Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 28th Apr 2003 15:48 UTC
Today we feature an in-depth interview with three members of FreeBSD's Core (Wes Peters, Greg Lehey and M. Warner Losh) and also a major FreeBSD developer (Scott Long). It is a long read, but we touch a number of hot issues, from the Java port to corporate backing, the Linux competition, the 5.x branch and how it stacks up against the other Unices, UFS2, the possible XFree86 fork, SCO and its Unix IP situation, even re-unification of the BSDs. If you are into (any) Unix, this interview is a must read.
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Freethinker, if you want to use FreeBSD on your desktop, you're free to do so. It will provide much the same experience as Linux on the desktop, even. However, the FreeBSD developers seem to have a certain grip on reality which is lacking amongst certain crowds swearing by another UNIX-like OS. BSD is a UNIX. Its conception dates back to the time before there were such things as graphics capable computers or non-keyboard input devices available outside a select few laboratories. They recognise that their system as a whole isn't the ideal foundation for a modern desktop OS, especially not while still accomodating their current users.
In other words, if you want to use FreeBSD on your desktop, please do so. A lot of others prefer to keep it on their servers, but it can serve as a workable desktop OS, too. And since you obviously know what FreeBSD entails, as well as having Linux desktop experience, you know what to expect and will probably make do with that.
But if you want a desktop OS which extends beyond X11+KDE+GNOME, you'd do better with MacOS X. And it features a lot of FreeBSD goodies, so you wont miss out on much, either.
As for why any BSD flavour (save OSX) isn't ruling the desktop (something which Linux can't claim to be, either), you pointed it out yourself; they don't consider it to be any important goal. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Not every OS has to be a desktop OS. Some OSes are aimed at embedded applications, others are server OSes, and content to be used in the field where they stand out.