp client?

You can do all that minimal desktop does and much more without MacOS ‘wasting your time’. Do you really want to pretend this minimalist desktop includes Docker?

Re: OpenBSD Minimalist Desktop

#100

Post by danielnechtan » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 10:50 AM UTC

CoolCold wrote: post #88

danielnechtan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need nor desire desktop software written with web technologies or other bloated UIs to be productive, thank you. If you enjoy the bloat of Electron and using your toy mouse to make your computer do what many people do in a terminal then that's your choice. I won't begrudge someone their TOMY computer experience.

Do I understand it right that taskset you need to cover with computer is quite static and not that much focused on collaboration with others? For example - other team members have daily stand up in Slack's huddle, with screen sharing and even drawing from time to time, but you are not actively involved or even cannot attend at all? Wider question - how it makes your productivity/life better?

I used Slack for the first time the other day and I don't see the fascination and buzz behind it. I'd rather an open source / in-house solution, regardless of whether it's for a business or non-profit project; Mattermost or Zulip, for example. Perhaps even IRC.

I wouldn't be drawing anything with a mouse or trackpad, that much is certain - perhaps a tablet with a stylus would be more suitable for those things. I could use a digitiser tablet with Gimp or Krita if I wanted to do some drawing.

That said, I have access to a web browser which allows participation in Slack, Zoom, etc if required as well as any other GUI programs I may want to run in my minimalist environment. Even in the screenshot I have IRC and Matrix - those are used for collaboration, it's just the clients aren't written in JavaScript/TypeScript.

Some people consider Discord essential for collaboration - those people are probably bad dangers.

I'm more productive and my life is better because I know every file on my computer and what it is doing or what it is communicating with at any one time; I can customise everything to be used in the way I find most optimal/efficient without permission from anyone :)